#lmlytk

Oh, why didn’t I listen to my subconscious? I’ve always loved Toni. I just never wanted to see it, because I never knew how. All the emotions I felt whenever I saw him; all the joy that came with his presence; all the times I tried not to hurt him by not saying I loved him when I didn’t know if I really, genuinely did; all the weight Louise told me I’d lost since I’d met her; all the evenings spent kicking the ball around at the park; all the times I tried to stop my hand from drifting over to his arm, but found it there all the same, craving his touch, his care, and his concern; all the times I wanted him there, I just wanted him by my side. All those things, all those signs, and I never took them. And now it was too late.

I squeezed my eyes shut and braced myself. I love you, Toni.

Toni’s POV

“GABI!!!” I screamed. It wasn’t even yelling anymore. It was all-out screaming. No, this couldn’t be happening.

She was cold. Freezing. “Why are you so cold?” I sobbed, taking her in my arms and hugging her tightly. “Please, Gabi. I’ll keep you warm. I’ll keep you warm for the rest of my life. I’m sorry. Gabi, please wake up.”

She didn’t move. She didn’t move a single muscle no matter how loud I yelled or how hard I shook her.

“No, no, no, no, no!” I ran my hand down her beautiful long hair. It was matted with blood. “Gabi, you can’t do this to me. You can’t do this to me, you hear me, Gabriele?! You can’t! Not again!”

I hugged her close to me. “Please,” I begged. “Please, no. Gabi, I’m so sorry. Please come back. I’m so sorry. I love you so much. Please…come back…I didn’t even get to say goodbye…and I love you. I love you, Gabriele.”

I looked around – it was dark. Everything was dark. And now my life, too, was dark, without my precious, precious Gabriele. My sunshine, the light of my life, my favourite person in the entire world.

I felt something warm against my side, and my hopes lifted, only to feel Lennox’s wet tongue on my cheek. He licked me repeatedly, as if he was trying to dry my tears. He looked at me with anxious, sad eyes.

“Stop it!” I yelled at him, but he continued licking. “She’s gone. She won’t ever come back. Don’t…don’t look at me like that…or at her. Don’t…Lennox. She’s gone.”

I held her face close to me and kissed her forehead.

“My Gabi is gone.”

Gabi’s POV

I was flying…flying higher and higher…and then down lower…what? Oh, maybe I’m going to hell for all the hurt I inflicted on Toni.

With my eyes still closed, I reached my destination…wherever it was. It was soft. Oh, hell is rather comfortable.

I relaxed, my body going slack and resting on the comfortable bed – or whatever it was that they slept on in hell. I didn’t want to open my eyes, because then it would be real. I would be dead, and I would have never told Toni that I love him.

I held on tightly to the necklace and the photograph, and I drifted…drifted further and further…until whatever was below me suddenly moved and wrapped itself around me comfortably.

“Hey,” a familiar voice whispered. “Gabi, you okay?”

Toni’s POV

Her head snapped up and her eyes shot open. “What are you doing here?” she asked in barely a whisper.

“This is my driveway,” I whispered back. “It leads to my house.”

She lifted her head further and looked around. Her eyes softened as she took in the familiar surroundings and tears started falling out of them. “Oh, my God,” she collapsed back on to me. “I thought you were dead, too.”

I stroked her hair gently. “I’ve got you. One time was enough. I’m never going to let that happen ever again.”

“I thought I was going to die,” she whispered. “I thought…I…you…”

“Shhh,” I continued stroking her hair. “You’re okay now.”

“You caught me,” she whimpered.

“Yes, I caught you,” I smoothened her hair. “Please don’t cry.”

“You saved me,” she mumbled. “Oh, Toni.”

She sobbed softly into my shirt for a few moments, moving her arms and legs more tightly around me as I lay there below her, holding her shaking body. I could barely believe my eyes when I awoke only to see her standing in the middle of the road, just standing there and staring over at my window, and I made a mental note to give Lennox a treat for licking me awake. He missed Gabi, so it was expected that he’d bolted into my room the moment he saw her outside. Of course he missed Gabi – hell, I missed Gabi. And here she was, in my arms, safe and sound. I thanked Lady Luck, or whatever divine being that gave us this luck; this pure luck that Lennox had woken me up in the midst of my horrible, yet almost creepily accurate dream, and that I’d gotten to Gabi in the nick of time.

“You okay?” I asked after a while. “Why are you here?”

She rested her forearms on my chest and propped herself up to gaze at me, her eyes searching my face. Slowly, a beautiful smile spread across her face as she put the back of her hands on my cheeks and stroked them gently, warming them.

“I had this entire speech planned out for you,” she whispered. “But then that happened, and I forgot what I wanted to say.”

“Well, this isn’t the first time you’ve forgotten something,” I teased. It was funny how I could feel so at ease with her, even though the last time we met had been four months ago.

“I remember one thing, though.”

“What is it?”

Her smile grew bigger as she tucked the things that were in her hands into her jacket pocket, freeing them to stroke my cheeks again, this time with her palms.

“I love you,” she whispered.

“You do?” I squeaked, even though I knew it was true; it was written all over her glittering blue eyes, piercing through me again, but this time in the most magical way possible. Gabi always wore her emotions on her face. She was finally saying it, and she was finally meaning it. A glorious feeling swept across my entire body.

“I do,” she said, tears falling down her face again. “Oh, I love you so much.”

“Gabi,” I whispered, pressing her face into my chest, not caring about her tears staining my sweatshirt. “I love you, too.”

“I thought you didn’t want me anymore,” she sobbed. “I called you…I called and you didn’t pick up. So I came back…and then…the car…I thought…”

“Shhh,” I whispered. Oh, Gabriele, why would I ever not want you? “I’m here now. I’m sorry. I left my phone at home.”

“I’m sorry,” she whimpered. “I’m sorry I never called you. I missed you, Toni. I love you so much.”

“I’m sorry, too,” I told her. “I thought you were angry. That’s why I didn’t call. I’m sorry, Gabi baby.”

She giggled through her tears. “Call me Gabi baby again.”

“Gabi baby.”

She giggled again. Oh, what a wonderful sound. “Toni baby,” she whispered.

“Thank you for coming back,” I said.

“Thank you for waiting,” she smiled. “And thank you for saving me.”

“You saved me once,” I lifted her head and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Now we’re quits.”

“At least you weren’t dumb enough to hit your head and forget everything,” she laughed.

“Do you…uh, wanna get up?” I asked as I realised we were still lying there on the cold hard ground, her body on top of mine, her legs straddling my body.

“Do you want me to get up?” she whispered, a mischievous glint in her eyes.

“Honestly?”

“I believe you’ve never lied to me, so don’t start now.”

“Okay,” I grinned. “No, I don’t want you to get up. I like this view.”

She closed her eyes, leaned her head on my chest and smiled blissfully. “You’re very comfortable.”

“I love you, Gabi,” I whispered. It was so liberating, to be able to say it and not fear her response (or lack thereof). I wanted to scream so loudly that the entire neighbourhood woke up and Felix could hear me from Bremen. I wanted to jump around like a maniac. But I had Gabi on top of me, so I didn’t do any of those. Instead, I wrapped my arms more tightly around her and pulled her closer to me.

“I love you more,” she whispered back. “You believe me, right?”

“Of course,” I said. I knew, I just knew that this time she wasn’t just lying to make me happy – she had no reason to do so, and there was no way she’d come back here just to do that. She was my Gabi, my precious, beautiful Gabi, and she was back for me.

I turned my gaze from the top of her head to the sky. The fog had cleared significantly and the moon was shining brightly down on us – an enormous winter moon.

“Hey,” I called. “Gabi, look at the moon.”

She rolled off me so we lying side-by-side, my arm under her head as a cushion. She gasped softly when she saw the moon. “Oh, my God,” she whispered, turning and burying her face into my shoulder, sobbing silently. “The moon.”

“What’s wrong?” I sat up and pulled her along, wrapping my arms around her. “Don’t cry, Gabi. I love you so much.”

“The moon,” she repeated. “I…you…the moon.”

“It’s really beautiful,” I kissed her hair. “Just like you.”

For some reason, that made her cry even harder.

“Are you saying I’m as round as the moon?” she choked.

And then, right then, it hit me. That was the exact conversation we had the last time we saw a winter moon like this one; the night when I didn’t give two hoots about the cold because Gabi made me so warm inside, warmer than the comfort of any blanket. When I didn’t care about how tired I was because I’d rather stay awake; because the reality of being with Gabi was infinitely better than any good dream I could ever have. The night when I realised I’d probably do anything, anything at all for Gabi. Because loving her, that beautiful girl, was the best, happiest, most magical, most glorious feeling in the entire universe.

I lifted her face and wiped her tears with my thumbs. “No, I’m saying you’re as beautiful as the moon.”

She smiled her beautiful, shy smile, even though her face was still glistening with tears under the moonlight. Suddenly, she climbed onto my lap again and wrapped her arms tightly around me. “I’m sorry,” she sobbed into my neck. “I’m so sorry I made you wait so long.”

“Shhhh,” I whispered into her hair. “I love you. I’d wait forever.”

“I’m so sorry,” she whimpered. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”

“You didn’t,” I assured her, stroking her back gently, desperately trying to make her feel better; because despite all that we’d been through, she’d never once hurt me intentionally.

“I’m never going to leave you again,” she mumbled.

“I’m never going to let you leave me again,” I replied.

She pulled away and leaned her head on mine. “I love you so much, Toni,” she said, her face so close to mine that she was blowing hot air all over it. “I love you. I’m sorry I took so long to see it. I’m sorry I promised you that I wouldn’t leave you, but I did, and I…I’m sorry I walked away from you at the hotel. I…there’s no one I’d rather be with…I…Toni…” she closed her eyes as her voice petered into a whisper.

“Shhh, you don’t have to say anything,” I put my hands on her cheeks. “I know. I understand. I love you, Gabriele. Nothing will ever change that.”

“It’s just…I want you to be happy, okay? I want you to be happy…and I realised that that would only be possible if I came back to you. And then I realised…that would make me happy, too. And…oh, Toni. This is so perfect. Us. We’re perfect.”

“You’re perfect,” I poked her on the nose.

She giggled. “Can I kiss you?” she whispered.

“Seriously? Did you seriously just ask me that?”

She pouted, and to be honest that just made her already kissable lips even more kissable. I laughed and leaned in to kiss her, to finally kiss her lips again and to finally feel her kiss me back and mean it; to know that she knew that she meant it. They were soft from all her crying, but oh, they tasted just like her, just like the old Gabriele, my Gabriele; the Gabriele I knew and loved, and the Gabriele I would always know and love.

Gabi’s POV

No other kiss had ever felt as real, and as magical, as that kiss I shared with Toni on that night. Because I finally knew what those feelings that coursed through my veins represented, and I didn’t have to hide from them anymore. I wound my hands in his messy blonde hair and pulled him closer to me, and I felt him smile against my lips as he did the same with his hands on my waist. The night was cold, and the ground was hard, but in that moment, all I felt was the warmness of Toni’s love for me.

He loved me. That beautiful, talented boy loved me – an emotional, sensitive girl with nothing much to give. And for the first time since I woke up and restarted my life more than a year ago, I didn’t need or want to know why.

I gave a contented sigh as I pulled away and gazed at his gorgeous seawater eyes, now filled with amazement and disbelief; and the deepest look of affection. Yes – this was where I belonged. This was where I wanted to be.

“Stop crying now, okay?” he asked, stroking my cheeks gently. “You’re all wet and sticky.”

“I thought you liked me wet and sticky,” I whispered suggestively.

“Gabi!” he gaped at me in horror. “You have such a dirty mouth.”

I giggled. “I thought you liked my dirty mouth.”

He shook his head in resignation. “I love your dirty mouth.”

“And I love yours,” I smiled, leaning in for another lingering kiss.

“You’ve lost so much weight,” he noted sadly as he pulled away, as if it was all his fault. He raised a hand and pinched my cheek gently. “You’re so thin.”

I put my hand on his, the one on my cheek. “You can feed me for the rest of my life,” I whispered.

“I will,” he promised, planting a soft kiss on my nose, and then burying his face in my neck. “Oh, Gabriele, I love you so much. I dreamt…I dreamt that you were gone. Forever. And you wouldn’t wake up, no matter how loudly I called you. I…I’m so happy you’re here. I love you so much.”

“I love you too, Toni,” I ran my hand through his hair. “I’m here now. I’ll always be here with you. I’m sorry about your dream.”

He laughed softly. “I guess we still have that connection.”

“Yeah, we do,” I smiled. “Of course.”

“Why did you suddenly decide to come back?” he suddenly asked. “I mean, not that I mind.”

“Uh, I…” I squirmed around in his lap, not sure if he’d want to hear my reasons.

“What is it?” his brow creased with worry as he pulled his face out of my neck.

“I met Josef this afternoon,” I said in a tiny voice.

His entire body went stiff as he stared at me, the look of horror returning to his face. I watched as his expression slowly turned to one of anger. He opened his mouth to say something, and then closed it again. He was too shocked for words, I guessed.

“Baby, I –“ I started.

“What did he do to you?” he asked loudly, grabbing my shoulders and examining me as thoroughly as he could from our sitting position. “Did he do anything to you?”

“No, it’s not like that,” I pushed his hands off my shoulders and held them in mine. “He helped me. He made me want to come back.”

“Oh,” he whispered, his shoulders relaxing. He glanced at me warily. “Are you sure he didn’t do anything to you? If he even touched one strand of your hair, I swear I’ll –“

“No, shhh,” I put a finger on his lips. And then, because the look on his face was so different from the gentle Toni I was used to, I burst out laughing.

“What?” he demanded. “Why are you laughing?”

“You’re cute when you’re angry.”

He poked me in the ribs. “Only when I’m angry?”

“Yes,” I giggled, and he started tickling me harder. “Okay, you’re always cute!”

“So what did Josef do?” finally contented, he grabbed me and put me on his lap again. I distractedly wondered if his legs were going numb, but I liked the position we were in, so I didn’t really care.

I told him about how Josef was Louise’s cousin, and that I got home only to see him sitting on our couch, and it was almost the biggest shock of my life. And perhaps it was that shock that finally woke me up; the last time I saw Josef, Toni and I were at the happiest point of our relationship. It made me realise how much I missed him, and how much I wanted him by my side. And I told him about how I finally, finally remembered the last piece of the puzzle, the night when I realised what love truly was, and I realised that was exactly what I felt towards Toni. A night just like this one.

