Chapter Text
When I moved to Spain, I didn’t expect my introversion to kill whatever ability left I had to speak. Back in Argentina, I would be able to at least muster out a small conversation between family members and strangers, but now, I can’t even speak in a room alone.
I expected to grow out of it, I was 13 after all when it started. Years passed and now I’m 19 and still can’t speak. It feels ridiculous, not being able to talk for so long is surprisingly draining. My teammates have decided to ignore the quirkyness and just do things without me. It let me train more, but at the same time, it left me alone.
Things stayed the same until one day, a rowdy Portuguese boy entered the team. I watched from afar how he interacted with all of them. He was charming, at least to my standards. He spoke in broken Spanish, confidently asserting himself into friendships that simply didn’t want him there.
After a month or so, I think he finally noticed me. My silence does tend to make me blend into the turf. I was sitting on the bench after practice. I was struggling with my shoes, they somehow ended up tied together in an impossible knot. I felt tears weld up in my eyes as I desperately tugged and maneuvered my fat fingers into the knot with no success. I decided to try and speak again. I opened my mouth and tried to whisper. Nothing came out of my throat. I tried desperately waving them down, unable to get out of the bench. I was helpless, watching my teammates walk away talking amongst themselves.
“You ok?” I hear a thick portuguese accent approach me. Suddenly, relief washes over me.
I look up at him, pointing at the knot in my shoes. He looks confused.
“You need help?”
I nod, putting my hands together and pleading with him silently. He smiles and kneels down, assessing the knot.
“Damn, how did you manage to do this?”
Geez. I don’t know how. Maybe it was from a fall or something.
After an awkward silence and the feeling of tugging on the knot, he speaks the words I’ve dreaded most. “Can you not speak?” He sounds genuinely concerned (unlike most of the team).
I nod. He loosens the knot a little more.
“Ah…Is that why you don’t hang out with them?” I look away. It's not like I can answer that question even if I wanted to. It's too complex to say with gestures. It seems like he understood me.
“Sorry, I can get you a pen and paper so we can talk more.”
Talk more? I’m not even speaking. He’s talking to the wall behind me more than he is conversing with me. It depresses me just thinking about communicating with him after this. Not only is it embarrassing to knot your shoes together, it's worse when you can’t speak at all.
“I get it, I can’t really fit in with them either.”
His words take me by surprise. There is no way a man as charming as him couldn’t fit in with them. They seemed kind and down to earth relatively…
“They can’t stand my stupid accent and how much I talk.”
Ah, well that answers my question. No wonder he's talking to the mute guy. I couldn’t even tell him to shut up if I wanted to. I must’ve rolled my eyes because he looked a little sad.
“Now are you going to be annoyed with me too?”
I shake my head. That seemed to make him feel better. What a low maintenance ego.
“Thats good. I need at least someone here to be by my side.”
I feel a final tug and my shoes are completely normal again. I take a deep breath of relief and bow my head in gratitude. I hear him chuckle.
“You’re welcome. Ah, here take this too.” He dug into his bag and found a notebook and a pen. “Thank god I kept this, I knew it would come in handy one day.”
I grabbed the pen and notebook and opened the first page immediately. The thought of communicating with someone other than my dad through text exited me. I felt a small smile emerge through my face…yet as my pen touched paper, I felt scared again. It felt almost as hard–no–just as impossible as it was to speak.
“You don’t have to speak to me, but just know that we can.” he smiles brightly at me. It charmed me. His jagged teeth reminded me of a hard life, and his acne made me realize we were relatively the same age.
I wrote on my page vigorously. ‘Thank you Ronaldo. My name is Lionel Messi. I cannot speak, I haven’t been able to for years. Sorry for the inconvinence.’ I struggled at spelling that last word, but thankfully my handwriting was still good. I lifted the notebook to him.
“Ah, Leo, call me Cristiano or Cris. Don’t apologize for not being able to speak, maybe I can help you speak again!” I see a dangerous spark in his eyes.
‘Don’t get any ideas.’ I write.
“Too late, let's get some dinner after practice tomorrow! I’ll have something prepared for tomorrow.” Just as I am about to protest, I see him walk away. I try to sign him to come back but he keeps walking. “See you tomorrow!” I sigh and slump down into the bench again.
As I walk home, I feel my throat grow a little lighter. My mutism seemed to be caused by this invisible weight in my throat, though I didn’t have any medical problems. I wrote to the team physician about my throat after three months of silence. After they checked it, they said nothing was wrong with me. They even told me to just speak but I just couldn’t.
I know I’m not faking, obviously if I was I would’ve spoken after 4 years of this. I tried practicing speaking alone but I just couldn’t. I would cry every night, realizing that this silence will stay with me. I felt helpless, alone, and desperate.
My dad called me like he had for every night since he left. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that his son had fallen silent again, so I would always say I couldn’t talk as I was busy hanging out with the guys but I could text him.
This life was tiring. Maybe I should take up that Ronaldo–I mean Cris guy up on his offer.
NOTEBOOK ONE – “dinner”
Cristiano really did want to take me to dinner. It honestly shocked me when I saw him on the pitch, mid training, bragging to everyone that he was having dinner with the second best player (that being me). I would have to disagree, we seemed to be on equal skill level, what one lacked the other had. Obviously I had the better skills.
“You really are having dinner with him?” I overheard Deco as I hid in the showers of the locker room. “Are you just going to talk to him the entire time like you did to us? I’m sure he would love that.”
“He’s not that into socialization you know.” Javier adds softly. “Don’t force him into something he won't like Cristiano.”
