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They run the story in the papers three days before national call ups.
The glaring headline burns his eyes, "MESUT ÖZIL: OUTED", in bold black letters. Underneath the type, there's a grimy shot of him and Nico, tongue halfway down his ex-boyfriend's throat. The lawyer stops calling a week after the story is released. Mesut doesn't know whether Nico’s family already knew or not. He knows his didn't.
He doesn't call his mother, even though he knows he should. Instead he turns off his phone and buries it in a suitcase he can't imagine he'll be using for international break anymore.
He's right, of course. The call never comes and Mesut is left in London for the two weeks his teammates will be off with their own national teams.
He visits the museums for the first time. They're interesting but he can't focus on the tiny English words written underneath the displays. He never stays long.
The two weeks pass in a blur and then his teammates return from their original corner of the world, some subdued, others satisfied. They don't talk to him the way they did before. Wojciech makes an effort but Jack is ignoring him altogether and the rest fall in between. Mesut keeps to himself during training and leaves the locker room without showering. They don't notice, or if they do, they don't say anything.
At the end of the season, he requests a transfer.
He spends the next three seasons hopping from team to team. He plays like shit and they don't want him. Eventually he gives in and announces his retirement while he keeps fucking up continuously. He's already googled 'countries that care the least about football but won't arrest me on sight' and closed his eyes. His mouse landed on Canada. He's already bought the ticket.
He quietly slips out of the football world, barely making triple digits in number of minutes played during the second half of the season.
He doesn't get much attention when he leaves. He didn't expect to.
He sleeps the entire flight to Vancouver.
He spends six days in British Colombia, some of them in Vancouver, others in the towns on the road to Alberta. He doesn't speak to the locals much; he's only there for a hotel room and dinner. He doesn't eat like he used to. There isn't any new season to keep in mind, no portion minimums, no weight control. He loses five pounds, and he's only been out of Europe for a week.
He drives through Calgary in the rental car he got at the airport and tries to watch a hockey game. He only realizes halfway through the first fight that he doesn't know any of the rules, if there even are any. He doesn’t really mind, he likes it anyway.
Mesut buys a tent in the city and heads out to Banff. He reads about the mountain trails and figures he might as well try the longer one. He is only halfway around and four days in when he gives up. When they say Canada is fucking freezing, they're not kidding.
He gets a ride back with a redhead twenty something who nearly runs him over in his truck. The man introduces himself as Sam and insists that Mesut stay the night instead of trying to get all the way back to the town in the dark.
He cooks. Mesut eats a normal portion for what feels like the first time in three years.
It rains that night and the roads flood. Sam refuses to drive until the water evens out. Mesut stays another two nights.
They decide the water levels won't kill them on the third day, but Sam tells him to wait until the morning, just in case it goes down overnight.
Mesut cooks. Sam sleeps with him.
In the morning, he goes back to Banff and finds his rental car right where he left it, ticket tucked under the windshield wipers. Sam laughs and writes his phone number down on the back of the ticket. Mesut lets him kiss him goodbye but throws out the ticket and the number once the redhead disappears back into his pickup.
He drives all the way back to Calgary, buys a plane ticket to Montréal and leaves the rental car in the airport parking lot.
The French Canadian city keeps him occupied for two weeks. He takes the train up to Québec City, but he doesn't speak a word of French and it isn't bilingual the same way Montréal is so he only stays a few days.
Mesut takes another train to Ottawa and realizes for the first time how little he's slept. He sleeps most of the train ride and at the station a little girl with an English accent becomes the first to recognize him, or at least the first one to remind him that he's not completely anonymous.
He leaves as quickly as he can and digs out the money for bus fare. He doesn't know where he's going but the bus driver tells him he can get off downtown and find a hotel there.
He gets off at the Parliament stop and checks into the Château Laurier because he found a bonus he's forgotten while in Québec and he doesn't know what else to spend it on.
Mesut visits the Parliament buildings and takes pictures of everything with the phone he found in the internal pocket of his suitcase. He sends them to André, remembering the way the blond man used to say he wanted to go to Canada at least once to see if they really had green roofs.
He doesn't get a response and twenty minutes later, the phone dies. He doesn't have a charger or any use for it anymore but he keeps it anyway.
He thinks about going to Toronto but he's almost run out of cash and he doesn't know if his bank card will work with withdrawals outside of Europe. He doesn't know if he cares.
In Ottawa, Mesut gets tired of running. He gets tired of trying to pretend he has a plan for his life, of pretending something matters to him.
He buys a Swiss Army knife at a gift shop downtown.
He tries turning on his phone one last time. It lights up, using battery power he doesn't know it has. He dials his parents' home phone and lets it ring. Someone picks up but when he croaks out a "Hello" in English because it's been so long and he's shaking so badly, he can't even remember it in Turkish anymore, they hang up.
He collapses on the floor and the phone notifies him that he only has 20% battery left. He dials a number at random.
André picks up on the third ring.
"I saw the green roof," he says.
"Mesut?" André sounds confused, "What are you talking about?"
Mesut doesn't answer.
"Mesut? Are you there? Hello?" André starts to say something more, but then the line goes silent.
Mesut lets the dead phone fall out of his hand into the growing puddle of red.