“I’ve always loved you more than anything else,” I whispered. “But when I woke…and when I remembered that we had been a couple…I didn’t know why. I kept finding the answers to why we loved each other that I missed out the more important point, which was the how. How we made each other feel. How we loved each other. And…he made me remember that. He’s engaged now, you know? He’s engaged to Eva. And he’s inviting us to the wedding. He’s so in love.

“When I remembered that night under the moon, just like tonight…it felt like everything fell into place. Like it was the final piece of the puzzle. Because that night all those years ago was when I realised how I was going to love you – by letting you love me.”

“Gabi,” he wrapped his arms tightly around me and pulled me close to him, burying his face in my hair. “I love you so much, Gabriele. I love you.”

“I love you, too,” I smiled against his neck. “Also, Josef says he’s sorry.”

“He brought my girl back to me,” his voice was muffled by my hair. “I can’t believe this.”

I giggled. “Yeah, me neither.”

He pulled away and held me on both sides of my head, his fingers winding through my hair. “I guess we’re just meant to be together,” he whispered.

“We are,” I whispered back, feeling tears prick the back of my eyes again. I closed my eyes as they fell, and Toni used his thumbs to stop them. “I’m sorry I made you wait so long.”

He smiled, and placed his face near my ear. “If you go five sentences without saying ‘I’m sorry,’ I’ll forgive you.”

“Hey, that’s my line!”

“It’s mine now,” he traced a line of kisses down the side of my neck. “Just like you.”

I tilted my head to the side so he could kiss me better. “Is your sun rising?” I whispered.

“Maybe,” he chuckled, sending warm air across my skin.

“Do you want the entire neighbourhood to hear and watch?”

He stopped. “Only I can hear and watch,” he said defensively.

Toni’s POV

“Yeah, only you,” she smiled, running her hands gently down my cheeks. “It has only ever been you, Toni.”

Those words were my undoing. I grabbed her head and pulled her close, hungrily pressing my lips on hers, savouring the taste, the feeling, every single moment. The euphoria I felt was unparalleled – not even by the time we shared our very first kiss, Gabi and I, under her window on the night of 26th September, 2007. She came back; my Gabi, my precious, beautiful Gabi, my favourite person in the entire world, she came back – and that, to me, meant much more than if she’d stayed.

She gave a soft moan as I pushed my tongue into her mouth, and then – as if she’d read my mind and knew that if we went any further, I would have stripped her and taken her right there on the driveway regardless of who was watching – she pulled away reluctantly.

“Wow,” she whispered, panting.

“Wow, indeed,” I grinned.

She didn’t say anything else; instead, she just sat there and gazed at me, her fingers gently stroking my cheeks. Her eyes were filled with adoration and relief, so much relief. I couldn’t tear my gaze away from hers, so we sat there immersed in each other’s eyes, seawater to aquamarine. Finally, she got up and pulled me along. After dusting herself off, she pulled me towards the backyard.

“Don’t you wanna go say hi to Amelie and your parents?” I asked.

She shook her head and smiled mysteriously. “They’ll make me stay in, and I wanna stay with you.”

“You’re so mean,” I teased.

She giggled and dragged me through the back door to grab a stack of blankets. Suddenly, she caught sight of one of my old footballs, which I occasionally used to kick around in the park with her. A childlike grin spread across her face as she ran over to it, picked it up, ran back to me and dragged me back out in front.

“I have to show you something,” she said excitedly, running up to the nearest bin and removing its lid before running back to my side. “Watch this!”

She threw the ball a few steps in front of her, and then she ran and kicked it, curling it beautifully right into the bin with an exquisite lob.

“Ta-da!” she spread her arms out and smiled at me proudly.

“Aww, good job baby,” I started clapping, remembering our very first “date” at the park, where she tried and tried to lob the ball into the bin but never succeeded.

“I’ve been practicing,” she explained, the look of pride still on her face, before it slowly faded, as did her voice. “I didn’t even know I’d been practicing…I guess my subconscious always knew I loved you. And I didn’t…I…I took so long.”

“Hey,” I grasped her chin and gently turned her towards me. “It’s okay. You’re back now, and I can’t be any happier. I wouldn’t want it any other way, as long as I have you.”

She leaned over and kissed me again, a soft, sweet kiss. “I love you,” she whispered.

“I love you, too, Gabi. Don’t you ever forget that. Again.”

She smiled, retrieved the ball and grabbed the pile of blankets, and then she dragged me to the backyard and set up a little comfy blanket pool for the both of us. We took off our shoes and lay back in it, using her jacket as a pillow.

“Does it bother you?” she suddenly asked. “That I had to leave before I realised that I love you?”

“No,” I said almost immediately, because it was the truth, and I’d been thinking of it earlier. “Because you came back, Gabi. That means so much more to me than you can ever imagine. People come and people go, but to me…it’s not who stays that matters. It’s who comes back, despite their busy lives or their dreams or their whatever. It’s who comes back. Because it means that you could live without me if you wanted…but you would rather be with me. That you would rather come back to find me rather than live your own life. It’s the coming back, Gabi.”

She smiled, and used her hands to cover her face and the tears that were falling from her eyes again. “You’re still so smooth. You still make everything okay.”

“Because you let me,” I leaned over, removed her hands and kissed her tears.

She sighed, contented, and leaned her head on my shoulder. I was still in my Bayern tracksuit which I’d fallen asleep in earlier, and she was all dirty and tired from her travelling, but I put my arm around her and pulled her close, because no matter how Gabi looked or smelled, she was still my beautiful Gabriele.

We just lay there silently, savouring the feeling of finally being in each other’s arms again. It felt like I was truly home, that the home I’d been in for the past few months hadn’t been complete. It felt like my life was finally complete again, on this night with this large full moon, reliving the night that happened so many years ago, but still meant so much to me. I closed my eyes, almost drifting away to sleep, when suddenly Gabi reached beneath our heads and pulled out something from her jacket pocket.

“Look at this,” she whispered, holding it upwards so that it glittered under the light of the enormous moon.

It was the necklace. The Toni and Gabi necklace that I’d given her on our first anniversary.

“You kept it,” I whispered.

“I added something on it,” she replied, grabbing my hand and putting the necklace in it. I looked closer and saw that it was a lock and key; a lock beside the G, and a key beside the T.

“Oh, Gabi,” I could barely find my voice anymore.

“It has always been you,” she leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “It will always be you. You’ll always have the key to my heart. The only key. And it has always been you adding things onto this necklace. Now it’s my turn. Because I love you, too.”

I smiled and sat her up, sweeping her hair aside so I could put on the necklace for her. “It’s beautiful,” I said, patting it, listening to the charms tinkle softly. “A beautiful necklace for a beautiful girl.”

“Given to her by a beautiful boy,” she kissed me on the cheek before making the both of us lie back down again. She slid out a photograph from her jacket and handed it to me. “Look at our happy family,” she whispered.

It was a photograph of us and the beagles. It was a little crumpled, but it was mesmerising nonetheless – just like any other photo I’d ever taken with Gabi.

As if on cue, there were sounds of leaves rustling and the soft patter of footsteps on grass, before our bodies were suddenly bathed by the warmness of Julius and Lennox.

“Hey,” Gabi squeezed her eyes shut and smiled as they started licking her face excitedly. “Hi, babies. Have you been good to daddy?”

I laughed. “They’ve missed you.”

“And I’ve missed them,” she gazed at them lovingly as they were finally contented and lay down on our stomachs – Julius on mine, Lennox on hers. Oh Lennox. If only you knew you saved her life. “See? Happy family,” she smiled, as contented as the dogs.

She tucked her head into the crook of my neck again and sighed blissfully. “Good night, Toni baby. I love you.”

“I love you, too. Good night, Gabi baby.”

I couldn’t sleep now – I was too warm, warm with Julius’ belly, the blankets, and my tracksuit, warm with the body heat of my Gabriele; but most of all, warm with the deep, indescribable, irreplaceable, inerasable love I held for her and she held for me.

“Thank you, Gabriele,” I whispered, in case she was already asleep.

“For what?” she mumbled sleepily.

I tilted my head downwards to look at her – her beautiful blue eyes now closed and her soft lips curled up slightly in a peaceful smile; her ash brown hair falling and framing her face perfectly; her hand resting on my chest protectively, as if she wanted me by her side forever and always. I leaned over a little more and kissed her gently on her temple.

I stood there, my mouth opening and closing but no words coming out of it, until Louise finally said, “Uh…you guys know each other?”

I turned my gaze to her. “He’s your cousin?”

“Yeah…you know him?” she asked again.

“Hell yeah I do,” I muttered, whipping my gaze back to him. He was still staring at me intently. I turned on my heel and walked into my room without turning back, slamming the door so hard that my photo frames started rattling on my table.

My photo frames. I went over and picked one up, the one that would always be my favourite – the one of Toni and I lying on the field by the Isar. I brought it over to the bed and lay down on my side, pressing it close to my chest.

Seeing Josef brought back everything. Even if it was just for a few seconds. Because Toni was there when I had to get through what Josef said to me. Hell, Toni was always there. Always.

And then right then, in that very moment, everything came crashing down on me. All the emotional turmoil over the past few months, all the doubt, the questioning, the frustration, the running away, everything. Everything was compounded and hinged on today; the nostalgic kicking of the ball in the park alone and then meeting Josef again. Everything hit me, blow by blow, and I finally let it all out. I pulled my knees to my chest, hugging myself into a ball with the photo frame still in my hands, and cried. I didn’t even care how loudly I sobbed or if Josef and Louise were going to hear me. I felt like I’d been holding it all in for the longest time, that I’d been avoiding reality all this while.

I lifted the photo frame and gazed at it, my fingertips stroking Toni’s face; his beautiful smile, his beautiful seawater eyes, crinkled in the corners with his genuine smile.

“I miss you,” I whispered, and again as I said those words I was struck by how true they were. “I miss you so much, Toni. How are you? Not football. How are you? Why won’t you call me? I want to hear your voice…I want to hear you tell me that everything is going to be okay. I’m sorry, Toni. I’m so sorry.”

Suddenly, there was a knock on my door. “Gabi?” Louise’s muffled voice came across. “Can I come in?”

I didn’t answer; I was still shaking too badly to do that. Louise, being Louise, just let herself in.

The bed dipped a little as she sat down on it gently. “You okay?” she asked.

“I can’t believe he’s your fucking cousin,” I blurted out, my voice still thick with tears.

She laughed softly. “I know, right?”

I turned to face her. “Do you have any idea what he did to me?”

“I do,” she said, and I just continued staring at her. “Uh…he just told me.”

I turned back and gripped the photo frame tightly. “I hate him,” I whispered, tears falling out of my eyes again. “It hurts…it still hurts.”

“Gabi,” she reached over and smoothened my hair back from my face. “I’m so sorry. If I’d known…I wouldn’t have brought him over here.”

“Is he still outside?” I asked.

As if on cue, my room door creaked open. “Can I come in?” Josef asked.

“What do you think?” Louise snapped.

“Gabriele,” Josef changed his strategy, addressing me directly. “I’m sorry. I really am.”

I didn’t answer him. I gritted my teeth tightly, grabbing on to the photo frame for dear life, and stayed silent, my back facing him. I wanted so much to get up and punch him in the face, and it took all my willpower to stay still where I was.

“Can we please be friends?” he continued, and I rolled my eyes at how childish that sounded. “I’m sorry. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

“It’s too late,” I mumbled.

“To apologise?” Louise said cheekily, almost singing the words, and started laughing. I turned and glared at her, and she stopped. But there was still remnants of her goofy smile on her face, and I wasn’t sure if it was because of all the overwhelming emotions that I’d felt over the past ten minutes, but I couldn’t help but burst out laughing.

“I hate you, Louise,” I choked, laughing and crying at the same time.

“I couldn’t resist,” she flopped down beside me and shook the entire bed with her laughter. “Oh, my God. That was genius. I’m a genius.”

“Uh…” Josef shuffled his feet awkwardly by the door. “I…um…I’ll be outside.”

He slipped out of the room and closed the door softly. I stared at the plain old wood for a few moments before turning back to Louise, only to see her gazing at me expectantly.

“Well?” she asked.

“Well what?”

“Are you going to talk to him?”

I sighed. “I don’t know.”

“He’s changed,” she said. “I mean…he’s my cousin, and I’ve known him since he was born, and I know he was a huge jerk in the past. I had no idea that he’d do…say…whatever he did to you. But he’s changed. He really has. I mean, that thing happened like…three years ago? He’s a different man now.”

I snorted. “Yeah, right.”

“He’s grown up, settled down…” she sighed, reaching over and squeezing my shoulder gently. Suddenly, her expression changed, and she peered into my hands curiously. “Is that the photo of you and Toni?”

“Yes…” I pulled it closer to me defensively. “Why?”

“Why are you holding it like that? You never let me touch it. You never touch it.”

“Can’t I hold my own things? It’s mine!”

She continued staring at me suspiciously. And then, I was again bombarded with all the emotions I felt a few minutes earlier. I sat up, wrapped my arms tightly around Louise, and burst out crying.

“Oh, Gabi,” she soothed, stroking my back gently. “You miss him, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” I choked. “I miss him. I…seeing him…your…seeing Josef…I wish Toni was here. He was always there…always there for me. And now I’ve lost him.”

“Shhhhh,” she whispered. “I don’t think you’ve lost him. I think he’s afraid. He’s afraid that you’re angry with him after he made you sleep with him.”

“But I’m not,” I whined. “And he didn’t make me.”

“He doesn’t know that, Gabi.”

“I really miss him,” I whispered.

“Why don’t you talk to Josef?” she suggested. “I mean, I know you hate him and things like that. But as I’ve told you, he’s changed. Just give him another chance. As intimidating as he is, he can be rather wise.”

Tears were still streaming down my face, but I couldn’t help but laugh. “Josef? Wise?”

She laughed along. “Yeah. I’ve never said that to anyone, but it’s true. Don’t tell him that, or he’ll get all big-headed.”

Reluctantly, I followed Louise out of my room and to the couch, where Josef was seated stiffly, looking at the ground, a sad look in his eyes. It tugged at somewhere deep within me; a feeling I refused to acknowledge. What he did to me was an outrage of modesty, in public, a ridiculous action, one that haunted me till this day. I thought I was never going to forgive him; but then again, I thought I’d never see him again in my life.

