Chapter Text
The impact was sharp and hard.
Ferrán barely had time to react when his opponent came in late, studs up, in a brutal tackle that sent him sprawling backward onto the grass.
The pain in his chest was indescribable; he began to feel strangely dizzy, and a weakness spread throughout his body. And as if a switch had been flipped, he lost consciousness, and everything went black.
"Foul!" someone shouted from the bench.
The referee was already putting his whistle to his lips as he ran toward the player who had committed the foul, who raised his hands in a gesture of peace, as if to say he hadn't done anything.
At first, no one seemed to notice that something was different, that the Valencian player wasn't getting up from the grass. His teammates were protesting around the referee, exasperatedly demanding a red card, and they weren't looking at him. He was lying face up, completely motionless. His eyes were closed, and his arms hung limply at his sides.
The referee approached.
"Torres?"
Nothing.
"Torres, can you hear me?"
Nothing.
On the field, everything changed.
In Barcelona, the match had been playing in the background for almost an hour. It wasn't an important game for PSG, but since the transfer, whenever he could watch the French league, it was a kind of long-distance morale support for his former teammate.
Some players were sprawled on the sofa. Others had gone to get something to eat. The television was on as they argued about a play.
Pedri was sitting on the floor, leaning against the sofa.
No one had said much during the match, but when he saw the tackle on the television, everything exploded.
"WHAT'S HE DOING?!" Lamine jumped up from the sofa.
"ISN'T THAT A RED CARD?!" Olmo was already on his feet.
"HE REALLY HIT HIM, REFEREE?!" Gavi pointed at the screen, indignant.
Pedri swore and ran both hands through his hair. Eric and Cubarsí rushed from the kitchen, carrying things in their hands, alerted by the sudden commotion, and froze when they saw the replay of the tackle.
"It's just plain stupid, man. Why does he go in like that?!"
Pau shook his head.
"What an animal..."
On the television, Ferran had stopped dead in mid-air from the impact. He let out a scream and clutched his chest as he fell backward, his face contorted in agony.
The five of them continued watching.
"It's okay..." said Lamine, still angry but trying to calm down. "It's okay, they'll they'll expel him now and that's it. Damn, what a mess."
None of them had noticed that their friend was still lying motionless on the ground. On the field, it didn't seem like anyone had noticed yet either. The PSG players were protesting. One was pointing at the referee, another was putting his hands to his head, but neither was really looking at the person lying on the pitch.
"No wonder they're angry," Gavi muttered. "What a shitty tackle, enough to kill someone."
The camera followed the referee as he approached the Valencian player. The referee walked over to the player along with some of his teammates. And suddenly, the PSG players started gesturing toward the bench, raising their arms and shouting.
Pedri frowned, finally realizing that something strange was happening.
"What the hell are they doing?"
One of the players pointed at Ferran, then at the bench, and then back at the grass. The referee was doing the same with both hands.
"What's going on?" Cubarsí asked.
No one answered.
Suddenly, the five stopped talking, seeing something no one wanted to see. From the drone's perspective, the doctors were arriving from the sidelines with several red briefcases.
Running.
Very fast.
The Canary Islander felt a pit in his stomach and a strong urge to vomit. He got up from the ground, his mouth dry and his jaw dislocated, frozen in front of the screen as he watched everything unfold.
"Oh, shit."
The doctors pushed through the group of players who cleared a path for them. One knelt while the other opened the equipment.
Then, the PSG players began to back away, though not all of them. Some stayed around, their backs to their teammates, forming an improvised wall that, while not yet complete, partially obscured the scene. It seemed they didn't want anyone to see that moment, as if they were trying to protect something.
Something very bad.
The camera focused on the grass.
Among the players, Torres could be seen lying face up, completely motionless. One of the doctors positioned himself over him.
Pedri took a step toward the television.
"What...?"
The doctor's hands began to move up and down in a rhythm that had been clearly explained in all the first aid talks.
Once.
Again.
And again.
