Chapter Thirteen
What happened next was a loud cry of expletives I couldn’t even translate. Mateo totally lost it. He was bent over on the ground, cursing, yelling, crying out like a volcano of rage was coming out of him. His face was red, his skin sweaty, his expression one of anger and pain…and I felt like anger was winning.
It wasn’t long before a heavyset woman bustled over to us, her blonde hair pulled back into a tight braid. She seemed to be a nurse from the school. Jerry came down beside me, saying shit so fast that I didn’t really understand. It was only then that I realized he spoke Spanish. Of course he would have to, but his skill and fluidity surprised me.
I felt Claudia pulling me up from Mateo’s side, as I probably should have been. It wasn’t a tragic event—Mateo would be okay, it was just a bad knee, a bad move, an easy fix. Wasn’t it?
I was only up into a crouch when Mateo suddenly reached across and grabbed my calf.
“Please,” he said, raw desperation in his eyes, his voice choked. “Stay.”
I stared down at him, feeling my heart twist, and nodded. Claudia let me go and Jerry told everyone to pack up and go with Peter back to the resort. I could hear Lauren say, “Well who won the game?” as if it was something she could contest.
Jerry turned to Mateo and patted his shoulder. “Spaniards won the game. Don’t worry Mateo, you’ll get your dinner.”
Mateo did not give two shits. He was glaring at Jerry and grinding his teeth in pain, every so often muttering another curse word.
“What happened?” I asked Jerry, not wanting to put the pressure on Mateo to talk. The blonde-haired nurse had gone, presumably to get first aid supplies.
“He had a bad tear to his ACL when he was with Atletico,” Jerry said. “I suppose it’s the same thing. Too much strain reaggravated it. Same leg too, if I remember correctly. I just hope it’s not severe.” He looked at Mateo, who had his eyes closed. “Even with a small tear, the pain can be bad.”
“You know a lot about his injury,” I noted.
He smiled goofily. “I’m Irish,” he said, as if that explained it. “We love football, though I cheer for Liverpool. I played pick-up games on the weekends and followed the leagues very closely. Mateo was one of the best on his team. I guess I was so enraptured with watching him play, I wasn’t being a very good ref. He was playing hard, a little too hard.”
“Vete a la mierda,” Mateo swore at him, glaring again. “I was playing like I should have, like I do.” He practically spat the words out. He closed his eyes and growled then started yelling again.
“What is he saying?” I said to Jerry.
A wash of pity came over his eyes. “He’s angry. And he hates himself. The rest is very creative swearing.”
It felt like ages but eventually the nurse came back, bringing with her another man, maybe a gym teacher. They got down beside him and I had to get out of the way. Mateo looked at me with pleading eyes but I just nodded to let him know that I wasn’t going anywhere. I stood beside Jerry and watched as they made Mateo sit up and started asking him questions and doing things to his knee, giving him some pills to swallow with water. This went on for some time until they wrapped his knee, which was slowly starting to look darker and swollen, with a compression bandage and got out the ice packs. Then, with Jerry’s help, they lifted Mateo up to his feet. He wasn’t able to stand on his left leg for more than a few seconds before he winced, so they ushered him over to the parking lot where Peter had come back with the van.
There seemed to be a bit of confusion or disagreement about what would happen next. The blonde-haired woman kept saying something and Mateo kept saying, “No, no, no” and shaking his head, waving her away with his hand. Finally, she pushed a vial of pills into Jerry’s hand and rolled her eyes. Then she and the other man went back to pack up their supplies.
“What’s going on?” I asked Jerry as Peter helped Mateo into the backseat.
Jerry glanced at them over his shoulder. “He says he refuses to go to the hospital in Salamanca. He said he’d call his physician in Madrid and get a referral for a private appointment sometime this week.”
“An appointment in Madrid?” I asked, my heart dropping like an elevator. Was he leaving?
He shook his head. “No, in Salamanca. It isn’t too far. I told him Peter or I will take him. Athletes can be picky about getting a diagnosis or treatment of their injuries. Also, he’s Mateo Casalles. If he went to the emergency room, I guess that could become public news. Kind of humiliating for him, injuring it the way he did…with us.”
I frowned. I guessed he was right. Getting injured again, while playing with Anglos on a kid’s soccer field probably wasn’t doing wonders for his ego, at least not in the right way. Still, as long as he wasn’t leaving. How funny it was that I had gone from wanting him to leave to not being able to fathom it. I was suddenly so grateful he had extended his stay here an extra week.
Jerry climbed in the back with Mateo and I got in the passenger seat, though I really wanted to be back there, cradling his head in my lap. Luckily it was only a mile or two back to the resort, and soon we were helping him out of the van in front of a crowd of worried Anglos and Spaniards.
“Can you and Peter take him to his room? I’ve got to get some structure back to the day,” Jerry said to me under his breath amid the concerned mumblings. “The minions need their leader.”
Man, he was such a dork.
But of course I told him I would, especially since I was planning on it anyway. Mateo wanted me to stay and I was going to stay until he told me to go.
