i can't crack, we're on top
Originally written on July 24, 2010 -- shortly after Spain won the World Cup and posted here.
755 words.
Melancholy. First person (David Villa).
I never expected to miss you. When the party was over we both knew what it was that we had to go back to: Our wives, our families, our teams. Back to the fun and the friendship and the dinners, back to reminiscing about everything that made the last few years so monumental. After we won the European Championship, do you remember what I told you? Estas una estrella. I never thought about how important that was until two years later. Until we were there, playing The World's Game, with people that we'd grown so close to it seems almost strange, now, going back to a different makeup. Going back, even though I'm not really going back to anywhere because I traded yellow for blue and red. That is not a decision that I regret. There are not many regrets that I have. You're not one of them, either, before you start getting ahead of yourself like you always do. Not everything is the end of the world, Fernando. Because the world can only end once.
How many times have I told you that? It seems like I told you that almost every night after we made it through the knockout round. Once every game was life or death, once the reality of it all settled in on us. We were at dinner that night, as a team, and all I could think was that you looked bothered by something. Little did I know at the time what that was going to turn in to. You said to me, David, some things slide by so carelessly as we got out of the elevator, and that sad spark that flashed and then disappeared in your eyes was all it took. That's what got me. More than the alcohol, more than everything that was being said. I couldn't take the fact that you, the light of the team that now actually stood a chance, looked like the sun had gone out.
Really, I'm surprised you didn't kick the living shit out of me for kissing you like I did. I think I shocked myself as much as I shocked you, but when you didn't stop me I didn't want to stop me, either. We were equals, and the equality seemed, more than anything, to be what you were looking for. And after that it was just carnal, the press of skin and muscle, the unspoken words that crashed the silence around our ears. I think I loved you, in that first instant, as my equal -- and I don't think that I could ever love anyone so instantaneously, so profoundly, ever again.
We were never really stupid about it. We knew, in the end, that we both had lives to go back to. That's what it was about though, in the end, when you get right down to it. I was what you needed, and you were what I needed, for as long as we needed each other. You needed someone to talk to, someone who could look at you and make you laugh because you realized how stupid you were being. A lot of people said a lot of things about you, and I kept coming to your defense. The way that you would pout, and I would roll my eyes. And no matter how many times I told you not to you'd tug on the hairs of my soul patch, and laugh, and I never really had much of a choice, did I? Because what the fuck do they know? Nothing. No one knew anything, except us. We knew everything, and we knew it.
After the match against Germany, you were furious. Never before had I, and never again will I, see you as angry as you were. Do you remember what I said to you then, once I got out of the shower and realized you were there, had broken that stupid glass that you were drinking out of? Eres una estrella. Definitive, permanant. People kept asking me if I thought that you'd walk away from Liverpool, even after the interview when I told them you wouldn't. And I kept telling them the same thing. Kept telling them that you were so faithful to your team, that you loved them, that you would not walk away from them, not yet. I don't think anyone ever saw the regret that flashed across my eyes whenever I said that. I know that you would have, though.
We could have had Barca. We'll always have South Africa.
755 words.
Melancholy. First person (David Villa).
I never expected to miss you. When the party was over we both knew what it was that we had to go back to: Our wives, our families, our teams. Back to the fun and the friendship and the dinners, back to reminiscing about everything that made the last few years so monumental. After we won the European Championship, do you remember what I told you? Estas una estrella. I never thought about how important that was until two years later. Until we were there, playing The World's Game, with people that we'd grown so close to it seems almost strange, now, going back to a different makeup. Going back, even though I'm not really going back to anywhere because I traded yellow for blue and red. That is not a decision that I regret. There are not many regrets that I have. You're not one of them, either, before you start getting ahead of yourself like you always do. Not everything is the end of the world, Fernando. Because the world can only end once.
How many times have I told you that? It seems like I told you that almost every night after we made it through the knockout round. Once every game was life or death, once the reality of it all settled in on us. We were at dinner that night, as a team, and all I could think was that you looked bothered by something. Little did I know at the time what that was going to turn in to. You said to me, David, some things slide by so carelessly as we got out of the elevator, and that sad spark that flashed and then disappeared in your eyes was all it took. That's what got me. More than the alcohol, more than everything that was being said. I couldn't take the fact that you, the light of the team that now actually stood a chance, looked like the sun had gone out.
Really, I'm surprised you didn't kick the living shit out of me for kissing you like I did. I think I shocked myself as much as I shocked you, but when you didn't stop me I didn't want to stop me, either. We were equals, and the equality seemed, more than anything, to be what you were looking for. And after that it was just carnal, the press of skin and muscle, the unspoken words that crashed the silence around our ears. I think I loved you, in that first instant, as my equal -- and I don't think that I could ever love anyone so instantaneously, so profoundly, ever again.
We were never really stupid about it. We knew, in the end, that we both had lives to go back to. That's what it was about though, in the end, when you get right down to it. I was what you needed, and you were what I needed, for as long as we needed each other. You needed someone to talk to, someone who could look at you and make you laugh because you realized how stupid you were being. A lot of people said a lot of things about you, and I kept coming to your defense. The way that you would pout, and I would roll my eyes. And no matter how many times I told you not to you'd tug on the hairs of my soul patch, and laugh, and I never really had much of a choice, did I? Because what the fuck do they know? Nothing. No one knew anything, except us. We knew everything, and we knew it.
After the match against Germany, you were furious. Never before had I, and never again will I, see you as angry as you were. Do you remember what I said to you then, once I got out of the shower and realized you were there, had broken that stupid glass that you were drinking out of? Eres una estrella. Definitive, permanant. People kept asking me if I thought that you'd walk away from Liverpool, even after the interview when I told them you wouldn't. And I kept telling them the same thing. Kept telling them that you were so faithful to your team, that you loved them, that you would not walk away from them, not yet. I don't think anyone ever saw the regret that flashed across my eyes whenever I said that. I know that you would have, though.
We could have had Barca. We'll always have South Africa.