Olmo stopped breathing, and Eric exhaled.
"You've got to be kidding me..." Gavi froze. "No, no, no, damn it, no."
"Are they doing...?" Cubarsí didn't finish the sentence.
There was no need.
It was cardiopulmonary resuscitation. CPR. A maneuver only performed when the person's damn heart had stopped.
Everyone understood at the same time, and the atmosphere suddenly turned cold.
"Holy shit," Lamine whispered.
Pedri didn't blink, he couldn't tear his eyes away from the screen. He was completely in shock.
"No..."
On the field, the remaining PSG players began to form a circle, even using their own jerseys to surround the lying body. Virtually the entire team was forming a wall, both for the cameras and for the fans in the stands.
On the broadcast, the commentators' anguished voices stood out above the stadium's silence:
"I don't know why we're still trying to focus on these images," one of the commentators said. "There's absolutely no need to show this, we already know perfectly well what's happening..."
"Concern in the dugout area, as throughout the stadium, we still don't know anything."
The camera tried to find an opening, but luckily it couldn't. Every time an angle appeared, there was a player in front of it. Pedri could barely see Ferran's body; he only saw the doctor making that unpleasant and cruel repeated movement.
Compression.
Compression.
Compression.
"Don't cover it," Pedri said, almost voiceless. No one answered him. "Don't cover it, I want to see him, please..."
One of the PSG players turned toward the camera. His eyes were red, and tears streamed down his cheeks. He was clutching the collar of his shirt, sobbing.
Everyone recognized him: Fabián.
He was crying. He, who was there and knew perfectly well what was happening, was weeping uncontrollably in the middle of the field. And Pedri froze, because he knew very well that he was seeing something horrific.
The camera shifted slightly. Fabián ran his hands over his face, crying openly, and behind him, Dembélé also had a distraught expression and a hand to his mouth.
"Why are you crying?" Lamine asked.
No one answered, because they didn't want to answer; the answer was too obvious.
The camera tried to focus again, and immediately a player stepped in front of it, gesturing with his hand.
No.
They didn't want it to be seen, but it was visible to them.
Part of Ferran's body, the doctor, his hands, his chest rising and falling… and the compressions. The damned compressions that didn't seem to be working.
Another doctor was also visible, preparing a machine that looked dangerously like a defibrillator.
In the living room, all the Barça players felt like the world had collapsed. Lamine and Cubarsí were hugging each other, their eyes glazed over as they stared at the television. Gavi and Dani paced the room, cursing under their breath. Eric, meanwhile, stood motionless, very serious, unsure how to process the situation.
Pedri began shaking his head as he approached the screen and placed a hand on the hot glass, over the blurred image of Ferran.
"But he was playing a second ago."
"Pedri…"
Gavi tried to approach his friend, putting a hand on his shoulder, but was slapped away.
"A second ago he was running! He was fine!"
"I know, Pedri."
"Then what the hell...?!" His voice broke and came out more breathlessly. "Why isn't he getting up...?"
The desperation in his voice only made the tears that many had been holding back finally flow. It was impossible to stay strong watching one of your friends lying there and not being able to do anything to help him.
The broadcast showed Dembélé again. Now he had moved a few meters away, crying and covering his face with his team's jersey. Fabián had his hands on his head. Another PSG player knelt down and began to pray while Luis Enrique seemed to be cursing everyone on the field as he shouted, even though they didn't know what he was saying, they understood.
No one was looking at the referee anymore, there were no protests about the foul, no one was talking to the opponent. They were all looking in the same direction.
Ferrán.
The canary's hands began to tremble, and he squeezed them shut, trying to stop the shaking, but it was useless. His chest rose and fell like a roller coaster as he hyperventilated. He felt nauseous and had a lump in his throat. His eyes were filled with tears, but they wouldn't come out.
He was having a damn anxiety attack.
"Why are they like this?"
Olmo couldn't tear his eyes away from the screen.
"I don't know."
"Why are they crying?" He needed answers, he needed something to reassure him. This uncertainty was killing him.