He looked up when we reached the living room. His eyes suddenly lit up with hope as he saw us. “Hey,” he said softly, hesitantly.

I stared at him.

“Uh…do you wanna…sit down?” he asked.

“It’s my house,” I mumbled.

“Yeah,” he whispered. “Yeah, sorry.”

The look of despair on his face made me feel guilty. I rolled my eyes internally. How ironic, Gabi.

“How have you been?” I asked, deciding to distract myself from all the weird feelings.

His gaze snapped up to my face, shocked at my concern. “Uh…I’m fine. How about you?”

“Yeah, me too,” I said softly as Louise plopped down beside me with three glasses of water.

“Oh, please, ‘fine’ is the last word I’d use to describe you, Gabi,” Louise rolled her eyes.

“What happened?” Josef piped in, but one look from me and his curiosity waned. “I mean…if you want to tell me, of course.”

He looked so frightened, I couldn’t help but laugh. “It’s nothing…just girly romance stuff.”

“Oh…Toni?”

“Yeah,” I whispered. “Toni.”

“You guys…are still together, right?”

Louise rolled her eyes so hard they almost fell out onto the floor. “They’re not, that’s the point! Jesus, you’re so dense. And here I was trying to convince Gabi to come out here by telling her you got wiser.”

He stared at her in mock horror. “Well, I’m sorry to disappoint!”

I laughed. I had no idea that talking to them would be so liberating. The both of them turned and looked at me, the strange girl sitting in between them laughing like an idiot although her eyes were still puffy from crying.

“Well, now that you’re in this good mood,” Josef said sourly, trying and failing not to look offended at me laughing at him. “What happened between you and Toni?”

I glanced at Louise, and she nodded at me eagerly, answering my unspoken question of whether to trust Josef.

“Are you this interested because you’re going to hit on me again now that I’m single?” I blurted out my unfiltered thoughts.

Josef stared at me. He just stared at me, his mouth slowly falling open. I felt Louise’s stare boring into me from my other side. I looked at him, then at her. “What?” I asked.

Suddenly, they burst out laughing. They clutched onto their stomachs and leaned back on the couch, laughing their heads off, obviously entertained by my question. But I didn’t understand why.

“What?!” I grabbed Louise and shook her. “What are you laughing at?”

“He…Josef…you…he…oh, Gabi!”

“I…I’m,” was all Josef managed to say before he started laughing again.

“You’re what?!” I was almost yelling.

He lifted the hand that wasn’t on his tummy and flashed it in my face. “I’m engaged!”

“Oh,” I felt my mouth go dry. It was no wonder they were laughing at me! I took a closer look, and there was a ring on his finger. “I’m sorry! Oh, god.”

“It’s okay,” he laughed again. “I mean, it’s quite expected that you think I’m still going around hitting on fifty girls a day.”

I felt myself blush. “Well, that was what you were doing the last time I saw you.”

Louise was flopped over on the armrest, sated by her intense laughing fit. “Eva changed him so much,” she piped in.

“Eva?”

“My fiancée,” Josef explained.

“That’s why I think you should talk to him,” Louise sighed. “I mean, he learnt a whole lot of stuff from her, and maybe he could wake you up from your delusional slumber.”

I eyed Josef, who was peering at me expectantly through his incredibly long eyelashes. I didn’t know if I could trust him this time, but I trusted Louise, and Louise trusted him.

To hell with it, I thought. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. So I shrugged and took a deep breath, and I told him everything starting from when I woke up from the coma. I told him how and why Toni kept everything from me, our entire relationship and everything that we’d been through together. Including Cologne, because of him. No one had ever heard the part about Cologne; not even Amelie or my parents, because I never told them about Josef and his antics. Only Toni and I knew. And so Louise was taken in as well, leaning further towards me and listening intently.

And then, in typical Gabriele crybaby style, I burst out crying in the middle of telling them about the night of the Munich final and the Euro semi-final. Because that was the end. That was the end of me and Toni’s relationship, whether we were just friends or otherwise.

Louise reached over and pulled me into a hug, but Josef sat there awkwardly, not entirely sure what he was supposed to do.

“That’s so sad,” he whispered.

“The point is, I still don’t know,” I sobbed. “I still don’t know if I love him.”

“I think it’s pretty obvious to everybody, though,” Louise muttered.

I turned to Josef, who said softly, “Yeah, I think it’s pretty obvious, too.”

“How?”

“Well…he loves you. There’s no doubt about that at all. There’s no other reason why he would keep all those things from you. It’s the first thing that you should remember – that he loves you. And even though for some reason or another you don’t know it, you love him as well.

“It was the same thing with me and Eva. I know it might sound strange to you, given the situation we were in when we met and when we stopped seeing each other around. But even though I went around hitting on all those girls, I never once thought that I could be loved. Maybe that’s why I went around finding people to sleep with. Maybe I just hoped that something real would come out of it. Or maybe, to some extent, a little part of me had given up on love. Maybe it was all just for sex. I don’t know, and to be honest I don’t care anymore, because that’s the past.

“And then Eva came along. She wasn’t like any other girl. Not at all. Not even a little bit. You know, girls like you…most girls actually, they avoided me. They never once came near me voluntarily. But Eva did. She sat down beside me one day during lunch and started talking to me. I didn’t want to talk to her initially, because when it came to girls I preferred sexing…you know. But she didn’t give up on me. Made friends with me, made me tell her why I was always so brooding…stuff like that. And I didn’t know it, but I slowly fell for her. And am so, so lucky that she feels the same way.

“But I didn’t believe it at first. I didn’t believe that a girl like her would love me, I didn’t see what she saw in me. I struggled with it for a long while, with all those new feelings that I didn’t understand. But even though I doubted her and I doubted myself, Eva never left. She never once told me ‘Fuck, Josef, you don’t trust me, how can we continue like this?’ She never once did that. And that was when I realised that it wasn’t that I didn’t trust her. I trusted her with all I had. The person I didn’t trust was myself. And she knew it, Eva knew this, even though I never once told her.”

I was intrigued, sat there on the couch gaping at him, surprised that such a big, strong, wild man could have such strong feelings deep inside of him.

He sighed, a blissful smile on his face. “Eva is the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“I know I might not be the best thing that has happened to you, but I promise, you are the best thing that has happened to me in my entire life.”

“Oh, my God,” I whispered, putting my hands over my face and weeping into them. “That’s what Toni said to me. That I was the best thing that ever happened to him.”

“What are you afraid of?” he asked. “I mean, you’re all the way here in London to work, but I’m sure it’s not just the work. You’re running away. From him.”

“Why would I be doing that?” I sobbed.

“Because you’re scared,” he said. “Tell me, Gabriele, what are you scared of the most? Regarding you and Toni?”

“That I’ll hurt him,” I whispered. “Because I don’t know…I don’t know what he sees in me. What if…what if it doesn’t work out? I mean…there were all these guys before that…like you…they wanted me. And Toni wants me too, but…I…I don’t know if I’m just a face, or I’m what he really wants. What if I turn out to be someone that he doesn’t want? I don’t remember how it worked out the first time. I don’t want to hurt him.”

“So you don’t trust yourself.”

“I don’t…yeah…I guess I don’t.”

“We’re the same, then,” he laughed softly. “How did you two get into a relationship?”

“He kissed me,” I smiled at the thought. “He just grabbed me and kissed me. We were best friends.”

“And did you like him then?”

“I did,” I said. “It took me a long time to realise it, but I loved him,” I frowned. “Wait…there was something…something that happened.”

“What?”

“I can’t remember,” I buried my face in my hands again. “I always wondered why…I loved him, and he loved me, and I knew that, but I never knew why. Why did he love me? Why did I love him?”

“Gabriele, you…” he sighed heavily. “You’ve got to stop thinking so much. You’ve got to just let it go. I mean…love isn’t something that can be quantified. You love in any way you want, it’s all up to you. And when you find someone else who loves in the same way that you do, then you know you’ve found the one. You have to stop asking why, Gabriele. You’ve got to start thinking of the how. Because it isn’t the why that makes love feel the way it does, as magical as it does. It’s the how. How can you love him? How can you let him know that you love him? How? It’s the how that really tells you that you love him, that you want him, and you want to love him. How can you do it? It’s not the why. Because once you’re asking why, you’re giving yourself excuses. You don’t need excuses, for fuck’s sake. You don’t need reasons to love someone, you don’t need to justify it. You just love.  

“‘Because I love him’should always be the end to any argument. Never let anyone ask you ‘but why do you love him?’because that doesn’t matter. ‘Because I love him’ is the end. The last answer you should ever give anybody.

“You ran here because you’re afraid that you’ll hurt him – you know, by doing this, you’re actually hurting him more. You’re so far away, and he wants to love you, he wants to be with you, but you’re leaving him all alone there and you’re here crying your eyes out. What good does it do to both of you? I think you love him…you want to love him, but you don’t know how. So what I think you should do is…think of how you did it. How did you love him before?”

My face was still buried in my hands, so I closed my eyes and thought. I thought long and hard about how we loved, Toni and I, for all those years. All the ups and downs, all the being there for each other, all the nights we spent staying up together, just listening to each other talk, no matter how tired we were. And I realised – there wasn’t a reason we did all those things. There wasn’t a why. We just did all those things, simply because we wanted to. Because we loved each other.

How…how did I love him? I gave myself to him, I trusted him with all that I ever had, and he never, ever once let me down. I gave him all of me. But why? No, I’ve got to stop thinking of why. I want to know how.

Thanks for hanging out with me in the cold. I’m not cold anymore. You make me so warm inside. You make me so alive.

The moon. There was a gigantic, beautiful round winter moon, and there was snow on the ground, and we were just lying there, making snow angels, giggling, and talking. He was so tired. Toni was so tired, his eyes were going to close at any moment, but he lay there, gazing at me lovingly, listening to me talk.

I realised something on that night…what was it? I realised that love couldn’t be put into words or actions. Love wasn’t tangible. Love was just…love. And it was how we loved each other that made the feeling so strong, made it so magical and so colourful that we never wanted to let it go. Love couldn’t be shown. Love was felt. And on that night, I felt it. I felt all the love that Toni had for me, and all the love that I had for him.

And whenever I thought of that night, I knew. I knew how this relationship was going to continue, even though I was so full of self-doubt. I knew that this was how it was going to carry on. I knew that I was going to let him. Because that was what was going to make him happy, and happy was what I wanted him to be. So I would let him.

Let him love me.

That was why! Oh, God, that was how it worked out the first time! That was why he kept everything from me. Because he was going to let me be who I wanted to be. Even if I never remembered him. Because love, just like what I’d realised on that night under the winter moonlight, was letting it go. It was sacrificing it all for the person you love and trusting him or her. No matter how much it hurt or how doubtful we were. Because we should let go, and trust the person who made us do it.

I gasped. That was it. That was the final piece of the puzzle that I’d been trying to put together since I woke up. The one night that had been missing, the one I’d finally, finally found. “Oh, my God.”

“You got it?” Josef asked hopefully.

“Let him,” I whispered. “I let him love me. I trusted him. I gave my everything to him…even though I didn’t love myself, I let him love me. That’s how…that’s how I loved him.”

“See?” he smiled triumphantly. “That’s it. Now the question is…are you going to let him love you now?”

“Oh, Josef,” I sobbed. “I love him. I love Toni. I never admitted it, because I didn’t know why. But now I don’t need to know why. I just do. I just want him to be happy.”

“And happy is what he will be if you go back to him,” he said.

“Yes,” I gasped, overwhelmed by the truckload of emotions that had suddenly emptied all over me. “Let him. I’m going to let him. Because I love him.”

“Finally!” Louise stood up and clapped her hands excitedly. I realised she’d been uncharacteristically quiet during the entire thing. “Josef, I wasn’t wrong when I said you were wise.”

“Thank you,” he smiled proudly.

I turned to him again. “I knew that. You just made me re-know something I already knew. I can’t believe this.”

“You and Toni were something special,” he squeezed my shoulder gently. “I mean, from what I saw in the time that you were in Cologne. I knew you guys were something special. And I always wanted to apologise to you for what I did, trying to break you two up. I’m really sorry, Gabriele.”

“This is the best apology ever,” I whispered. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“Hey, don’t cry, okay?” he reached over to the table, grabbed a tissue, and handed it to me. “Everything is going to be okay.”

“Do you think he still wants me?”

Josef and Louise rolled their eyes together, at once, in the same instant. “DUH!” they yelled.

“Okay, okay,” I rolled my eyes back at them. “I should call him…right?”

They nodded, so I picked up my phone and dialled Toni’s number. Tentatively, I put it to my ear, listening as it connected and started ringing. It rang and rang. It continued ringing for what seemed like forever. It rang until it automatically disconnected, leaving me hanging.

I put down the phone slowly, tears falling out of my eyes again. “He didn’t pick up,” I whispered in despair.

I felt Louise and Josef glance at each other, and then at me. “It’s okay, I’m sure he’s just busy,” Louise said. “Maybe you should try later.”

I stared at the phone, at the screen with Toni’s number on it. Suddenly, I really wanted this to work. I really wanted him. And even if he didn’t want me back, it wouldn’t matter, because at the end of the day, it would have hurt more if I hadn’t tried to get him back.

“I’m going back,” I stood up and walked briskly into my room. “I’m going to Munich.”

“You go, girl!” Louise clapped her hands again. “I’ll help you apply for leave. Just let me know how long.”

In no time at all, I had my basic things packed in a small backpack, and I was heading home. Home, whether it was my childhood home or Toni’s arms, was still home. Louise and Josef stood at the door as I put on my shoes and coat and stepped out into the cold London street.

“Thank you,” I said to the both of them. “Really, thank you so much. I don’t know what I’d have done without you…maybe cry until my eyes fall out.”

Louise laughed. “Good luck, Gabi. Call me, tell me whether he’s being a little shit or not.”

“Thank you,” I smiled. I turned to Josef, who was just standing there, smiling slightly, not sure if I’d really forgiven him or not. “Thank you, Josef. I guess we can be friends.”

He laughed in relief. “Thank goodness. All the best, okay? I’ll be waiting for the good news.”

Much to his surprise, I leaned over and hugged him. “This is so ironic, you helping me get back with Toni, but it was so awesome. Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome, Gabriele,” he patted my back gently. “I’ll send you a wedding invitation, okay? Maybe one day you’ll send me yours.”