“I’m not forcing him, you guys treat him like a baby and me like I’m some annoying diva!” I hear shushing.
“Keep your voice down! He might hear you.” Deco scream whispers at him.
“Well I mean it.” Cristiano huffs.
“Are we even sure he can hear us? It's not like he's even acknowledged us before.” I hear Xavi sassily retort. Asshole. I can hear, I just don't like you– “I get it, he's good or whatever, but that's no excuse to ignore everyone because you're too much of a pussy to say anything.”
“Xavi!” They all yell at him. I decide now is the best time to expose that I’ve been hiding in the showers and leave before they say anything worse about me.
Just as I walk out, Cristiano seems to have one more thing to say.
“You guys should really give him a chance, he seems like a nice caring guy.” I walk out in my towel, seemingly minding my own business walking into some impromptu intervention. They all stare at me as I walk over to my locker and whisper incoherent things as I change.
I walk out, and sit on the bench like always after practice. This time, I decided I’ll try something with my notebook. I start drawing a crude drawing of myself. It looks dumb, but somehow I feel a little better drawing myself on the bench. I smile.
“Leo, you ready?” I look up to see Cristiano with a really red cheek. I point at it. “Ah, it's nothing, come along and get dinner.” I obliged and stood up.
We end up at a quiet restaurant in the heart of the city. It's quite nice, not fancy but better than what I’m used to eating.
“You like?” He smiles at me, expecting me to smile back. I raise my thumb up, dead pan face and all. He didn’t like that. “Come on Leo~ You’ll like the food at least.”
I highly doubt I’ll like whatever is in here.
I was wrong, I like what's in here. Somehow, they serve Mate here, I obviously got some. I didn’t really care about whatever else I ate, but it was good and filling, it was all I cared about. Ronaldo's meal was bland and overly healthy.
‘On a diet?” I write down and show him the page. He huffs.
“All up and coming stars should think about their habits and how that comes into their play. If I’m not in top form for my prime, someone else may take my spot.” I smile.
‘You think I can take that spot while eating how I eat?’ He takes one look at my food and scoffs.
“No. Absolutely not.”
‘Watch me.’ I take a bite out of my cheesy something, and watch as he cringes…and seems to be drooling. ‘You want some? Cheat day :-)’
“Absolutely not. I can’t get fat.” He pauses. “You're not fat.” He mummers in an attempt to make me feel better. Aww.
‘Why do they hate you?’ Cristiano tenses up.
“I’m better than them, that's why. I intimidate them.” He looks away from me. Seems like we both have the same tell when lying.
‘And?’
“I talk too much. They think I’m full of myself and that I’m not dedicated enough.”
He looks annoyed. No, something more complex. More like disappointed in himself. It seems like a foreign emotion to him, but through his ego, he is still a boy who wants nothing more than to prove everyone and everything wrong.
‘I think you are dedicated. You really have potential.’ He seemed to smile. I felt my face flush a little from seeing his beautiful smile. He was honestly an attractive guy–not that I care about men.
“Thank you Lionel.” He whispers into his cup of water.
We spent almost the entire night at that table, talking and writing, sharing stories and learning about each other. Somehow, I didn’t feel completely drained. Despite my hand hurting from writing vigorously, I felt complete. I felt like I had never lost the ability to speak.
“You really are a delight to talk to Leo.” A softness in his voice brought me back to reality. I felt my mouth open and said ‘you are too’. Despite nothing coming out, he acted as if I had spoken. “See, you spoke.” I simply smiled and wrote in my notebook again.
‘I know I didn’t, but thank you for making me believe I did. You made me feel real again Cristiano, that is something I haven’t felt in a long time.’ I looked up at him. He was full of some kind of warm feeling, like a mother to her baby, or a wife to her husband. A look of pure adoration, kindness, acceptance. I wanted to jump into it, stay in that forever.
We had to leave shortly after as the restaurant had closed around 30 minutes earlier. We walked and walked…and walked until we found a bench. It was late August, but it started to feel a little chilly at night.
We sat next to each other, brushing our arms. He looked up at the stars sprawling across the sky. Being around Cristiano really brought that tightness in my throat down, or at least made it not noticeable.
“I really hope I can help you, I wonder how you sound. Do you have an accent?”
I chuckle. ‘I am Argentinian, I might have an accent different than the Spaniards, but I’m not entirely sure how I sound’
“Maybe you’ll get a portuguese accent from me blabbing my head off.” I scoff.
‘Maybe. Though, you really don’t talk all that much when we are together.’
“What makes you say that?” He seems genuinely surprised by my comment.
‘The guys don’t indulge you. You really do listen when spoken to, you are a gentleman despite how you might indicate the opposite’
He rolled his eyes. “Indicate the opposite? You asshole.” I laugh. He takes my notebook and writes something.
‘I think Cristiano Ronaldo is awesome’
He smirks at me.
‘I think Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi should do this more.’
“Yeah.” His voice is soft and hoarse. “We really should.”
We ended the night, splitting ways as we lived in different places. I entered my empty room, just as I left it the day before. I lay in my bed and opened up my notebook. The entire notebook is covered in conversation from front to back. It was kind of nice seeing how neatly I wrote, and how the conversation flowed. I reread it, seeing myself open up more and more, see when he talked about himself and when I talked about me. As I opened the last page, I saw his handwriting.
‘I think Cristiano Ronaldo is awesome’ I smile, looking at how his pen glided through the page. He had a slight cursive feel to his writing. You can tell he was like me, focused on studies but cared more about soccer.
I’ll have to get another notebook since I took about 50 pages out of the 60 in here with conversations with Ronaldo. I looked on my shelf and found an empty red notebook.