"I don't know, Pedri."
"But they're crying." Pedri's voice broke.
The camera returned to the circle. And for barely a second, it found an opening.
The striker's face was visible; his beautiful eyes were closed, and Pedri longed to see that hazelnut color he loved so much again. His friend was completely still, which was very unusual because he was always buzzing around him like a fly, never leaving him alone.
The doctor had stopped CPR to start applying bandages to the necessary stitches on his chest. Ferrán's shirt now lay torn and ripped beside his body.
Pedri stepped back.
"No." He put both hands to his head and started pulling at his hair. "No, no, no, no..."
Lamine started crying louder.
"Stop it, man."
"What?"
"Stop the camera. I can't take it anymore. I don't want to see him."
"Don't look at it," Cubarsí said, hugging him and making the other bury his face in his neck to stop looking.
Pedri began to shake his head, his face covered in tears and sweat. He wasn't sure how he was managing to watch such a scene without fainting, but he had to stay there, watching him, waiting. He had to be strong and be there for him, even from a distance.
"No, no, no..."
Tears began to fall without him realizing it.
"Ferrán, please."
Gavi looked at him.
"Pedri..."
He moved even closer to the television, blocking everyone's view, as if being closer could help, or as if that way he could be closer to the other boy.
"Get up, come on."
Silence.
"Come on, Ferri... Get up!"
Nothing, nothing changed, everything remained the same. His voice trembled too much, but not enough to silence him. He had to be heard, he had to reach him, he couldn't do this to him, not like this.
"You always do this, you always fall and then get back up. Because you're the shark, sharks always keep going, you told me that yourself." He laughed once, but it was a broken, soulless sound. "So get up, please. You have... you have to get up now, you're scaring us."
You're scaring me.
Olmo grabbed his arm and tried to pull him away from the television.
"Pedri, don't watch it, stop it already."
"I want to see him. I have to."
"You don't have to, it's not doing you any good and it's not going to change anything."
"No, it does change things, I want to see him"
"Why?"
Pedri looked at him. His face was completely soaked with tears, red, his nose was dripping, and his lips were covered in bits of skin and blood from biting them.
"Because it's Ferrán, Dani."
His teammate didn't know what to say.
The Canary Islander looked back at the screen.
"It's... It's Ferri, our Ferri."
He said the last part more quietly, as if he needed to remind himself. It wasn't a jersey or a player on a screen.
It was him.
The boy he loved.
The boy he had loved silently for so long, whom he had never imagined he could lose so suddenly.
Now he was there.
Lying down.
Immovable, while hands and a machine tried to get his heart beating again.
Pedri placed a hand on his chest, feeling it grow heavier with each stroke. It hurt as much as if he had been kicked.
"This can't be happening."
The broadcast showed Fabián talking, and something caught his attention. It seemed his teammate was talking to someone, but they couldn't hear him, and neither of them was particularly good at lip-reading. All they could see was him gesturing desperately, and then he looked back toward the circle of doctors.
He froze and burst into tears again.
"What happened?"
"We don't know."
"What happened?!"
"We don't know, Pedri!" Gavi's shout silenced him.
Nobody knew anything.
That was the damn problem. Nobody knew anything, and the uncertainty was unbearable.
Then, for the first time since the maneuvers had begun, the PSG players started to move away, very slowly.
One left the circle, then another, and another.
The camera was able to zoom in.
Pedri stopped breathing.
The doctor leaned over Ferran after the shocks. For a moment, there was no movement.
Nothing.
Pedri felt his heart stop.
"No..."
Then the doctor raised his head and said something they couldn't hear. The players reacted; some put both hands to their faces while others began to cry even harder.
Fabián turned around, Dembélé came over, and they hugged.
Pedri was completely pale.
"What did they say?"
Nobody could know. The broadcast showed no sound of anything happening down there; only the noise of the stadium could be heard, and the commentators had been simply praying for the player's recovery.
The doctor bent down again.