I giggled. “Okay.”

That was if Toni still wanted me.

Toni’s POV

Finally, I was home. I went straight to my room and grabbed my phone; I’d forgotten to bring it to the team meeting, and to make it worse, Basti, Javi and Mario dragged me out for dinner afterwards.

There was one missed call. That was it. Just one missed call. No texts, no nothing. One missed call.

From Gabi.

I checked the time – it was almost four hours ago. Damn it! I almost dropped the phone as I tried to dial her number. With shaking hands, I put the phone to my ear.

“The user you are trying to reach is currently unavailable. Please try again later,” the robotic lady voice pierced through my ears and my heart and every other part of my body.

“Fuck,” I muttered as I lay back on the bed. It felt like forever since I last heard Gabi’s voice. And I missed her. I missed her so much. Amelie kept trying to make me fly over to get her back, but I’d always refused. Perhaps football was the perfect excuse.

I never called her, because I was afraid. I was afraid she was angry with me. I was afraid that we would never return to the way we were. I was so afraid, because I never knew what exactly it was that she felt.

I closed my eyes and drifted off into a hot, sticky, disturbed sleep, filled with images of Gabi and her beautiful smile, her stunning blue eyes, and her soft long ash brown hair flowing with the wind; but also Gabi and her look of despair when she woke up in the same bed as me, her tears, her fading silhouette as she walked away from me for the last time, and her last look, her last painful gaze at me before she disappeared from my life.

Gabi’s POV

I stepped out of the jewellery store at the Munich airport with a big grin on my face, although I was really nervous. With shaking hands, I held on tightly to my Toni and Gabi necklace, now with two new additions. I waited impatiently until it was my turn in the taxi queue, and then I was on my way home.

The journey seemed to take no time at all, especially since I was still consolidating everything I wanted to say to Toni. I stepped out into the wet and cool Munich street on my side of the road, and stood there as the taxi splashed away and left me in the quiet moonlight.

I gazed over at Toni’s house, all the windows completely dark and not a soul or animal in sight on the street outside. I saw a sliver of movement in the window, but I dismissed it as my imagination, given the foggy night and my tired eyes.

With the necklace in one hand and one of the many photographs of us in the other, I took my first determined step towards his house, never taking my eyes off his front door, wondering what the expression on his face would be when he saw me standing on the other side of that door.

I lifted the photograph and looked at it again. It was the one we’d taken with Julius and Lennox right after we bought them and brought them home. Our babies. Distractedly, I wondered how they were doing. I was more interested in Toni.

I stopped and ran my finger down his face. “I love you,” I whispered, and right then I knew it was true. It was right for me to come back here. I looked up again and smiled. “I’m back,” I whispered to no one in particular. “I’m back, and I love you.”

Suddenly, a slight yellow hue was cast over the photograph and my hands. And it became brighter. I looked up and in front; Toni’s windows were still dark. Where was the light coming from?

I turned to my left. From behind the fog was a pair of yellow lights. Approaching slowly but gaining speed.

A car.

I froze. A sense of complete déjà vu overcame me with a shiver. Again, it was just a few seconds which felt like forever. The last time this scene happened in front of me, I was with Toni, and I was pushing him away. I was scared. I was so scared. But I wasn’t as scared as I was on this day. I wanted to tell Toni I loved him. I had to. I turned back in front to check his windows, but they were still unlit, so I turned back.

Please, not again.

It was close. Oh, it was so close. I willed my legs to move, but they wouldn’t cooperate. Oh, please, I thought as I stood there, still frozen, gripping on to the necklace and the photograph for dear life. It was so close that it almost bathed me completely in its yellow lights, faded a little by the fog that shielded me from the driver’s view. It was so close, I felt my body vibrate with its engines.

Move. I had to move. Please, I begged my legs again. Please move. But again, I failed.

I clutched the photograph so hard it went all crumpled. I held the necklace tightly in my fist, knowing that it symbolised us. Knowing that if I were to perish here on this night, he would know why I came back, once he saw this necklace.

In those last moments, only one thought ran repeatedly through my mind, like a mantra.

“Hey,” she whispered. “I wasn’t sure which room you were in.”

I forced a smile. “I have to go downstairs. For the…uh…dinner.”

“I know,” she smiled back, a sad smile which sent bad vibes through my every nerve. “I just wanted to say…I don’t even know what to say.”

“Hey,” I said as she looked down to try and hide the tears falling down her face. “Hey, Gabi, don’t cry. I’m sorry, Gabi. I’m so sorry.”

She wept into her hands as I stepped closer and wrapped my arms around her. I’d disappointed her again. I’d disappointed her so many times, but this was the ultimate disappointment. The lost final, the highly-coveted piece of history, the rare opportunity lost, and the fear of never getting to try it again.

“Toni, I –“ she choked.

“Shhhh,” I rubbed her back gently while trying to hold my own tears in. “Shhh, please don’t cry. Please, Gabi. I’m so sorry.”

“Please don’t be sorry,” she whispered. “It’s not your fault.”

“Come on, go back to your room, okay?” I took her hand and led her to the lifts. She pressed the button for the ninth floor.

“Can I…” she hesitated, and then looked at the ground as if it was the most interesting thing she’d ever seen. “Um…can I see you later?”

“Of course,” I whispered. I couldn’t speak any more if I didn’t want my voice to give me away.

“I’m sorry,” she whimpered.

“Gabi…” I started, before a lump in my throat stopped me.

She looked up at me in concern while wiping her tears hastily. “Don’t cry,” she choked out a laugh.

“Look who’s talking,” I chuckled.

She reached out and gently wiped my tears before they could fall. “Be strong,” she whispered.

I nodded and forced another smile, although right then all I wanted to do was to fall to the floor outside Gabi’s room in a heap and stay there until I was ready to face the world again. But I was running late for the banquet, so I just wrapped my arms tightly around her instead.

“Everything will be fine, okay Gabi?” I whispered into her hair. I had to stay strong for her. And for everybody else. “Please don’t cry. I’ll be back here later. Wait for me if you can’t sleep.”

“Okay,” she whispered back. “I’ll wait for you.”

She stuck her hands in her pocket and watched as I walked back to the lifts. I turned around to take one last look at her, and she lifted one shaking hand to wave at me. “Bye,” she mouthed.

Gabi’s POV

“Are you done?” Louise demanded, jabbing her finger at the digital clock on our shared bedside table. “The report is supposed to be up at most thirty minutes after the celebrations. I already gave you an extra twenty minutes. Please tell me you’re done, Gabi.”

“Okay, okay,” I whispered. “I’m done. I just sent it to you.”

She heaved a sigh and came over to sit beside me. “I’m sorry for yelling,” she said. “It’s just…you didn’t just come here to watch the match, you know? We gave you this responsibility for a reason. Because we thought you could do it. And we hoped you wouldn’t let us down. There are still others in the nearby rooms – if you couldn’t do the report, you could have asked them. I don’t want to see this happening again, okay?”

“Yeah,” I sobbed. “Okay. Sorry.”

“Gabi…” she reached over and hugged me tightly. “I’m sorry about the loss. But there’s really nothing you can do about it now. I’m sorry. I know how much it means to you…and to Toni. But please, please don’t cry anymore. Go to bed, okay? I’ll check the article and post it up for you. Please have some rest. And stop crying, you don’t want to ruin your pretty eyes.”

I lay down with my back facing her, trying to control my ugly sobbing and failing horribly. As hard as I tried to drift off to sleep, I just couldn’t, so I just lay there. I heard her sigh in relief as she finished the work. Her sheets rustled as she got up and went out of the room to check on the other writers, who were in charge of other articles.

“Awake?” my phone buzzed with the text from Toni. I got up and padded silently to the door, only to run into Louise on the other side.

“Where are you going?” she asked. I couldn’t find my voice to answer her, so she guessed, “Toni?”

I nodded, so she gave me another hug before closing the door. The lift doors opened to reveal Toni’s forlorn figure trudging out and towards my room.

“Are you staying here tonight?” I asked, my voice hoarse.

“They told us we can stay if we want,” he shrugged. “I’m staying with you.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to,” he grabbed my hand and dragged me inside the lift. “Come on, we have to tell each other all our stories.”

I kept my head bent low all the way to the eighteenth floor and to his room. He didn’t speak to me, but he held on to my hand tightly, as if he knew exactly how I was feeling and that he felt the same way.

He gave my hand an encouraging squeeze before letting it go to open the room door. Once inside, he checked the mini cooler while I dragged my feet over to the bed and sat down. His head reappeared above the counter with a cheeky smile as he brandished a bottle of wine.

“You like?” he asked.

I smiled and shrugged.

I heard a pop and then the clink of glasses as he brought it over to the bed and sat next to me. “Come on,” he said soothingly. “Let’s get drunk and forget everything, okay?”

He poured the wine into a glass and handed it to me, but I shook my head. He handed me the other empty glass. “I know you don’t like wine, so I stole these for you,” he reached under his jacket and produced two bottles of beer, one from each inner pocket. “Beer in a wineglass, very classy eh Gabi?”

I couldn’t help but laugh as he opened the beer and started pouring it into the glass instead of handing it to me. But that laughter soon turned to tears as the irony of the whole situation dawned on me.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “I mean, I’m supposed to be the one comforting you, but you…now…I’m the one crying and you’re the one doing the comforting.”

“Hey,” he said softly, scooting over closer to me. “It’s okay, Gabi. Just forget it, okay? I know it’s hard. Tonight was the worst night of my life, as well. I know it won’t be easy for us to get over it, but we have to. So…just for tonight, we’ll forget everything, okay? Everything. Please don’t cry, Gabi. You have to be strong. This is just…” he choked on his words, as if he wasn’t even convinced anymore. “It’s just a small blip…in everything. Next season…it will be better…right? It has to be better.”

“Toni,” I mumbled, grabbing the glasses and bottles from him and putting them on the bedside table. I reached over and hugged him tightly. “It will be better. I know it will. I’m sorry. Just…just cry it out, okay? Cry it out. I’m sorry. I’m here now, just cry everything out, and then we’ll get drunk and forget it just for the night, okay?”

He didn’t answer. He buried his face in my sweater and wrapped his arms tightly around me, and he cried. He cried so much, my entire shoulder was wet.

I was briefly transported to the time when he lay in his bed, refusing to face me or talk to me, because he thought he’d let me down by not being included in the German U-21 team. I remembered how his body trembled with sobs as I desperately tried to make him feel better.

And I heard Amelie’s voice in my head, clear as day; Amelie telling me how much Toni cried trying to explain to her why he didn’t want to talk to me. Telling me that she’d never seen a boy cry so much in her entire life.

I looked at Toni, sobbing violently in my arms, and all the memories of us being there for each other came back to me. But before I could dwell on them for too long, he suddenly raised his head and pulled himself out of my arms.

“Better?” I asked as he wiped his tears on the back of his hands. He nodded, but his face was still wet, so I laughed and offered him my sweater sleeve. “Here, use this.”

He glanced at me questioningly, so I just reached out and wiped his face for him. Then I stood up, slipped his suit jacket off his shoulders, and hung it up in the closet. I took my sweater off and hung it beside his jacket. When I returned to the bed, he was holding the glasses of wine and beer.

“Let’s get drunk, bestie,” he said in a ridiculously playful tone which I couldn’t help but giggle at.

Toni’s POV

“Oh, my God,” Gabi hiccupped as she flopped over on the bed. She was so drunk. The beer wasn’t even enough for her, apparently, because she’d taken the remaining wine from me and drank it all. She’d even made me open a new bottle from the cooler. “Remember when…” she giggled, and then stopped talking.

I flopped down beside her. “Remember when what?” my words were all slurred, I was so wasted.

She giggled again. “I forgot.”

“Remember when you forgot?” I asked, confused.

“Shut up,” she put her hand on my face and shoved it aside.

“My turn,” I removed her hand from my face. “Remember when Lennox peed…on your books?”

“Ugh,” she whined. “Nobody wants to buy them…because they…they’re all…pee-ish.”

“Pee-ish?”

“Yes…pee-ish.”

I laughed. Without even thinking, I picked up her hand and kissed the back of it.

She giggled again. She couldn’t stop giggling. “That tickles…do it again.”

I did it again, this time watching the expression on her face. She closed her eyes as my lips touched her skin, and then she opened them and gazed at me. There was almost a pleading look in her eyes. With my mind dazed by the bottle of wine that I’d downed, the next thing my drunk instinct told me to do was to continue.

I dragged her closer to me, closing the gap between us, and kissed her hand again, this time tracing an entire path of kisses up her right arm. Her eyes never left mine as I did it, her beautiful blue eyes which pierced through my every cell.

“I think I just got un-drunk,” she whispered.

“Un-drunk?” I asked, our faces just inches apart. “That’s a sign that you’re still drunk.”

“I really want to kiss you right now,” she confessed.

Before my brain could even process that sentence, my itchy mouth said, “Then kiss me.”

Without any further warning, she shifted her head towards me and planted her lips on mine gently. The alcohol did a horrible job at numbing anything, because a jolt of electricity shot through my entire body.

“Wow,” Gabi whispered, as if it was the very first time she’d ever kissed me. “That…I…I feel like someone just tasered me.”

And that was when I realised it was because she felt that same jolt of electricity.

“Do you like being tasered?” I asked.

She paused. Slowly, she released her hand from my grip and moved it towards my face, resting it gently on my cheek. I wasn’t sure where this was going. We were both drunk and confused, and I didn’t know if what she felt – or what I thought she felt – was real or fake; but with all I had, I hoped that the next word she uttered was the truth.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“I like being tasered, too,” I whispered back.

“Let’s taser each other then.”

Before I could even process that statement, she jerked my head violently towards her and pressed her lips onto mine eagerly. She gave a soft moan as I responded, her hands snaking up through my hair and her body pressing hard against mine.

I didn’t want her to stop, of course, and I didn’t want to stop myself either. I wrapped my legs around her and dragged her on top of me.

“Remember when,” she panted in between kisses. “I got drunk and tried to rape you?”

“Remember when,” I slid my hands under her t-shirt. “I stopped you?”

“Are you going to stop me now?”

“Is this you,” I reached up and caressed her face. “Or the alcohol?”

“My hands…and lips…” she kissed me some more. “They aren’t controlled by alcohol.”