Jerry put the pills in my hand, and then turned to deal with his “minions” while I acted like a crutch under Mateo’s right arm and Peter went under his left. I’d never been so physically close to him before, right under his arm like that. Even after half a soccer match, he still smelled really good, that ocean scent but muskier, like his own sweat was intoxicating. Too bad it couldn’t have been under better circumstances.
Mateo’s apartment was on the first floor, which made it easy for us to get him there. Every so often he would try to walk on his left leg. He was able to do it for a few steps, which I think was a good sign, but then the pain came on too much and he started shaking.
Peter and I took him over to his couch and got him to lie down on it. Peter then grabbed a bunch of pillows and put it under his knee, telling us that the instructions from the school nurse were to keep it elevated above the heart, to not move around much, to apply ice packs and take the painkillers. He said he had to go help with dinner for the Anglos but he would be back later.
And just like that, Peter left, closing the door behind him. Mateo and I were alone, and I realized I’d never been in his apartment before, his space. Though he shared it with some Anglo from California called Mark or Marty or something and didn’t seem to be home, you could feel Mateo’s presence here, this sophisticated calm. As I stood above the couch, I let my eyes drink in all the things I thought could be attributed to him: a pair of silver cufflinks on the coffee table beside a National Geographic magazine, a monogrammed white robe I could see hanging just inside the bathroom, a fancy half-empty bottle of Scotch on the kitchen counter.
“Are you going to be my nurse, Estrella?” Mateo asked, looking up at me. His smile was a little lopsided but it was good to see him feeling better, at least with his spirits.
“Every male’s fantasy, of course,” I said, taking a seat in the armchair across from him.
“You are, yes,” he said, still smiling.
My stomach flipped a few times at that, warm and fluttery, even though I wasn’t sure if he knew what he was saying. I pulled the pills out of my pocket. “Oxycodone and acetaminophen,” I read out loud. “I used to take these in high school for fun. My mom takes Percocet for her migraines.” I grinned at him. Mateo was slowly getting high.
“The school nurse is a drug dealer, yes,” he said in mock seriousness. “Those poor children.”
With him acting this way, it was easy to forget he’d been in horrible, humiliating pain until a few moments ago. I leaned forward in my chair. “Can I get you anything? Water? Something to read? Do you need to call…someone?” Your doctor, perhaps your wife…
“No,” he said softly, licking his lips. “I just want you to stay here with me.”
I nodded, my heart feeling a bit tenderized at the tone of his voice, the sincerity of his words. It kind of ached. “I can stay.”
“You’ll miss dinner.”
“I can get it to go, I’m sure they’ll let me bring it here. You’ll miss your dinner,” I told him, feeling a bout of shame for him. “You guys won the game. Jerry said he is taking the Spaniards out tonight.”
His brows furrowed as he stared at me, eyes narrowing slightly at the corners. “Don’t look at me this way.”
I jerked my chin back into my neck. “In what way?”
“Like you are right now. With pity.”
I swallowed uneasily. “I’m sorry. I just…obviously I feel bad.”
He closed his eyes and turned his head away from me. “You shouldn’t. This was my fault. I wanted to prove I could still do it, that I could still play. You know? I wanted to be…the way I was. And, I suppose, I wanted to impress you very much.”
“Impress me?” A bit of Percocet in his system and suddenly the words were coming out, words I never thought he’d say. “Why would you want to impress me?”
And there went a question I never thought I’d have the nerve to ask. Maybe I was getting a residual high.
Though his eyes were still closed, I could see the corner of his lips quirk up into a soft smile. “Because you are my Estrella.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. The way he pronounced “my,” like I truly was his, was making me feel things I didn’t want to be feeling. Something felt like it was changing in the air between us, maybe because he was high on painkillers, or maybe it was just a matter of time. I didn’t know.
He seemed to notice it too because after a moment of silence, he opened his eyes and turned his head to look at me. There was a wash of sadness in them now. “Can I ask you that question I wanted to ask you?” His voice was low, a little hoarse.
Oh man. That question again. Now I wasn’t drunk but he more or less was.
“Sure,” I said, pretending I wasn’t a livewire of sizzling nerves on the inside. I held my breath, afraid to exhale.
“Are you happy?”
I exhaled. This wasn’t at all what I was expecting. “Am I happy?”
“Yes. Is Vera Miles happy?”
“Right here, right now or…?”
“In your life.”
I had to think about that. It wasn’t a simple question at all. Was I happy? I thought back to my day-to-day, my hopes and dreams—or, perhaps, the lack thereof.
It was hard for me to admit this because I liked to have people think I was happy-go-lucky, that I devoured life, that I got up every day feeling good and excited and hopeful. But I didn’t.
“No,” I told him, my gaze locking on his. “I am not happy.”
“Why?” he asked quietly.
“Because…” I looked down and started tracing the outline of my newest tattoo. “I am lonely.”
I’d never even admitted that to myself before. It felt bizarre. Surreal. Like I was suddenly realizing I wasn’t who I thought I was at all.
“You are lonely, but you say you like to be alone.”
