with love, duda

Have you got home yet? I can't stop thinking about last night... When are we going to see each other again?

You couldn’t process what you were seeing.

Fingers hovered over the screen as you stared at those three messages at the bottom of the notification list, enough to make your heart race and awaken a fear you couldn’t put into words.

Clinging to the possibility of some absurd misunderstanding, you brought your trembling fingers to the screen and entered the passcode. As the conversation opened, a knot tightened in your throat as you scrolled through the first messages, desperately searching for anything that might prove that things were not what they seemed.

Hope faded away when you realised it wasn’t a recent mistake, but a relationship that had existed for months. The messages revealed an intimacy built over time, filled with affectionate nicknames, photographs, conversations steeped in complicity and plans for future meetings.

And, of course, there were the dates.

You recognized each of them and everything became clear because every encounter had coincided with Real Madrid’s away matches that season. The same nights when Jude said he was too tired to talk and needed to rest to focus on the next game, the same nights when he avoided video calls and ended conversations early, hid behind excuses that had once seemed believable.

Even so, not a single tear fell.

The shock ran too deep for any reaction, leaving you motionless with face frozen under the white glow of the screen.

You tried to comprehend the weight of what you’d discovered while continuing to read messages that seemed to erase the years you’d spent together. Years of trust, devotion and intimacy reduced to a betrayal, as two people built a relationship in secret while pretending you didn’t exist.

What are you doing with my phone?

Jude’s voice echoed from the hallway, shattering your thoughts. You flinched, looking down at his phone as a few tears slipped down your cheeks, reality pulling you back once.

He appeared, drying his damp hair with a towel draped over his shoulders, but stopped when he noticed the device in your hands. His expression was filled with confusion. Then it clicked.

There was no surprise in his expression, only a flash of irritation. He could probably guess what you’d found from the look on your face, but what seemed to bother him most was that you had gone through his phone.

Before you could say anything, he walked over and leaned down, taking the phone from your hand. His grip was quick and rough, brushing against your fingers as you let go. ​He locked the screen with a quick and automatic gesture and tossed the mobile carelessly onto the cushions.

“How many times have I told you not to go through my things?” He muttered lacing every word with a authoritative tone.

You remained sitting in the same position, eyes fixed on a spot on the floor, unable to react after the abrupt way he had yanked the device out of your hands. Raising your gaze, you slowly took in Jude’s broad shoulders, his rigid posture and the closed expression.

This was the person for whom you had moved across countries, left a life behind and learned to call home anywhere in the world.

Even so, the longer you stared, the less you could recognise him.

“Who is she, Jude?” You asked in almost a whisper, voice strained with pain, knowing that a single answer couldn’t explain everything you had just found.

Jude ran a hand through his hair, glancing towards the glass balcony for a moment before shaking his head slowly. When he looked back at you, his eyes held a quiet intensity, fixed on you. His jaw clenched, yet the hesitation in his actions revealed the words he couldn’t bring himself to say.

​“Are you seriously making a scene out of this now?” He scoffed, letting out a sharp breath. “Look, I’ve got training first thing tomorrow, the board are on my back about the fixtures, the press are everywhere... and you’re starting a row at this time of night?”

Your body remained completely still, trying to process how quickly your entire life had collapsed in a matter of minutes. Silent tears continued to slip down your face and the sob caught in your throat refused to break free.

You felt utterly humiliated by the way Jude glared at you in that moment, your pain barely mattered to him.

“I... I read the messages, Jude. All of them...” You cut him off before he could deflect any further, the words coming out unevenly. “I–I didn’t mean to, but... the notifications... they kept coming. And I saw... the photos, months of... of messages between you two and...”

You couldn’t finish the sentence because the moment you tried to say it your throat tightened and the words refused to come out, swallowed by the ache in your chest and tears burning behind your eyes.

Jude let out a sigh realising there was no way to talk his way out of it anymore. There was no remorse, only the frustration of someone who despised losing control of the situation.

Closing the distance with two slow steps, Jude stood over you, his presence overwhelming as you remained seated beneath him.

You couldn’t have felt smaller in that moment.

“​What do you actually expect me to do now? Break down, deliver some speech, beg for forgiveness? Come on Y/N, we’ve been miserable for months and you just chose to ignore it. Every single day, the exact same thing, the same routine, the constant nagging... did you honestly think I was going to live like this forever?”

The words hurting more than every text you had just read.

“Miserable?” You repeated in a whisper, disbelief breaking the shock that had kept you upright as his words echoed in your mind. “We’ve been miserable?”