“You sure?” I gasped, but I didn’t need an answer, because I looked into her eyes and saw the deepest look of longing, the purest gaze, not fogged by the heaviness of the alcohol, even though I knew she was completely wasted. I was, too, and so I couldn’t stop myself when I reached further underneath her shirt and yanked it off.

“This is me, Toni,” she whispered, unzipping my pants. “All of me. And tonight, I want you.”

Gabi’s POV

He didn’t try to stop me. I didn’t want to stop. Within a furious ten seconds or so, we were stripped completely naked and lying there in the messed-up sheets, my legs straddling his body.

He stared up at me, his chest heaving up and down with his shallow breaths as his eyes moved down my body, and then up again until they landed on my face.

“You like?” I asked him.

“Gabriele,” he closed his eyes and sighed loudly. “You look amazing.”

There was a slight haze covering my mind, but I still knew one thing – that I wanted this. I didn’t know why, or how; I didn’t know anything else, but I knew I wanted this. I lifted myself and gently lowered myself onto him again so he slipped comfortably into me, grabbing his biceps tightly as he groaned in pleasure.

“Gabi,” he whispered as he grabbed the back of my neck and pulled my face down closer to his so he could devour my mouth again. “Oh, my Gabriele.”

“I’m yours,” I breathed. “I’m yours tonight.”

“I’m yours forever,” he moaned as his lips surrounded my nipple eagerly, sucking on it and taking me higher. His hands moved lazily down my body and rested on my backside, just squeezing it softly, opening me further and gently lifting me up and down. It was perfect. We fit perfectly.

I yelled out in shock as he suddenly rolled over and pinned me under him. He traced kisses down my neck and then lifted my hands one by one to kiss the back of them, all the while his hips still moving, still ramming himself deeper into me. We fit, oh we fit so perfectly, it was like we were made for each other and nobody else.

“Relax, baby,” he whispered, his lips surrounding my earlobe.

And that was when I realised my nails had been digging into his back and my teeth had been gritted in anticipation. My insides were tightening, and it was as if his words were a mantra, because I suddenly let go, I was suddenly released from the top of a cliff, falling, falling, faster and faster.

Was I falling to my death? I didn’t know. It certainly felt that way. I saw images flashing past, and I thought I was dying. Images of us, me and Toni, and everything we went through. How we met, how we got together, how we kept it from my family and eventually let them know, how we used to hang out at each other’s houses, how we lived in Cologne like a little married couple having the time of their lives, how we got the dogs, how I got into the accident, and finally how we got to where we were today – because I was so indecisive, because he loved me so much and I couldn’t decide if I loved him back.

The last moments before I fell into a disturbed, drunken sleep were haunted by the possibility that he might regret it the next morning, that he might hate himself or be angry with himself because of me. That he might be upset because he let me down again, but in reality he didn’t. I didn’t want Toni to be hurt. I never wanted Toni to be hurt.

------

I woke up to Toni curled around me like a vine, a wild throbbing in the centre of my head, and the sun shining brightly through the window. I groaned, and then slapped my hand over my mouth when I realised Toni was still asleep.

I lay there as the past night’s events came back to me scene by scene, and I groaned again, internally this time. As gently as I could, I removed Toni’s arms and legs from around me and climbed out of bed, putting on my underwear and grabbing the nearest piece of clothing I could find.

Just as I was attempting to leave the room, Toni’s half-asleep and hungover voice came from the bed. “Gabi,” he called hoarsely.

I stopped. “I’m sorry,” I whispered without turning around.

He hesitated before asking, “Do you regret it?”

Do you regret it? If you regret it, then I do.

“I don’t know,” was what I said instead. As calmly as I could, trying to stop my hands from trembling, I opened the room door, slipped out, and closed it softly behind me.

“Where have you been?!” Louise demanded as I opened the door to our room.

“Shhh,” a sharp pain shot through my head. “Don’t yell at me.”

She eyed me from top to toe. “Walk of shame, Gabi?”

“How did you know?” I blurted out, and then blushed. “I mean…what?”

“You’re wearing his shirt…and no pants,” she pointed out. “What the hell? Did you run into anyone on the way here?”

I looked down only to see that I was wearing Toni’s white shirt from last night’s banquet – and my shorts were missing. “Jesus Christ,” I muttered, covering my face with my hands and sitting down on the bed.

“What happened? Did he make you do anything you didn’t want to? Are you okay?”

“No, no I –“ I suddenly burst into tears. “No…I…I don’t know. I don’t know, Louise.”

Suddenly, there was a knock on our door. “Hey,” Toni’s muffled voice came in through the cracks. “It’s me. Toni.”

“Do you want to see him?” Louise asked me.

I lay down on the bed and faced away from the door. “Can you…tell him I’m not here? Please.”

She went over to the door and opened it. “Uh…is Gabi inside?” Toni asked.

“She’s not here.”

“She left her things,” Toni said, presumably handing Louise my clothes. “And…uh, can you please tell her I’m sorry?”

“Okay,” Louise said before closing the door. She threw my clothes on top of me as she sat on the bed beside me. “Gabi,” she soothed. “Please don’t cry. I know you went through a lot yesterday night, and I’m saying this as your friend, not your superior, but you have to pull yourself together. You’re here to work, not to play. And if you really want to go to the Euros, you’ve got to buck up. I know you won’t be able to write any articles today, and I’ve got you covered for that. Get some rest, okay? Please pull yourself together. Don’t let us down.”

I nodded and pulled the covers over my head, sobbing silently into my hand. I felt like my entire world had come crashing down on me the previous night. First losing the match of a lifetime, and then doing something I wasn’t even sure was right. Maybe having sex with Toni was supposed to resolve my ‘maybe’ into a ‘yes’ or a ‘no,’ but instead it just made me more confused.

------

“Again?!” Louise yelled. “You slept with him again?!”

“No…yes…I…Louise,” I groaned, my head in my hands. Another hotel, another loss, another wild night with Toni, this time after the Euro 2012 semi-final loss.

“Just get back together already,” she rolled her eyes.

“You don’t understand.”

It was nearly two weeks ago, and we were already back in our London apartment, but I just had to tell Louise, because I felt that I just had to tell someone, and that Louise was the only one who would listen. I remembered that night like it happened a few moments ago.

He was standing there, down the hallway to his room, and staring at me, just gazing at me as if he could read my entire soul from where he was standing. He looked completely broken. We hadn’t talked since that first drunken night, but in those few moments, it was as if everything had been resolved and we were friends again. We still knew each other inside out, top to bottom, in every way possible. And so another passionate night went past under the sheets. Another night to put in my mental book of nights I enjoyed but would rather forget because they made me confused.

“I might not understand, but I definitely understand more than you do,” she smacked me on the shoulder. “I mean Gabi, literally everybody knows you better than you know yourself.”

“Shut up,” I stood up and collected all the Toni jerseys strewn across my room. I folded them up nicely and tucked them into a dark corner of my wardrobe.

“Why are you doing that?”

“Because we aren’t friends anymore,” I said quietly.

“Jesus, Gabi,” she went and sat on the floor beside me. “You know you still want to be friends with each other.”

“Do we?” I asked, my voice breaking from my sudden tears. “I don’t know, Louise. I’m so confused.”

She wrapped her arms around me tightly. “He loves you.”

“I know,” I sobbed.

“Then why are you doing this? Why don’t you just…let him?”

“I…I don’t know. Why? Why does he love me? There are so many things about me that…that are flawed. I don’t…what if…what if I screw up? I don’t want to screw up. I feel like I know him inside out, but at the same time…I don’t know. It’s like there’s a missing piece in the whole puzzle. I don’t want to waste his time, or cheat him of his feelings…or whatever. I can’t give him an answer…because I can’t say it if I don’t know if it’s the truth.”

“Oh, Gabi,” she whispered. “Why do you care so much about how he feels? Love can be selfish sometimes. Why don’t you think about how you feel for once?”

“I don’t know how I feel,” I whispered.

She rolled her eyes. “Of course. But I think you already know, Gabi. You just can’t see it yet. I mean, even I know, just by looking at the two of you.”

------

I hadn’t spoken to Toni since the day of the Euro semi-finals. In fact, we hadn’t even spoken much on that night, unless moaning was counted. Four months had already passed, and the weather was already getting colder, but there wasn’t a single peep from him. Or from me. Even Louise was on the verge of giving up.

Surprisingly, Louise was waiting for me on a park bench as I finished my usual routine of kicking a ball myself and getting lost in my thoughts; one of the last few chances I had before the cold London winter set in. She sat there with one leg crossed over the other, staring at me curiously as I made my way over to her with a ball tucked under my arm.

“Why do you always do that?” she asked.

“Do what?”

“Lob the ball into the bin.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know, I just like doing it.”

“You’re really good,” she nudged me as we started on the short walk home. “Every shot goes in.”

“I’m still learning,” I shook my head and looked down in embarrassment. “Why are you here?”

“My cousin is here,” she told me. She’d told me about her cousin coming over to visit, but that had been a few weeks ago and I hadn’t expected time to pass by so quickly. “He’s a few days ahead of schedule. You didn’t bring your phone, so I decided to come over and fetch you home before going to settle some office stuff. Then you won’t be scared or think he’s a burglar or something.”

“I’m not a kid,” I complained.

She laughed. “Well, he can be quite intimidating.”

And I knew exactly what she meant the moment I set my eyes on him.

Sat on our couch was a well-built figure; wide shoulders, firm arms and a well-fitted shirt; tousled hair and deep brown, brooding eyes. He looked so familiar, but I couldn’t put a name to the image of him. Until he made eye contact with me as I stood with Louise by the front door.

His eyes widened when he saw me staring at him expectantly and a little bit confused. And then, right then, I knew who he was. I recognised him immediately.

“Gabriele?” he couldn’t even hide the surprise in his voice.

The recognition almost knocked me off my feet. The part of my life I never wanted to go back to, but somehow found its way back to me again. Miraculously, I managed to find enough of my voice to answer his greeting.

“Enjoy yourself in London,” he said as I bent down to kiss the beagles on their heads.

“Thank you,” I smiled back at him. “I’ll call you…okay? I mean, if that’s fine.”

“Yeah, of course.”

“All the best for the cup match,” I said, standing up. “Score another one, like the one you did on Friday.”

He laughed. “I’ll try,” he said. And then there was a short period of silence before he suddenly turned and wrapped his arms tightly around me. “I’ll miss you so much, Gabi.”

“Awww,” I gave him a tight hug as well. “I’ll miss you too.”

“I’m sorry I’ve been so rude.”

“It’s okay,” I cleared my throat as a lump suddenly appeared in it. “Thank you for always being here.”

“Are you going to cry again?” he asked. Without any warning, he tightened his grip on me and lifted me off the ground, swinging me from side to side. “Don’t cry, crybaby.”

“Hey, stop it!” I giggled, but he didn’t put me down. “Okay, okay, I won’t cry.”

He finally let go of me and put me down on the ground. He put his hands on my shoulders and smiled at me wistfully, a slight hint of sadness in his eyes.

“You have to take care of yourself, okay?” he asked, running his hand down the side of my hair. “I won’t be there to wipe your tears, or climb in your window, or tell you to be strong. You’ve got to do it yourself. I believe in you, Gabi. I won’t be there physically, but I’ll always be just a phone call away if you need me, okay?”

“Thank you so much,” I whispered, tears brimming in my eyes. “You know, I can’t not cry if you’re trying to make me cry, Toni.”

He laughed. “Okay, okay…also, don’t try to rape people again,” he teased.

“Toni!” I started laughing loudly, and he joined in. I reached into my pocket and took out a photograph, the one of the both of us at my graduation ceremony. “This is for you.”

“Awwww,” he stared at it, seemingly mesmerised for a few moments. “Thank you, Gabi.”

“Yeah, it’s okay,” I said softly, not wanting this last conversation to end. I knelt down again and grabbed Julius and Lennox. “Bye, babies. I’ll miss you guys. Be good, okay?”

“Hold on,” Toni said suddenly, running back into his house and reappearing in front of me a few minutes later with a red jersey in his hands. “Here, I’ll give you this. It’s from Friday.”

“Really?” I asked, and he nodded. “Thank you.”

They’d played Köln on Friday, and Toni had scored the last goal in the 3-0 win. He didn’t say it, but I knew we were both thinking the same thing – about Cologne, about the fun we both had together, and about the pleasant coincidence that he’d scored against that city’s club.

I smiled and handed the dogs’ leashes back to him. He put them back inside, and then he came back out and stood beside me again, staring dreamily at me.

“You have to go now, right?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he reached over and gave me another hug. “Goodbye, Gabriele.”

“Goodbye, Toni,” I whispered.

We held on to each other for a long, long time without saying a word. Eventually, he pulled away, giving me one last, longing look, as if he wanted to memorize my face, my hair, every single detail of me before I left. And then he leaned over and gave me a kiss on my head, turned around, got into his car, gave me one last wave and one last smile, and drove away.

Toni’s POV

I was still a few minutes early when I reached the Säbener Straße, so I sat in the car for a while, thinking about Gabi. I took out the photograph from my bag, the one of us at her graduation ceremony.

I remembered the feeling of her arms slowly sliding around my waist, and as she leaned her head into the crook of my neck, where it fit as perfectly as it had before. I remembered the feeling of her smooth ash brown hair under my hand as I smoothened it before resting my hand on her shoulder. I remembered how she smiled at me, so happy and so excited, like it was the best day of her life. And all of those feelings were captured, to be held with me forever, in that photograph.

I turned to the back, where Gabi had written a note in her neat handwriting.

Dear Toni, Thank you for everything you’ve done for me over the years I’ve known you. I’ll never forget all the fun we had together (or at least, I won’t forget it again). It’s been a great pleasure knowing you and I really hope our friendship doesn’t end here. Keep in touch, bestie. You’ll always be my best friend in this entire world. With love, Gabriele

PS: I hope you’ll still wait for me.

“Of course I’ll wait for you,” I whispered, even though there was no one around or in the car to hear me. “I’d wait forever for you, Gabi. What do you think I’ve been doing this entire year?”

I was just going to be a little (okay, very) selfish and hope that she wouldn’t find someone new in London, that she wouldn’t change her mind and go after another man, forgetting the one who’d always be waiting for her back here at home. I hoped that, after all the close shaves I had with losing Gabi, I wouldn’t lose her for good.