I nodded. “I do. I prefer it. But…it doesn’t mean I don’t want someone to love me.” My eyes stung, as if tears were on their way. I bit my lip, debating if I should say more. “It doesn’t mean that I don’t have a lot of love in me to give someone.”
“Then why don’t you?” he asked keenly.
I shrugged. “It’s easier to not. It’s safer. I had a long-term boyfriend in high school. I know, it’s a long time ago but…I was in love with him, or so I thought. And he cheated on me. A lot. He was emotionally abusive too and made me think I deserved whatever he gave me. It really fucked me up. Fucked me up and broke me up. Bad enough that I had to go on medication.” To my surprise, I had to take in a deep breath. There was still a bit of a pinch with the memories. “I know it was just a right of passage, I guess, like what every girl goes through in high school but…the pain scared me. I’d already felt so alone because of my parents and sister that I put all my trust and heart in the wrong person and that just blew up in my face. It made me think that I’d never be loved and no one would ever want my love in return.”
My words sank into us. I felt completely raw, stripped to the bone. I’d never felt like that before, not even when naked and in a compromising position. I’d never been so honest with myself.
“You are wrong, you know,” Mateo finally said.
“About what?”
“That you will never be loved,” he said, voice slow and measured, “and that no one would want you to love them.”
I felt like there was a brick in my stomach. The charged way he was staring into me, the words he was saying…part of me wanted to run. Part of me wanted to absorb it deep inside, to hug it on nights I felt cold. Instead, I cleared my throat and asked, “Are you happy, Mateo?”
“No,” he gradually said, a delicate smile on his lips. “I am not happy, either.”
I was both surprised and not surprised at this admission. “But you have things. You have a career and a wife and a child. Money.”
“And yet, I am not happy.”
“I don’t understand.”
“And I hope you never will understand.” He sighed and stared at the ceiling. “I love Chloe Ann, she is the bright star in my universe. I love Isabel, but…not the way that I should. Sometimes I wonder if I ever did and that makes me sad, to think of all the years being…what is the word? Oblivious. I don’t like my job but I don’t know what to do with myself. I am too old, I mean look at me and my fucking knee, too old to go back to the game again.” He pressed his lips together for a moment. “All I know is that something has to change. I have to do something.”
“What?” I whispered, finding myself leaning in closer to him.
His eyes slid to mine. “Create a new universe.” He licked his lips again. “You could do the same.”
My heart stilled. I opened my mouth to speak, then shut it again.
“It is scary, isn’t it?” he asked.
I nodded. When I found my voice I said, “I told you. I was scared of deep space.”
He grinned. “And I told you I was too. What can I say, Vera, you make me want to reach for the stars.”
“That’s almost cheesy,” I said, trying to make light of the situation even though it didn’t feel cheesy to me. It felt terrifyingly real.
“Yes. But it is true.” He exhaled. “And now that we’ve managed to make each other depressed, I promise I will ask you no more questions for the rest of our time together.”
For the rest of our time together. I didn’t like the finality of that, the recognition that what we had would end, and soon.
“But I like your questions, even the hard ones.”
I like that you seek me out, that you have an excuse to talk to me, I finished in my head.
“Then perhaps I will surprise you with another someday. For now though, I think I need to take a siesta. Will you take one with me?”
I looked over to the clock on the microwave. “Dinner is in an hour.”
“Then sleep with me until dinner.”
I raised my brow. “Do you know how that sounds?”
He nodded. “Of course, it is why I said it.”
But where would I sleep? There was barely any room on the couch. I would be pressed up against him while he was in an extremely vulnerable state. I couldn’t do that, get that close to him. I didn’t trust myself.
I got to my feet. “It’s not the same unless we are under a tree,” I told him. “I need to go do a few things, take a shower and get out of these gross clothes. I’ll come back with dinner.”
“Leaving me so soon,” he said dramatically.
I laughed and walked over to the door. “Hasta la vista, baby.”
“No Spanish,” he muttered from the couch.
I stepped outside and closed his apartment door behind me. It was only then that I felt like I could truly breathe. I stood there for a few moments, getting all the air in and out of my chest. I took off for my place, rubbing my hands up and down my arms as if the temperature suddenly dropped. It wasn’t that, of course, but that some of my layers had started to peel away.
Later that night I went back to Mateo with dinner, a bundle of nerves as I held the plates of food. I didn’t know what was happening between us, or if he was still going to be in an emotional and truth-telling mood or if he was back to his carefree self.
A self that might have been a lie.
But I didn’t need to worry about that at all. When I came back with the food, Jerry was in there talking to him, as well as Marty or Mark. Mateo insisted that I stay with him and have dinner, so I did, but after that was done and Jerry started asking him about his time on Atletico, something that Mateo didn’t seem to mind talking about when he was on drugs, I decided to leave them all be.
Mateo had asked me just as I was leaving if I’d go with him to the doctor in Salamanca in a few days but before I could say yes or no, Jerry reminded him that I needed to work and do my job and that Peter would be happy to take him.
I couldn’t say I wasn’t relieved.