​You stood up from the sofa and forced yourself to lock eyes with him, refusing to look away for even a fraction of a second.

“I built the ground beneath your feet, Jude!” You shouted. “Five years. Five whole years of putting myself last for you. When you were just a kid and no one gave a damn, who held you together when you said you weren’t good enough? I did! I threw away my own life, moved countries every time it suited you and gave you everything.”

Jude just rolled his eyes and set his jaw in disdain. He simply couldn't stand a second with your victim-playing.

“Stop talking like I owe you anything!” He snapped. “I never asked you to do any of that! You did it because you wanted to, so don’t try to make me feel like I owe you now.”

His voice grew louder with every word, filling the mansion and making you shudder more, his agitated gestures betraying months of bottled-up resentment as he tried to paint you as the one at fault.

“Do you really think I wanted this? Just look at us! We stopped being a couple a long time ago. We were nothing more than two people sharing a house, going through the motions and... Whatever we had... it died. The love, the closeness, all of it. And you kept clinging to what we used to be, pretending our story was enough to keep us alive. Well, it wasn’t.”

He dragged his fingers across his lips, pausing to pinch the bridge of his nose as his brow furrowed, visibly reeling from the things he’d just let spill. Regaining his composure, he softened his tone and continued.

“I stopped missing you, somewhere along the way I stopped looking at you and seeing the person I fell in love with. We just... became routine. We got comfortable, carried on because it was easier than admitting what was happening and I kept telling myself it was just a rough patch, that things would get better... but they didn’t. The truth is... my feelings changed. And one day I realised they just weren’t there anymore.”

Approaching you, he watched the collapse of your features, your eyes turning utterly hollow while you strained to keep yourself from buckling then and there.

“Look, I never wanted to hurt you, but I couldn’t keep pretending we were happy when we weren’t. We hadn’t been for months and I know I lied and I’m not saying that was right, but this didn’t start when I met her. It started long before that, when we stopped talking, stopped trying... and just carried on because neither of us wanted to admit it was over.”

You listened in silence, letting every word sink deeper. Hearing the man you had given so much of yourself to speak about how he had fallen out of love with you felt like a knife carving deep into your skin. Your soul ached and all you wanted was to vanish right then and there, even though you still had so much left to say to him. For the first time that night, you understood there was nothing left to hold on to.

Nothing left to save.

You watch his posture turn into a portrait of indifference as you realized just how easily he threw away everything you had shared.

“You really believe that, don’t you?” You dared to speak after putting together what Jude had been trying to do, twisting the situation until his own actions somehow became justifiable. “You’ve been standing there, trying to convince yourself that this is somehow my fault... because I loved you? Because I stood by you, trying to be the person you needed, no matter what was happening in your life?”

Silence stretched between you two. You took a deep breath before continuing.

“I spent years trying to be enough for you, Jude! Whenever you needed me, I was there! When you messed up your shoulder, I lived every second by your side, every appointment, every bloody day of recovery, every time you spiralled thinking you’d never be the player you used to be, and more... I learned to cook whatever your nutritionist wanted, I adapted to everything just to make your routine easier, and somewhere along the line, I stopped asking myself what I wanted... because everything became about you, your career, your matches, your future. My entire life slowly became centred around you and the career you cared about more than anything else.”

You wished you could escape, wake up and leave this nightmare behind. Never had you imagined that proving your faith in your relationship would one day mean revisiting moments that had always been, for you, simple acts of love.

“​The only thing I ever asked for... was loyalty.” A broken laugh slipped past your lips, tears tracked down your face to the neck. “That was it, Jude. Just loyalty. And you couldn’t even manage that.”

It become harder and harder to breathe.

“Do you remember what you told me back then? You swore I was the only person who stayed by your side through every single fucking storm, that I was your home! And now.... you just turn around and make the way I cared for you sound like a burden. How could you, Jude?”

You slowly shook your head before you wiped the tears away trying to gather the composure you had left.

​“That isn’t a lack of love from me, Jude. It’s pure cowardice from you! If you wanted out, you had a fucking choice. You could’ve sat across from me like a grown-up and said I don’t want this anymore. Instead, you came home to me every night, climbed into our bed, let me keep planning our future, all while you were already off giving yourself to another woman. That’s absolutely fucking disgusting!”

Jude stayed silent and you turned away.

How could he give someone else the attention you had always believed was meant for you? How could he make time for her, let her into parts of his life that you had spent years trying to be part and never once think you deserved to know what was happening?