And then… Despite the distance, the broadcast clearly showed Ferran's chest moving.
Once.
Pedri opened his eyes.
"Did you see it?"
No one answered.
"Did you see it?"
"Yes," Cubarsí whispered.
Pedri started crying again, but he didn't look away from the screen.
"Again."
They waited, and his chest rose again. Very weakly, but it rose.
Pedri covered his mouth.
"Damn it, shit… He's breathing."
Gavi closed his eyes and hugged Eric while he kept saying, "Thank goodness, thank goodness, thank God, thank goodness."
Lamine hugged Cubarsí tighter.
Olmo let out the breath he'd been holding for who knows how long.
Number 20 couldn't tear his gaze away. It was incredible how a simple, mountainous movement of Ferrán's chest could make him feel so much happiness in a single instant.
"He's breathing." He repeated it like a mantra, perhaps to make it more real. “He’s breathing, he’s okay, he’s breathing, he’s okay, he’s okay…”
And then, for the first time since Ferran had fallen, Pedri allowed himself to think that maybe he could still recover, that they could fix things, that they were being given another chance. That their farewell wouldn’t be the last, that there would be more conversations, more matches, more moments together.
The Valencian still wasn’t getting up, and Pedri knew that until Ferran opened his eyes and saw his light in them, he wouldn’t be able to breathe easy again, but seeing his chest rise and fall gave him a slight sense of calm, even amidst the anguish he felt inside.
The ambulance finally arrived. He saw it enter the stadium and felt something close in his chest again.
The doctors had finished preparing him for transport, and the PSG players were still around, but this time they made space. The stretcher appeared on screen, and Ferrán could be seen covered with a blanket. His face was partially hidden by the medical equipment, but it was clear he was still unconscious.
Pedri didn't take his eyes off the screen.
"He's alive," Lamine murmured.
"Yes."
"They said he's alive."
"Yeah."
But Pedri didn't seem to hear them; he just watched as the medics pushed the stretcher, loaded it into the ambulance, and immediately closed the doors. Then the ambulance disappeared from view, disappearing off to the side of the stadium.
Pedri stared at the empty space where he had been standing.
"Is that it?" No one answered. "Have they taken him away?"
"Yes," Eric managed to say.
Pedri swallowed.
"What do we do?"
Silence.
They were truly distressed and anxious, and although the worst seemed to be over, they couldn't relax. They knew nothing, absolutely nothing. Even though he had started breathing again, there was no indication that things couldn't get worse. They didn't realize how long their friend had been in cardiac arrest, but they knew it hadn't been a short time, and that rarely doesn't lead to complications.
The broadcast returned to the field.
The referee was speaking with the captains.
The PSG players were devastated, some still crying, though they had composed themselves considerably. The opposing team remained apart. No one seemed eager to continue, and understandably so.
Finally, a message appeared on the screen.
MATCH SUSPENDED.
Lamine read it aloud.
"The match has been suspended."
No one reacted.
Because it was the logical thing to do, the only thing that could happen, there was no other option. No player could play a match after this.
Now they had a problem, because there was nothing left to review. No doctors, no cameras, no image of Ferran to try to interpret.
All that was left was to wait.
Pedri had never had the patience to wait. And the rest of them didn't know how to do it without climbing the walls.
Gavi turned off the television and angrily threw the remote control somewhere in the room.
The silence that followed was unbearable. Pedri sat down slowly, slumping weakly against the back of the chair. His hands were clasped together, but they wouldn't stop trembling; he couldn't make them stop, and that frustrated him.
"Which hospital are they taking him to?" he asked as calmly as he could.
Olmo took out his phone and did a quick search, without success.
"They haven't said, I suppose they want to keep it private. Because of the fans and the press."
The little boy nodded.
"Are you sure he was breathing?"
Olmo looked up.
"Yes, of course he was."
"We all saw it," Eric affirmed beside him.
"But he was unconscious."
"Yes, but he was alive."
Pedri lowered his head.