Gabi’s POV

“You wish he was here, don’t you?” Amelie asked me as we got off the family car at the airport.

“Who?”

She rolled her eyes. “You know who I’m talking about.”

“He has a match to go to.”

“You still wish he was here.”

“Is this right?” I asked her. “Leaving?”

“It’s your choice, Gabi,” she shrugged. “Why didn’t you just tell him what you really feel?”

“I did,” I said quietly. “We’re friends.”

She sighed knowingly and went silent as I checked in my bags. I thought of a few days ago, when I’d told Toni that maybe I’d changed and maybe I’d find myself in London.

I hoped I’d find myself in London. But more than that, I hoped Toni would still be here when I eventually came back. Because right then, it wasn’t that I didn’t love him. I just didn’t know if I loved him.

------

I checked the block and apartment numbers against the one I’d taken down on my phone. They matched, so I unlocked the door to the place where I’d be spending the days of my near future. It was a small place, but it was cosy, and there were two rooms. Maybe I’d find someone to move in and share the rent.

I put all my things down, too lazy to unpack. And then I went and sprawled out on the couch, taking out my work phone and inserting the SIM card they gave me when I arrived. There were no contacts inside. Automatically, I keyed in Toni’s number – not even knowing how I’d remembered it in the first place.

My finger hovered over his number for a few moments, not sure if I should call him. It was 8 pm in Germany. What if he was still eating dinner? Or having a briefing with his teammates? Or preparing for bed? What if I was disturbing him?

I sighed and covered my face with both my hands. Why did I want to call him so bad?

Right at that moment, my old phone, the one with the German number, started buzzing.

“How are you? Everything fine?” the text read.

It wasn’t my parents. It wasn’t Amelie, either.

It was Toni.

I bit on my lip hard to suppress my smile, only to realise that there wasn’t anyone around to judge me, so I just grinned as widely as my cheeks would allow me. Without any more hesitation, I picked up my work phone and called him.

“Hey,” I said when he picked up. “It’s me. Save my number, okay? It’s my work phone. I’ll text you when I get my own number.”

“Of course,” he said. “How are you?”

“Lonely,” I sat up and looked around at the empty apartment. “I miss you,” I said before I could stop myself.

He paused for a long while. Then he laughed softly and said, “Yeah, I miss you too…although it’s only been, uh, ten hours.”

“How’s Bochum?”

“Fine, I guess,” he said. “I mean, it’s…still Germany, right? Everything is very German.”

“Yeah,” I laughed.

“How’s London?”

“Very English,” I teased.

“Can you feel me rolling my eyes at you right now? Because I’m rolling my eyes at you. Right now.”

I burst out laughing at the image in my head. “Yes,” I told him. “I can feel it.”

“Do you have to hang up?” he asked. “I mean, they’re paying this bill for you, right? Will you get into trouble?”

“That’s the point,” I said. “They’re paying.”

“Gabi, I’m being serious!”

“Okay, okay,” I rolled my eyes, although he couldn’t see me. “I’ll get my own SIM card tomorrow. And then I’ll call you after the match, okay? You better have a goal to talk to me about.”

“I’ll try,” he promised. “Night, Gabi. Stay safe. I love –“ he paused. “Uh, I mean…I’d love to hear from you tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” I said softly. “Night, Toni. All the best for the match.”

I hung up the phone and tucked in to dinner which I’d bought on the way home. With no other sound except that of the curtains rustling, the game show on TV, and the rustling of my takeaway boxes, I suddenly felt terribly lonely. There wasn’t any Amelie to barge into my room with the latest gossip, or my parents to hang out with in the living room.

I went to the window overlooking the little street downstairs. The lights on the opposite block of apartments were on, with people flitting about on their nightly business. I stood there as the sky slowly dimmed from purple to black. There was no Toni to wave at me from the other side.

I sighed, and took out my phone again.

Toni’s POV

I’d just settled into bed when my phone buzzed with a text.

“Maybe I don’t want to be your friend now,” he’d said without looking at me.

“But –“ I’d started, but he’d suddenly gotten out of the car, walked over to the passenger side, and opened my door.

“Have a nice day, Gabi.”

“Toni, I –“

“I can’t do this, Gabi. I can’t do this now. I need some time alone, okay? Take care of yourself.”

I closed my eyes again as I remembered the last words he’d said to me all those days ago. No more familiar silhouette from across the road, waiting for me. No more surprise visits up the pipe. No more rocks flung at my window to get my attention. And no more Toni, not in my room, on the street, at the dinner table, or in my life. I hadn’t seen him in weeks.

Suddenly, my room door opened a crack, and Amelie peeked in. “Gabi,” she called softly, walking over and sitting next to me on the bed. “We baked some cookies. Do you want some? Come downstairs and eat with us.”

“Go away, Amelie,” I said with a lump in my throat.

“Gabi, don’t be like this,” she tugged on my sleeve. “I’m sure it’s hurting him as much as it’s hurting you.”

“Oh, really?” I demanded. “Yeah, I’m sure it does. That’s why he hasn’t talked to me in so many weeks, or called, or shown any sign that he’s still alive, except being on the bloody TV playing his bloody football. He plans his schedule so damn carefully, you know? He plans it so that he’d never run into me on the street ever. Even when walking the dogs. Yeah, I’m sure it hurts him as much, Amelie.”

There was a short silence as Amelie thought of what to say, as if she wasn’t sure if she was supposed to say it. And then she started, a little hesitantly, and then more determinedly as if all she wanted was for me to understand what Toni was going through.

“Do you remember when you first came back from the hospital?” she asked. “Remember how you and Toni only said hi to each other whenever you guys ran into each other on the street, and he never talked to you? And then remember that day, when you saw me playing with the dogs together with Toni and Felix, and the four of us went for a walk together, and Toni started talking to you again?”

“Yeah, and?” I asked back. Of course I’d remember that day.

“That was the day Felix and I ambushed Toni in his room, and asked him exactly why he refused to talk to you. Because we knew he loved you, and we knew he’d given everything for you when you were in the hospital. And do you know what he told us? He told us how much it hurt him that you woke up every night screaming – but that it hurt him even more that you’d look at him with those expressionless eyes whenever he talked to you. It hurt him that you didn’t recognise him. And that’s why he took so long to talk to you again. And he cried so much, Gabi. He cried so much that day, telling us how much it hurt. I’ve never, ever seen a boy cry so much in my life. He went to your bedside every single day, talking to you, reading to you, hoping that you’d wake up and tell him you loved him. And he blamed himself for the accident. He felt so, so guilty that he wasn’t able to save you, and that you got injured, and that you had to lie there for weeks, because you saved him.

“So believe me when I tell you it hurts him as well, okay? Because it does. I know how much he wanted to talk to you again, to be by your side and to take care of you, but every time he does it, he’s hurting. He’s hurting because he thinks he’s the one who made you this way, and he’s hurting because he knows that things might not ever be the same ever again. And being by your side hurts him so much more, looking into your eyes and not seeing the love that he’s so used to hurts him so much more. But he’s been by your side all this time, hasn’t he? Because he really loves you, Gabi. He really loves you and he wants you to remember everything, even though you’ve told him he needs to wait and you’ve basically friendzoned him. And you know him, Gabi, you know him just as well, or even more than I do. He’d remain by your side forever if that was what it took. Even if you never say you love him ever again.

“Perhaps I don’t have any right to say this at all, but don’t blame him for being so cold. He’s been doing all he could for you, even though it hurts so much inside. You’ve even stopped waking up screaming in the middle of the night after you guys became friends again. He’s been doing such a great job at being strong for you. Any other guy would have snapped much earlier, or forced you to have sex with him or be his girlfriend or whatever; any guy would have stopped being stupid enough to do something that hurts him so much, but Toni is different. He’s been so strong for so long. It’s been more than a year now. Maybe some time alone was what he really needed.”

I turned away from her and buried my face in my pillow, so overwhelmed by whatever she’d just said that I’d started sobbing halfway through. I’d been so used to Toni being by my side that I never questioned why he didn’t come back earlier. I only knew that I wanted him by my side, and I never cared about his feelings. I only knew that he hurt me by keeping his real identity from me, and I never realised how much more it would hurt him to do that. I’d been so selfish.

“If you really want to, you could go over and talk to him,” Amelie said softly. “I’m sure he’ll be willing to listen.”

“Will he?” I sobbed.

“Of course,” she said.

“Elisa and Bertha are back for Christmas,” I told her. “I’m going out with them later. And…do you think he’ll open the door for me?”

“You have his key,” she rolled her eyes. “And just talk to him. It won’t take long. You’re running out of time, Gabi. You haven’t even told him yet.”

Toni’s POV

Someone rang the doorbell. No one had rung my doorbell in ages.

I looked through the peephole and saw Gabi’s forlorn figure standing at my doorstep, looking down, waiting for me to open the door. I hadn’t spoken to her in weeks. I didn’t know what to say to her, after I’d been so rude to her.

So I just stood there for a few moments, staring at her through the distorted view of the peephole, until she looked up and directly at it, not knowing that I was on the other side. And then she put her hand on the doorknob, tested it, found that it was locked, and turned to walk away.

I opened the door. I couldn’t resist it anymore. I opened the door and called out, “Hey.”

She took a double take, as if she couldn’t believe her ears. Slowly, she turned around and stared at me. “Um…hey.”

“You were looking for me?”

“No, I rang your doorbell to look for Basti,” she said cheekily, and then the slight smile disappeared from her face as she realised it wasn’t appropriate to joke. “Uh…I mean, yeah. I was looking for you.”

“What’s up?”

She took a step towards me, and then she hesitated for a moment before running the rest of the way and wrapping her arms around me tightly.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry for everything. I’m sorry I lied to you, and that I made you angry, and I hurt you. I’m sorry that you had to hide from me the past few weeks. I wish you’d talk to me again. I really miss you. I miss you so much, bestie.”

Bestie. I was still her bestie. At least I was that. I couldn’t do this anymore. I couldn’t be away from her, no matter how much it hurt me to stay by her side.

I put my arms around her and gently stroked her back. “I’m sorry, too. I’m sorry I snapped at you, and I’m sorry I haven’t talked to you in so long.”

“Amelie told me everything,” she said. “About how…it hurts you that I…yeah. I’m sorry I didn’t see that.”

I hugged her more tightly. “It’s alright.”

“Will you talk to me again?”

“Of course,” I whispered. “Of course I will.”

“I have something to tell you,” she continued speaking into my shoulder, so I nodded against her hair, but she didn’t continue. She went silent for a long, long while, before she finally pulled out of the hug. “Uh…I’ll tell you later. I…have to go. See you later.”

She smiled, but there was a worried look on her face. As if she didn’t know how to tell me whatever she wanted to tell me. I shrugged it off, thinking that she’d probably been nervous about coming over. “Bye,” I said, waving to her as she walked down the sidewalk.

I’d been avoiding her for the longest time after the little fight that we had, staying inside as often as I could and only walking the dogs when she was out or during the night. I left for training early, taking long drives around the city to make up the time.

Suddenly, I felt stupid. I’d wasted all these weeks alone when I could’ve been by Gabi’s side. And now, things were so awkward between us. I could only hope that everything would go back to normal over the next few days – except I didn’t know what was normal anymore.

------

The sky had just turned dark when there was furious knocking on my door. I got up and opened it, only to have somebody suddenly jump onto me and wrap her arms and legs tightly around me.

It was Gabi.

Her breath smelled of alcohol. Her clothes smelled of alcohol. Her hair smelled of alcohol.

I was frozen to the spot, my hands supporting her thighs, not entirely sure what I was supposed to do with her.

“Gabi, have you been –“ I started to ask the obvious question, but she suddenly smashed her lips onto mine and started kissing me violently.

“Shhh,” she whispered. “Shut up and kiss me.”

I jerked my head away from her. “You’re drunk.”

“I am not,” she started giggling. “I am the most sober I have ever been.”

I carried her over to the couch and tried to put her down, but she refused to let go of me. Instead, she grabbed the back of my neck and pulled me down on top of her.

“Stop it,” I muttered. If this went on, I wasn’t sure how I was going to control myself.

“It’s so hot in here,” she whined, grabbing my hands and leading them towards the zipper at the back of her dress. “Help me out.”

“We can’t do this,” I said, sitting up. She sat up too, but only to grab me by the collar, give me another hard kiss on the lips, and rip my shirt off over my head.

“Hell yes we can,” she mumbled. She pushed me down on my back and climbed on top of me. Then she started kissing me downwards from my neck, lingering at the waistband of my pants before attempting to take them off.

I gritted my teeth and tried to un-excite myself, but Gabi was all over me. When I grabbed her hands to stop her, she swung them around, slid her fingers in between mine, and started kissing the back of my hands gently before leading them to her zipper, again.

I thought of all the times I’d wished to have the old Gabi back. On that day, there she was. The old Gabi was sitting on me.

And suddenly, it was as if I didn’t care anymore. Like I’d lost all the principles I’d clung onto so tightly to before. I unzipped her dress eagerly, slid it off her shoulders and flung it across the room after she was done wriggling out of it.

She lowered her face again, smiling lovingly at me. I knew it was only because she was drunk, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care at all, especially when she slid her hands under the waistband of my pants.

I couldn’t stop a moan from escaping my mouth as her gentle fingers reached the parts that mattered the most. She saw her chance when my mouth opened slightly, so she extended her tongue, allowing it to mingle with mine.

I moved my hands down to her breasts, caressing them over her bra, playing with them briefly before proceeding to her thighs, and then in between her legs. She gasped at the touch, lowering her head to the crook of my neck and gently kissing it, making me shiver even more.

“Oh, my God, yes,” she whispered as my hands continued moving. “Yes, fuck yes, make love to me, baby.”

As if her voice triggered an alarm in me, I suddenly snapped awake. I suddenly realised that Gabi was drunk, and I was about to take advantage of her.

“No,” I muttered. “No, no, no, Gabi, get off. Gabi, we can’t do this.”

“Shhhh,” she said again, raising her head to land soft kisses all over my face.

I wrapped my arms around her and got up, carrying her in the direction of the bathroom, trying to ignore the fact that I had the love of my life in my arms, almost completely naked, her crotch pressed hard against mine, only separated by her underwear and my shorts.

“Where are we going?” she murmured, her lips still tracing lines down the side of my face. “Are you up to something funky again?”