“Cheating wasn’t an accident, wasn’t a mistake or even my fault. It was a choice. A choice you made over and over again...”

Your final words struck the exact places Jude had spent that evening trying to shield. Hearing it all laid bare, the accusations, the disappointment etched across your face, the quiet tragedy of the months you had poured into building a life together...

All of this left his stomach in knots.

For a moment, he considered protesting, but your reddened eyes and the way your voice cracked as you pleaded stripped every excuse of its weight, leaving him with nothing to say.

Deep down, the truth was unmistakable. The moment things turned difficult, he had taken the easiest way out. He had chosen distance and another person rather than standing his ground to fight for what you shared.

Tonight was supposed to be just another quiet evening. You were going to have dinner, watch a film before bed and the next day he would head back to training like so many times before.

Instead, everything you both had built over the years ended right here right now inside that living room.

You covered your face for a moment, rubbing your cheeks as you tried to gather your thoughts. Your mind was a mess, your heartbeat racing as a simple movement became harder to bear. Your body felt like it was falling apart, but nothing could compare to the ache in your soul, knowing you had been betrayed by the person who had sworn to spend the rest of his life by your side.

“I... I can’t stay here.” Your voice came out low, broken.

Jude opened his eyes immediately.

“What?”

You didn’t answer, you just looked away and walked toward the bedroom leaving him standing there alone.

You stepped into the room and pulled the door almost shut, leaving only a small barrier between you and Jude. The white room was surrounded by photographs of the two of you, everything perfectly arranged the way you left it every night, because keeping it that way somehow made the nights feel peaceful. You let your eyes linger those pictures as you walked towards the walk-in wardrobe.

Once inside, you reached into the bottom compartment of one of the cabinets and pulled out a small suitcase, letting it fall to the floor with a dull thud that echoed through the room. After unzipping it, only the essentials went inside, a few changes of clothes, your documents and passport, a phone charger… Each item was folded with hurried movements that betrayed how lost you felt.

Sobs broke free despite your best efforts to hold them back, filling the room with a raw sound that carried down the hallway and reached the living room.

After a few minutes, you heard Jude walking towards the bedroom before he appeared in the doorway of the walk-in wardrobe, his eyes fixed on you kneeling beside the suitcase, your hair fell messily over your face.

He took a deep breath before speaking. “Don’t do this.”

You carried on packing the last few items without looking up as Jude continued to speak.

“We’ll sort this out tomorrow. You’re hot-headed right now and so am I. Tomorrow we’ll talk properly.”

“Tomorrow?” You finally looked up at him with much bitterness in your face. “Do you honestly think there’s any talking to be done tomorrow?”

“There is! You don’t need to leave right now.” Jude stepped towards you.

You shook your head slowly before answering.

“I’m leaving, I'm going back to England... can’t stay here any longer.”

He ran a hand over his face, visibly agitated, speaking in a rushed voice.

“You’re making a decision in the heat of the moment..."

“No, Jude, please... just stop.” You say gripping the handle of the suitcase. “I can’t even look you in the eye anymore.”

The words struck Jude differently from anything that had been said up to that point.

“Are you really leaving right now?”

You slowly got to your feet, watching Jude stand there, completely lost, as if he had no idea what to do or say while staring at you. It seemed like he finally understood that you were leaving him without hesitation, without trying to hold on this time unlike all the times before. After years of giving everything you had to him, you had reached the point where you simply couldn’t do it anymore.

His voice came out strained, brows drawn together as tears began to gather in his eyes, desperation behind his words.

“We don’t have to resolve everything tonight...” He stared, almost pleading. “You don’t have to leave like this in the middle of the night. We could just... talk tomorrow with a clear head.”

You offered no response.

He swallowed hard, his gaze dropping to the floor and face tightened with anguish. He had destroyed the one thing in his life that had ever felt real. The one person who had loved him before the money, before the fame... before any of it mattered.

“I k-know what I did, but…” His fingers reached for yours, but the moment they brushed your skin the rejection was immediate, you pulled your hand away from his touch. “I didn’t want it to end like this, please, don't leave.”

He whispered his final words.

“You chose this the very first day you betrayed my trust, Jude. The only difference is that today, I’m making your decision official.”

You pulled the suitcase behind you and walked towards the bedroom door. Jude gave up and slowly stepped aside, his shoulders slumped as he watched every move with a look of deep sorrow.

When you reached the living room, you didn’t look back.

Jude remained still for a few moments before making his way to the living room just in time to see the front door close behind you.