A cardiac arrest didn't end once the heart started beating and breathing resumed; there were many other things to consider, and that was what scared him. He might have felt relief when he saw Ferran finally breathing again, but now his mind was whispering things he didn't want to hear, and he couldn't silence those treacherous voices that only filled him with intrusive thoughts.
"What if...?"
He remained silent. He couldn't finish the sentence; he didn't even want to formulate it in case it came true.
Cubarsí sat down beside him.
"Don't think that."
Pedri ran his hands over his face.
"I can't."
"Well, try, please."
"I can't, damn it, I can't! What do you expect me to do? Until I know how he is, I won't be able to rest easy."
He immediately turned back to the television, as if he expected Ferran to suddenly appear on the now-dead screen.
He was going crazy, his heart was still pounding, and he felt like he'd had his blood pressure through the roof for too long, but the small adrenaline rush that was still keeping him going was still there. He wanted to destroy his entire house and curse God for letting anything bad happen to the person he loved most.
"I should have known..." he whispered, half-tranced.
"Knew what?" Gavi looked at him.
Pedri didn't answer for a few seconds.
"I should have known I loved him so much before we broke up, before that damn fight about him leaving. I was so angry that he left, that he dumped me, that I ruined everything. And now I don't know if I can ever tell him I love him again."
The room fell completely silent at the declaration. It hit like a ton of bricks, not because they didn't know, but precisely because they knew it was true. It was a truth as crystal clear as water cascading down a waterfall, massaging his back.
The midfielder realized too late that he had spoken his thoughts aloud, but he was already tired, and that was the least of his concerns at that moment, so he didn't retract his statement.
Only Ferrán mattered.
He looked at the floor.
"If something happens to him..." His voice broke, and the anguish returned. "If something happens to him and I never told him... I'll never forgive myself."
Gavi, who was usually never speechless, lowered his gaze without saying a word.
Lamine approached and hugged him from behind, and Gavi closed his eyes, letting himself be enveloped by his friend's warmth. At least he could find some comfort.
For the first time since it had all begun, he stopped trying to hold back his tears and burst into them, filling the room with his sobs and the soft sound of tears falling onto the parquet floor and his clothes.
Meanwhile, somewhere in the city, an ambulance sped along, its blue sirens blaring across the Parisian skyline.
And none of them knew yet if their friend would ever open his eyes again.
Several hours passed, and none of them had the courage to go home. They were supposed to train tomorrow and play a LaLiga match in three days, but none of that mattered to them now; at that point, football had lost all meaning for them.
Pedri had been clutching his phone for several minutes.
He unlocked it, locked it, and unlocked it again in an endless loop.
He had the news, the groups, social media open—anything that might give him even the slightest bit of information—but there was nothing.
His jaw tightened, and he clenched his teeth so hard he could have accidentally broken them.
"Pedri," a voice called, but he didn't respond immediately. "Pedri."
This time, he looked up and saw Eric crouching in front of him, his expression serious and determined.
"Call Arantxa."
Pedri froze.
"What?"
"Arantxa. His sister."
"I know who it is."
"Well, call her. She has to know how he is."
Pedri glanced down at his phone and found the contact too easily, since he still had it saved as speed dial from all the times he'd spoken to her about his brother.
The contact was there.
Arantxa Torres.
His finger hovered over the name.
"I can't... I can't do it."
"Why?"
"Because..."
He couldn't find an answer. He didn't know what to say to her, and he didn't want to risk hearing her distressed and sad voice. If Arantxa was crying, it meant things were even worse than they could imagine, and he didn't know if he was ready for that.
Because if she wasn't crying, he didn't know what that would mean either, and that scared him even more.
"I don't know what to say to her."
Eric leaned closer and placed a hand on his knee for support.
"You don't have to say anything."
"So?"
"Ask her how he is."
Pedri swallowed.
"What if she doesn't know?"
"Then we'll be right back where we started."
"And what if she does know?"
The man from Barcelona looked at him directly with a look he couldn't quite describe; it was possibly the very definition of sadness.