I tried to put her down in the bathtub, but she wound her arms and legs more tightly around me. So I had no other choice but to step into the bath with her, turn the shower to the lowest possible temperature, and brace myself as I turned it on.

“OH, MY GOD!” she yelled as freezing-cold water rained down on the both of us. She let go of me and fell down on her butt in the bathtub, looking up at me, a look of utter confusion on her face. “What the hell is happening?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” I turned off the shower, reached out for a towel and handed it to her. “You tried to rape me.”

She started laughing. “I tried to rape you?”

“It’s not funny, Gabi,” I went and sat next to her in the tub. “What happened?”

“What happened?” she repeated, running her hands through her wet hair, still confused. “I went drinking…with Bertha and Elisa. They’re back for the holidays.”

“And then you came over and tried to rape me.”

She looked down. “I’m sorry.”

“Why did you get so drunk?”

“I…” she hung her head even further. “I don’t know.”

“Hey,” I grabbed her face and lifted it so she’d look at me. “Is anything wrong?”

She smiled. “No, nothing’s wrong.”

“Really? You know you can talk to me, right? I mean, I know that we haven’t been talking for a long time, and that it’s probably weird to sit here wet and half-naked to talk, but if there’s something –“

“I’m moving to London,” she blurted out.

I stared at her for a long time. “London?” I finally asked.

“Yeah,” she looked down, avoiding my eyes. “Yeah, London.”

“For how long?”

She shrugged. “A year? Or more? I don’t know. I got a job and they’re sending me to London.”

“When are you leaving?”

“Monday,” she whispered.

“Monday?!” I almost yelled. I was almost in complete shock. “Today is Saturday. Monday is in two days. Two fucking days, Gabi. When did you know you had to go?”

“Two weeks ago.”

“And you said yes?” I questioned. “You said yes, just like that?”

“Toni, I –“

“Just answer me,” I interrupted.

She took a deep breath, her gaze still directed downwards. “Yeah,” she whispered. “Yeah, I said yes the next day.”

“Jesus Christ,” I leaned my head back against the wall. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You weren’t talking to me!” she covered her face with her hands. “You didn’t want to talk to me. I didn’t know…I didn’t know how to tell you.”

“So you thought our little fight was more important than telling me this?” I demanded. “Seriously, Gabi?”

“No,” she mumbled into her hands. “No, I didn’t…I just…I don’t know. Please don’t yell at me. Please…I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Toni.”

“I can’t believe this,” I muttered.

“I’m so sorry,” she said again, reaching out to grab one of my hands. “Please don’t be mad.”

“Who am I, Gabi?” I didn’t turn to look at her. “Who am I to you?”

“You’re my best friend,” she whispered.

“Really? Because it doesn’t seem that way, Gabi. It doesn’t seem that way at all. You’re leaving, for fuck’s sake. You’re leaving me, and my life is going to change again, and I…wow. I feel like I don’t even know you anymore.”

“Maybe you don’t,” she said softly. “Maybe that knock on the head changed me. Maybe I’m a completely different person from who I was before. Maybe I’ll find myself in London.”

I shook my head slowly, still avoiding her gaze. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I couldn’t believe how selfish she was being. I wasn’t upset at her for leaving; I was upset at her for not telling me.

But then I remembered all my attempts to avoid her, and I realised it was also my fault. It took two hands to clap. And I really couldn’t force her to do anything that she didn’t want to do.

“How did we become like this?” I asked. “How did things turn out like this?”

We sat there for a while, thinking about it. Or at least, I was thinking about it. For a long time, there was complete silence except for the sound of the dripping shower. Eventually, Gabi shook her head and looked downwards as tears started falling from her eyes. “I don’t know. I’m really sorry.”

Seeing her cry was my weakness. Her tears were my ultimate weakness. I couldn’t even be slightly angry with her when she was crying. I reached over and pulled her close to me, pressing her still-wet body against mine. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”

“It’s okay,” her voice quivered. “Maybe I deserve to be yelled at.”

“I’ll miss you.”

“Me, too,” she said as her tears fell on my shoulder. “Are you mad at me?”

“No,” I sighed. I wasn’t even sure how to feel about this entire situation any more. “No, I’m not mad at you.”

“Will you come to see me off?”

“On Monday?” I asked. “I’m flying to Bochum. For the cup match.”

“So you can’t come?” she whispered.

“I’m sorry, Gabi.”

Would it make a difference if I went? I really wanted to send her off, to see her for one last time. But I couldn’t. And with the way things were between us, maybe this clean break was what we needed.

“It’s okay,” her arms moved to hug me more tightly. “I understand.”

“Are you sober now?”

She laughed softly. “Yeah, I guess I’m pretty sober now.”

“Have you eaten?”

She shook her head. “I only drank.”

I got up and pulled her out of the tub. “Go get changed, okay? I’ll take you out for dinner. As a farewell.”

She smiled. “Thank you so much. For every single thing.”

Her face was almost splitting into two with her wide grin as she charged towards us. Her parents gave her a warm bear hug, and Amelie gave her a bone-crushing hug, and then they released her so she started walking towards me.

“Congrats, Gabi,” I beamed at her.

“Thank you,” she giggled. Suddenly, she lunged over and wrapped her arms tightly around me, almost drowning me in her gigantic graduation gown. “Thank you for everything,” she whispered in my ear.

“Thank you for inviting me,” I said into her hair.

“Of course,” she pulled away and smiled. She grabbed my hand and started dragging me along. “Come on, let’s go get some food.”

“Gabi! Toni!” Amelie’s shrill voice came from behind. “Take a picture first!”

Gabi turned around, grinned at me, hooked her arm in mine, and pulled me towards her. Her eyes were filled with the purest excitement and happiness, as if that very day, the day of her graduation, was the happiest day in her life. They were the brightest, glowing aquamarine blue, so joyful and stunning that I was momentarily shocked, completely taken in by them.

My gaze was still fixed on Gabi when as she turned back to the front and towards the camera. I assumed Amelie was staring at me, because Gabi slowly turned her head back around to look at me.

“Hey,” she whispered, nudging me gently with her elbow. “The camera is there. In front.”

I don’t want to look at the camera, Gabi. I want to look at your eyes.

“Hey,” she nudged me again.

“Yeah, I…yeah,” I snapped out of my daze. “Hold on,” I said as she turned back in front. I grabbed her chin and turned her to face me, sweeping her hair out of her face and tucking it behind her ear.

She smiled at me shyly, her cheeks turning a slight pink, and then she wrapped both her arms around my waist and leaned her head in the crook of my neck. Instinctively, my hand rested on her shoulder.

I’m so proud of you, Gabi, I thought as she grabbed my hand and dragged me towards the food. You’re finally here, after going through so much. I’m so proud of you. I wish you knew how proud I am. I wish you knew how proud I am of you, as proud as you were of me all those times. I wish you remembered how that felt.

------

I opened the door with Julius and Lennox’s leashes in my hands, only to feel them being tugged violently as they rushed out towards Gabi, who was standing there with her gaze directed on the ground. She smiled when the dogs reached her and stood up on their hind legs to be petted.

“Hey,” I called, surprised. “Why are you here?”

“To walk the dogs with you,” she turned her smile towards me. “I mean, we got them together in the first place, right?”

“Yeah,” I said as she grabbed Lennox’s leash. “How are you?”

I’d been busy with the football season, both domestically and on the European level, and she’d been busy filing all her work in her portfolio, digging out old pieces and sending her resume out in hopes of scoring an interview. She’d been working so hard, even before she’d even gotten a job, ironically.

We hadn’t had any of our long talks in a long while, and we only saw each other when we were both free, which wasn’t very often. I really missed her, but we both knew I had to give her time and space, so I did, no matter how much it hurt me. It’d been eight months since our reunion in Cologne, and four months since her graduation, and I was still waiting for her. I would always be.

“I’m fine,” she said, and the she paused for a few moments before she continued. “Uh…can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“It’s more of a favour, actually.”

I smiled. “If I can help you with it, I will.”

“You know…how I’ve been compiling all my work?” she started slowly. “Um…I was thinking that it might be better if…you know, the more connections a journalist has, the more reliable he or she is? Maybe I could…you know, get an interview with some Bayern players? Or maybe you? Maybe if I write a piece about you guys, with direct quotes, it would…work better for me.”

I stared at her face, which was creased with worry, and laughed.

“Why are you laughing at me?” she whined.

“I’m sorry, I just…” I laughed even more as she started pouting. “You looked so worried, I thought it was something serious.”

“This is serious, Toni!”

“I’ll help you, of course,” I nudged her on the shoulder. “Don’t be so tense.”

“Really?” her entire face lit up. “Thank you! Thank you so much.”

“No problem,” I laughed again.

Just then, Lennox started running and pulling her along. She giggled, and pulled him back for a while as she reached up, grabbed me and planted a gentle kiss on my cheek. “Thanks, bestie.”

I stood there, staring at her as she started running along with Lennox. It was the exact same feeling as the first time she’d kissed me, outside her doorstep after we’d spent the night sitting on the swings in the playground. I couldn’t control the smile spreading across my face as Julius pulled frantically on his leash, pleading with me to move along.

Maybe my feelings were all one-sided, but it was precisely what made me appreciate every little thing Gabi did that made my heart jump.

Gabi’s POV

I stood behind the barriers with the other fans as the players finished up their training. Toni made a detour towards me, tilting his head towards the entrance of the building as if to say, “Come on.”

Some fans gave me curious looks, but others just stared at me weirdly as I skipped to the entrance and hooked my arm in Toni’s. He smiled down at me before asking, “Who do you want to talk to? Basti?”

“Can I do the both of you? You and Basti?”

He stared at me, and then he started sniggering. “Yeah, you can do the both of us.”

“Hey!” I punched him in the ribs. “What are you, twelve?”

“Somewhere deep inside of me, I’ll always be twelve.”

He stuck his head into the locker room, so I followed suit, peeking in from behind him and looking around the room until I spotted Basti in the corner.

“Hey, Basti,” Toni called, and he turned around. “Can you meet us in the meeting room when you’re done?”

“Okay,” he called back, so Toni brought me further down the hall and into a conference room, where we sat and waited for Basti.

I wasn’t able to stop my hands from shaking as I turned took out my voice recorder and put it on the table, and I wasn’t able to stop Toni from seeing it either.

“Are you nervous?” he asked, a look of concern taking over his face. “Don’t be nervous, Gabi. He’s really nice. He went to the hospital to talk to you a few times. Just treat him as a friend, okay? I’ll be here.”

“Yeah, okay,” I smiled, just as the door opened and Basti’s head popped in from behind it.

“Remember Gabriele?” Toni asked him.

“Yeah, hi Gabriele,” Basti grinned at me as he plopped into a chair opposite us. “Toni’s girlfriend, right?”

“Um…” I stared at him, not sure what to say. “I –“

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Toni interrupted, and I turned to look at him instead, but he avoided my gaze. Nevertheless, I could see how much it hurt him to say those four words. But I knew why he still said it anyway – because it would’ve hurt him even more if he heard them come from me.

“Oh,” Basti said, slightly confused, but he snapped out of it quickly. “Sorry. Uh, you have some questions for me?”

So I cleared my throat and went on with the interview, asking the both of them light-hearted questions which they answered in a laid-back manner, without any pressure, as if they knew how nervous I was about this whole thing. After a while, there was even loud laughter, which led to some other players sticking their heads in to see what was going on.

“Okay, okay,” I panted after the latest round of chuckling. “Last question. Could you tell me about the people in your private lives, such as your parents, siblings, friends or girlfriends, who have played a significant role in your footballing career?”

“Well, you already know that I almost became a skier,” Basti laughed. “My parents own a ski shop. But I guess they’ve always been very supportive of me and Tobias. Tobi plays for Regensburg, so we understand each other even on the footballing level, and we’re quite close, so you could really say that he’s had the biggest impact on who I am today. And of course my girlfriend Sarah, who’s really ambitious on her own, but she’s been very supportive of me and I love her for that. Tobi and I have lots of mutual friends who we hang out with whenever we can, and they’re a great bunch of guys, really supportive of us, so I guess our private lives do play a really huge part in our career even though we usually say otherwise.”

And then I turned to Toni, who of course I already knew everything about, but wasn’t sure about which parts I was supposed to write.

“I have a brother Felix,” he started slowly. “He plays for Werder Bremen and we call each other thrice a week, or whenever we’re free, really. He’s been the best, most supportive brother I could ever have asked for and I’m just glad that I have him. He’s just consistently been there, throughout all the ups and downs. And my dad is a coach for the Rostock youth team, so I have a football family really, and that’s had a huge impact on the player I am today.”

“Anyone else?” I asked. “Like friends…neighbours?”

He raised his eyes to look at me, his seawater eyes with the deepest, most complete look of affection, as if he could talk forever about me, like he wanted to tell everybody everything about me. But it only lasted for a moment, before a look of iciness took over them, and he said, “I don’t wish to talk about the rest of my personal life.”

“Okay,” I said softly, aware that the atmosphere in the room had suddenly become electric. I turned to Basti. “Thanks for your time, Basti,” I stood up and shook his hand.

Without a word, Toni stood up and walked out of the room behind Basti, so I quickly packed all my things and went after him. He got into his car and sat there silently, and I wasn’t sure if he was angry with me, so I just stood outside awkwardly staring at him.

Suddenly, he rolled down the passenger window, turned, bent his neck slightly and looked out the window at me. “What are you waiting for? Get in.”

I got in quietly as he started the engine and started driving. Eventually, the silence got too much for me, and I asked, “Should we talk? About…us?”

“What is there to talk about?” he asked, never taking his eyes off the road. “You’ve already made it clear, and I’m waiting for you to tell me when you’ve made up your mind.”

