Chapter Text
I know I can't call you anymore
I know you're not listening
even though you won't give me the satisfaction
of cutting me out altogether
You'll always be there,
smiling at me like a benevolent elder
you'll never storm out, slam that door
You leave all childish things to me
Still, you have a way of showing me that
I can't call you anymore,
It's in the way you embraced me
but didn't melt into my arms
the last time I saw you
in Barcelona.
Barcelona,
again I know I can't
I shouldn't
That city is yours,
Perhaps you are angry with me, thinking
that one day it could have been mine.
But in this you're wrong.
This could never be mine,
because it is yours eternally.
And so I went to Paris, searching for something
realising, but not realising,
that you're not in Paris,
not your eyes,
not your smile,
not your voice and, especially,
not your silence.
Who knew one could miss a man's silences so much?
Now there can be no such beats between us, meaningful
or not,
cool or hot,
Every time we meet, we have to talk,
we have to catch up,
we have to find the words,
because we don't have the time to be quiet together.
But sometimes all words are lies,
and the only truth is in silence,
and now this part of us
is silenced forever.
***
Neymar can hardly believe it. His therapist can get him to try a lot of things, but to write something about his feelings? His deepest anxieties, to use the therapist's exact words. His damned feelings have been getting in the way of too many things. He feels in a particularly brooding mood, out for the season for his club, he can't bring himself to think of the biggest tournament of all, one that he was (and still is, despite everything) determined to make his own - Russia 2018. The World Cup. Everyone around him has been reassuring him that he will be fine, ready, extra motivated. He's been getting the feeling that everyone keeps lying to him all the time. Or at least that they don't tell him the whole truth.
It wasn't like this in Barcelona, of course. He had his entourage, but not everyone was his entourage. He feels untethered in Paris, even though he'll never admit it.
The therapist wants him to find someone to confide in. Everyone knows Neymar has friends, he is surrounded by friends all the time. But who can he tell the truth to? Not his sister, she is too young and loves him too much to see the darkness in him. Not Dani. Neymar loves Dani, but has come to see that Dani has his own agenda, his own darkness. Who then? Eventually he settles on Luis, but not without reservations.
He sends what he's written to Luis. Resists the urge to couch it in terms of a joke. Just sends it to him, titled - Here's what I've been feeling.
He doesn't expect Luis to be the perfect recipient, but he didn't expect him to be borderline contemptuous either. It hurts. Luis is so loyal to Leo, so absolutely on his side that Neymar is stunned.
"You better not send this to him," is Luis' response.
Luis is supposed to be his friend, too. They were the trident. It was all three of them. But now it's Leo and Luis and friendship and love, and brotherly, neighbourly, whatever. And where does that leave him?
"I wasn't going to send it to him."
"Okay, but really don't."
"Anyway, why not? Does he care?"
"You don't want to hurt him more, do you?"
That stung. If he wanted the truth, he just needed to go to Luis. And, as it turns out he, Neymar, can't quite handle it. Not like this.
*