"Then we need to know too."
Pedri lowered his eyes. His hands were freezing, and his phone felt like it weighed a ton.
"I shouldn't call her."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm…" He stopped.
What am I to Ferran? What were we still?
He couldn't finish the sentence.
Dani seemed to understand, sitting on the other side of the room.
"You're his friend."
He looked up at him with tired eyes. Dani added, more gently:
"And right now he needs all the people who love him, and you're one of them. No matter what happened, or what you said to each other, I know you're still that person for him."
Pedri took a deep breath.
Once.
Twice.
He tapped the contact like someone diving headfirst into the icy ocean. Headfirst, eyes tightly closed, holding his breath.
The phone started ringing.
"God..."
He brought a hand to his mouth.
The others remained completely silent.
One ring.
Two.
Three.
Four.
The seconds were dragging on, and the Canary Islander was about to hang up; he didn't want to risk the answering machine picking up.
Then the ringing stopped, and the phone was picked up.
"Yes?"
Arantxa's voice filled his ears, and he felt his throat close up.
"Arantxa..."
It took her a second to recognize him; she was probably so upset that she'd been answering her cell phone the whole time without looking.
"Pedri?"
"Yes."
Silence.
On the other end, he could hear noise, people talking, and hurried footsteps. He couldn't quite make out the atmosphere, but he was sure he was in the hospital waiting room.
Then Arantxa asked:
"Do you know anything?"
Pedri closed his eyes.
"No. That's exactly why I was calling you."
Arantxa's voice cracked slightly.
"He's here, in the hospital. I came as fast as I could."
Pedri stopped breathing.
The others immediately looked at him. They, too, needed to know how their friend was.
"How is he?"
"I don't know yet."
Pedri squeezed his eyes shut.
"But...?"
"The doctors are with him."
Another pause.
"They've managed to stabilize him. His heart stopped for a long time, but they think there's no damage, although they couldn't say for sure."
Pedri let out a sudden breath.
He put a hand to his chest.
"Okay..." The word came out almost in a whisper. "Okay, that... that seems to be good."
Arantxa breathed in short gasps.
"We don't know much more."
Pedri remained silent. He didn't know what he could say that wouldn't sound empty. He had so many things to say, but he couldn't say them to his sister. She was having a hard time too, and she knew how close they were; Ferrán had a tattoo of her eyes on his back, after all.
"I'm so sorry."
"Pedri..."
Arantxa's voice broke again, filled with desperation, and he thought she was pleading with him.
"Yes?"
"Can you come?"
Pedri opened his eyes, and the rest of the world stopped spinning.
"Me?" There was a silence, and the hand holding the phone to his ear began to tremble. He had to swallow and moisten his lips to answer. "I don't know if I should..."
"Please, Pedri, I know I'm asking a lot, but... I'm scared." His ears were ringing, but he could still hear her clearly. "Please come, he needs you."
Those last words sealed his fate. It didn't matter what his situation was, the team, LaLiga, or anything else that seemed trivial compared to this; nothing could be more important to him than the Valencian.
If he needed him, he would go.
Pedri looked at his teammates, who were looking at him with questioning expressions.
"I'm going."
Arantxa let out a small sob on the other end.
"Thank you. God, thank you so much, Pedri."
"Where is he?"
Arantxa gave him the name of the hospital and he immediately wrote it down in his mind, in the only corner of his memory for important things, and well, there were only things about Ferrán there.
"I'll be there as soon as I can."
"Okay."
Silence, a long and painful one, but also grateful.
Before hanging up, Arantxa spoke again.
"Pedri."
"Yes?"
"Ferrán still talks about you guys a lot."
Pedri felt a lump in his throat.
"About us?"
"Of course." A slight pause settled over him. "And... I think he'll be glad you're here when he wakes up. You have a lot to talk about, don't you? You can't just leave him hanging now."
Pedri closed his eyes and smiled a bittersweet smile.
"I never would."