“Just now, when –“

“Was I wrong? You aren’t my girlfriend. And I really didn’t want to talk about my personal life.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“Yeah, you’re sorry,” he said, gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles went white. “That’s all you can say right now, isn’t it? ‘I’m sorry’ is all you can say. You know, you said that you didn’t want to lie to me, that you didn’t want to say things you didn’t mean. But sometimes I wish you would, you know? I wish you would. Because maybe hearing you say those words, even if you don’t mean them, would hurt less than this. I’ve been waiting for so long, Gabi. I’ve been waiting for ages, but still there’s nothing coming from you. There’s no ‘yes’ or ‘no’ from you. Just a ‘maybe.’ And it’s…really hard. I never mention it to anyone, but it’s really hard to just…be by your side and know that things aren’t the same. It’s not that I don’t want to be your friend, or your best friend, or whatever we are right now. I just…it hurts so much sometimes. It’s not your fault, in fact it’s mine, because your accident…Jesus Christ, Gabi. It just hurts so fucking much, knowing that there’s nothing more I can do, knowing that what we are now, in this awkward place hanging in between friends and more-than-friends, is somewhere we’re going to be stuck in for a long time. We’re a ‘maybe’ now, you know? Just a maybe. Sometimes I wonder if I should have been so selfless. Maybe I should have told you who I was from the start, so we wouldn’t be in this place right now. You know? Sometimes I really regret it, and I really understand why you were so angry with me. But now things are like this, and Jesus fuck, I’ve screwed things up. I’ve fucking screwed things up, Gabi. I’m a fucking screw-up.”

He suddenly hit the brakes, stopping the car abruptly on the road shoulder. Then he got out and started kicking the road divider, just kicking it and punching it without a sound escaping his mouth, until his hands were all bruised.

I got out and ran around the car towards him, desperately grabbing his hands so he wouldn’t injure himself further. He struggled for a little while, but I wrapped my arms tightly around him, sobbing quietly, holding him until he finally stopped thrashing around.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I really want to give you an answer, but…I haven’t found it yet. Trust me, I’ve gotten impatient and confused with myself more than once. And I really want to give you something, I want to give you an answer, but I can’t. I can’t lie to you, not even a little bit. I just can’t bring myself to, after all you’ve done for me. And I’m really sorry, but a ‘maybe’ is the best I can do right now. I can’t tell you ‘yes,’ but I don’t want to end things with a ‘no,’ because I know I won’t mean that either. I understand everything you’ve done and why you did it. I really do, and I appreciate it. I don’t blame you if you give up on me. I’ve wanted to give up on myself many times before. But you know what’s kept me going? You. You’ve kept me going all this while, okay Toni? So don’t you ever think that you don’t mean anything to me. And…I know friends aren’t supposed to do these things, but I don’t know what else I can do right now to show you how hard I’m trying, so…here goes.”

Toni’s POV

She kissed me. Gabi kissed me. She grabbed my face, pulled it towards her, and kissed me hard on the lips. I felt myself shiver again as our lips met for the first time in a long time.

And I didn’t want to pull away. Just like every other time she’d ever kissed me in our lives, I never wanted to pull away. I slid my hand up her neck and into her hair, just resting it there, the both of us just standing at the corner of the road as the cars sped past, some of them honking in delight.

Her kiss was desperate, as if she wanted me to see something I hadn’t seen yet. She poured all her emotions into that kiss, hoping I’d understand; just like how I’d poured all my emotions into our last kiss, hoping she’d understand. But her kiss only told me what I already knew – that she was trying. I knew she was trying. I just wished that it wouldn’t take such a long time. I loved her, oh my Gabriele, I loved her with all my heart, and I wished she would find what she was looking for, both for her good and mine.

I never wanted to pull away, but I did. I pushed her away gently, holding her by the shoulders. “I can’t do this,” I said. “I want to, but I can’t, okay? I can’t do this. Not if you don’t mean it.”

“What if I do?” she asked, her voice trembling slightly. “What if I mean it?”

I stared at her for a few moments. She obviously didn’t mean it. Gabi always wore her emotions on her face, even when it was guilt. Gabi couldn’t lie without showing it on her face.

“You don’t mean it,” I said.

“How do you know?”

So I did the thing that hurt me the most to do. I said those three words, knowing that the answer wouldn’t be what I wanted to hear. In fact, there wouldn’t even be any answer. Because Gabi wouldn’t say it back to me, just like how she’d never said it back to me ever since she lost her memory.

“I love you,” I looked straight into her eyes as I said it. Those familiar eyes, those eyes I would always be able to read. And I meant it when I said it. Just like her, I’d never say it if I didn’t mean it.

There was no answer. Not a single word, just her emotionless eyes boring straight through me as she sucked in a huge breath of air and held it in anticipation of my possible outburst.

“I know you better than you think I do,” I said after a short period of silence. “Don’t you dare lie to me. It’s exactly what I’ve been trying to avoid, and if you lie to me, everything I’ve done will go down the fucking drain, Gabi.”

She closed her eyes and looked downwards, admitting defeat. “I’m sorry.”

“Get in the car. Let’s go home.”

I left the room only to see her charging down the stairs – but she missed the last step and fell to the ground in a heap.

I ran down the stairs myself and knelt down by her side. “Are you okay?” I asked. “Does it hurt anywhere?”

“No,” her voice was thick with tears. “No, just…go away. Go away, Toni.”

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. She tried to get up and walk away, but I wrapped my arms tightly around her and refused to let go no matter how much she thrashed around.

I held her as her body shook with sobs, as she put her hands in her hair and clutched it tightly, and as she rocked back and forth, repeatedly whispering, “Why? Why didn’t you tell me?”

After a long while, she finally calmed down, raising her head slowly and looking me straight in the eyes.

“Do you still love me?” she tried to ask with a straight face, but it was written all over. All over her disappointed blue eyes, her tear-stained face, and her downturned lips, twisted in a painful grimace.

“Yes,” I whispered. “Of course I do.”

“Then why?” she sobbed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

I didn’t reply. I didn’t know how to start, or if she was going to listen and understand. I just sat there, rocking slowly with her, desperately trying to hold in my own tears. I sat there trying to rearrange my thoughts, trying to find a way to say them out loud. I didn’t know how long we sat there, her head in my hands and her hands clenched in fists.

Gabi’s POV

He was silent. He was so silent, it was as if his mind was somewhere else. I knew mine was, mine was somewhere really far away. My mind was on three and a half years ago, when we first got together. I remembered. Suddenly, I remembered every single thing he’d done for me. It all suddenly came to me, clear as day. 

And also in those moments, I found out the reason behind the rollercoaster ride of feelings I’d been having ever since I’d started talking to this boy across the road after my long sleep. I felt the longing, the warmness, the joy, the comfort, the peacefulness, and the pure perfection that came with all the time I’d spent with him; I felt the confusion dissipating as I understood all the reasons why I felt those ways. I felt everything rushing back again, into my head, and it was all so overwhelming I almost started crying again.

But right as I felt that confusion disappearing, I felt a different kind of confusion taking its place. What was I supposed to feel? Did I feel anything at all? Was it what I was supposed to feel? I was so confused, but in a completely different way. It was as if I’d suddenly hopped into an alternate universe, one where everything was different and Toni was somebody else to me.

I didn’t know how to feel at all. I didn’t know if I was ever going to know how I was supposed to feel. Did I love Toni? That was a question I never expected to have to answer ever since I woke up almost half a year ago and found out that a Bayern player lived across the road.

Why did I forget him? How could I have ever done that? Was it because I never loved him, or was it because I loved him too much? Would that even make any sense?

I raised my hands and put them on his cheeks, making him look up at me. His eyes were desperate, torn, and full of guilt. It was everything at once.

And right then, I knew exactly why he’d kept it from me. Just like every other time I remembered, I got my answer just by looking into his eyes. His beautiful seawater eyes.

“You didn’t want me to force myself, right?” I asked, slowly tracing his cheekbones with my thumbs. “You…thought I’d be with you only because you said we were a couple…you thought that you’d be manipulating me, that you wouldn’t know if I really loved you or if I really remembered you…right?”

A look of surprise took over his face. “Yeah,” he said softly. “Yeah, how did you know?”

“Because we’re best friends…remember?”

“Yeah,” he said again. “We’re best friends.”

I let go of him and stood up, so he did the same. “Does anything hurt?” he asked as I dusted myself off.

“Yeah,” I said without looking at him. “My heart hurts.”

He cringed. “Gabi…Gabi, I’m really sorry. I screwed things up. I know I screwed things up. I understand if you don’t want to talk to me. I’m sorry.”

“You’re dumb,” I muttered. “You’re the dumbest boy I’ve ever met.”

He closed his eyes and hung his head. “I know.”

I walked over to the door and opened it. “Good night.”

“Good night,” he said, and then he changed his mind. He ran over before I could leave, grabbed my arm and spun me around. “Do you…still love me?”

“I don’t know,” I snapped. “Do I? Since you think you know everything, including what I should and should not remember, shouldn’t you know this answer as well?”

“Okay, okay sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry, Gabi.”

I took one last look at him, at his messy blonde hair, his crumpled shirt, wet with my tears, his hunched shoulders, and his overall distraught look. I felt something building up in my chest, like a dull ache, a sudden urge to go over and hug him. But I didn’t.

I turned around, walked out the door, and shut it in his face.

Toni’s POV

I’d called Gabi on the phone, but she hadn’t answered. I’d sat at my window and waved at her when she appeared at hers, but she’d just closed her curtains and went away. I’d gone over and flung little stones at her window, but she never came to unlock it and let me in. It was a vicious cycle, over and over again, for the next few days.

I was walking back down the street when Amelie suddenly fell in step beside me. “Hey,” she said. “How’s you and Gabi?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Just…nothing.”

She gave my shoulder a squeeze. “She needs time. Just give her some time.”

“I wish I could explain, you know? I wish she would let me talk to her.”

“You could,” she said, dragging me across the road and up her driveway. “I’ll let you in, and you go talk to her. You’ve got to make this right, okay? I’m rooting for you.”

I thanked her and headed up the stairs to Gabi’s room, but her door was locked. Perhaps she saw us walking up the driveway. I went and stuck my face near it.

“Gabi?” I called. “Hey, I know you’re inside. Can you let me in? I just want to talk to you. Please?”

There was no response.

“I’ll just say it from here, okay? I know you’re listening. I’m really sorry, Gabriele. I’m really, really sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth about us, I’m sorry you had to find out yourself, and I’m sorry I hurt you. At that time, when I decided to let you find out on your own, I thought it was the right decision to make. I didn’t want you to wake up and immediately be faced with the decision of whether you have feelings for me or not. And I thought…I thought that telling you you were my girlfriend would just make you even more confused. And most of all…I didn’t want you to force yourself to be with me, like you were only going to be my girlfriend because you were supposed to. Maybe you’ve forgotten the feelings you had for me, and I can’t force them back on you. I can’t bring myself to do that. Because I love you, Gabriele, and it doesn’t matter whether I can be with you or not. It doesn’t matter to me, as long as you’re happy.

“I’m sorry if you feel that you can’t trust me anymore. I know this sounds like a lame excuse, but I did what I thought was the best. Maybe it isn’t, and I’m sorry for that. You had a fresh start, one from before you met me, and maybe I shouldn’t have reappeared in your life once again. Maybe it would have been better that way. But…I can’t do it. I love you. I love you so much, Gabi. And that’s why I thought it would be better if I gave you the chance to rediscover your feelings for me, instead of somehow forcing it on you. I’ve wanted to tell you, I’ve almost caved in and told you everything, so many times, but I just couldn’t bring myself to.”

I heard her soft footsteps walking towards the door, and I waited for her to open it, but she didn’t, so I just continued.

“I love you so much, you know? I love you more than anything else in this entire world. And it was so hard…so hard to live like I did since you had that accident. To be by your side yet not being able to give you everything you needed. And not being able to tell you the truth, even though all I wanted to know was if you still loved me.”

I felt tears stinging my eyes, so I sat down on the floor, leaned on the door and buried my face in my hands. I felt the door move slightly, and I knew she was there, on the other side, doing the same thing. But I had so many things to say, and I couldn’t just stop there, even though she wasn’t responding.

“Remember when we first kissed? I don’t know if you remember it. I hope you do. It was the night I made my Bayern debut. It was the best night of my life, hands down. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe you were finally mine. And the past four years, since I first moved in across the road, have been the best four years of my life. I can’t imagine life without you around, Gabi. I prayed so hard, I went to your room every night when you were in hospital, talking to you, desperately hoping that you’d wake up and tell me that you loved me. You eventually did, you woke up, but you didn’t say the words I hoped you would. And it hurt. It hurt so bad, Gabi, but I knew I had to let you live your own life, no matter what it would be. I’m just glad I got to be your best friend again. I’m glad you believed me when I told you I was. I’ve never lied to you. I know I haven’t told you the entire truth, but I swear, I’ve never lied to you. I know I told you I didn’t like any girls, but that’s because I don’t. I love you. Only you.”

I couldn’t help but give a little chuckle. “And I told you we did it on the beach in Greece because I was horny. I don’t think that was a lie, either. Because I was horny, and I made you horny too. Because that’s what boyfriends do, right?”

I sighed. “Thank you, Gabi. Thank you for letting me be by your side.”

Gabi’s POV

I put a hand over my mouth, trying to silence my sobs, knowing that if I made a sound, he would hear it from the other side. Our heads were only separated by a few inches of wood.

“I’m so sorry, Gabriele,” his muffled voice came across again. “I don’t know what to do to make you forgive me. I don’t know if you ever will. I can only try. And I just want to let you know…I love you. I love you so much. I always have, and I always will. I’ll always be here waiting, even if things between us never return to the way they were. I’ll always be here for you. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I love you so much.”

His voice petered off into a whisper in the last sentences, so he stopped talking, but I knew he was still sitting there, on the floor on the other side of my door. I couldn’t control my sobs anymore. I just sat there, rocking slowly, crying my guts out, gasping for air. I didn’t care anymore.

After a while, I heard Toni’s voice again.

“I’m sorry,” his whisper floated in through the gaps around the door. “I’m so sorry you got into that accident because of me. I know I brought this upon myself. And I understand if you’re angry, or confused, or anything. Please don’t cry, Gabi. It hurts me, too. I love you. Please be strong. Be strong for yourself.”

“I’m sorry, too,” I whispered back, not even sure if he could hear me. “I’m sorry I walked out on you the other day. I’m sorry I yelled at you, and…I’m sorry it took me so long. I’m sorry.”

Evidently he’d heard me, because his voice came right back. “Don’t be sorry, Gabi,” he said, and then he paused, as if he wasn’t sure if what he was going to say was the right thing.

“I love you,” he said softly.

I didn’t know how to respond except to start crying again. I sobbed loudly into my hands, because I couldn’t say it if I didn’t know if it was true. I couldn’t bring myself to lie to him, not even a little bit, because it was exactly what he had been trying to avoid by keeping all of this from me.