[ eins ]
"Thomas!" A little girl wearing a primary school uniform ran onto the training field with her backpack slung over her shoulder and her pony tail flowing behind her. Her straight ebony hair was the same as her mothers and her piercing green eyes shone brightly with excitement as her little legs carried her across the field. Each day after getting out of the primary school, she would be taken to the Bayern Munich training ground where her parents worked. And each day she had the same routine: say hello to her parents, then she would find Thomas who always had a present for her.
When she was close enough, Thomas crouched down to meet her gaze and waited with open arms. The child jumped into his embrace and both fell onto the grass laughing. "Hallo Lolita!" The German footballed greeted her in a goofy voice, making a giggle escape her lips. She always found the way he said her name to be especially amusing. His language, which was different than hers, made the pronunciation of names entirely different.
Lolita sat on the grass next to her tall German friend. "Did you bring me something today?" She wiggled her eyebrows at him.
The eighteen year old footballer reached into his training jacket pocket and got out a chocolate covered marshmallow pop shaped like a clown, just like the ones she used to eat when she lived in Spain. Her smile was wide with happiness as she took the candy from him. "Oh, thank you, Thomas! These are my favorite!" She said, quickly getting rid of the wrapper and taking a bite of the pop.
He nodded, "I know. Your mother told me you liked them, so I ordered a big box of them all the way from Spanien. But I may have ate a few." He placed a hand over his stomach and laughed.
"Hey!" She pretended to be upset.
"Lolis..." Her father called in a semi-scolding tone. "Go sit on the bleachers and let Thomas get back to his therapy sessions. Your mother says that if he slacks off again, it'll be longer before he can play."
The small girl nodded and skipped off to sit on the benches while Thomas headed inside the building to continue with his therapy.
-
one year later, october two thousand & eight.
When the Gallegos family moved to Munich, they settled in a large ranch, which they had purchased for their daughter Lolita. At eleven years of age, the young girl had been living her dream of becoming an equestrian. Her father had even gotten her a beautiful white horse which she named Palomo, or Dove.
Little Lolita started spending more time at her practices and her parents didn't take her to their job anymore.
It was on a rainy day that equestrian practice was cancelled for Lolita and Gabriella got a call from her eleven year old daughter. It seemed to be a lucky coincidence for Thomas that Gabriella's car was in the shop and Ernesto needed to be at training with the other players and when he was asked to give Gabriella a ride to pick up Lolita, he jumped at the chance.
They arrived at the equestrian training grounds quickly and the eleven year old hurried into the car under the pouring rain. Gabriella frowned at the sight of her small daughter. "I told you never to stand in the rain like that, Dolores." She said in a scolding tone. "Now you're going to catch a cold. Thomas," She now looked to the nineteen year old footballer who had been mysteriously plagued with minor injuries over the past year, "Will you take us back home before we head to training? Lolita needs to change into something warm."
He smiled at her, "Of course, Gabi." There was nothing he wouldn't do for her.
-
They arrived at the training ground almost an hour later to find the players were still in the locker room, most of them soaking wet from having stood under the falling rain for a while. Some stood at the sight of their physical therapist, the beautiful wife of their team manager.
"What's going on?" Gabriella asked the group of footballers. "Where is Ernesto?"
"That's what we wanted to ask you." Bastian replied.
But Gabriella only shook her head, saying, "Ernesto and I left separately because I needed to pick up Lolita. He should have arrived by now." The twenty nine year old physical therapist feared the worst. She knew her husband never went anywhere without telling her and he would never skip training unless something were wrong.
"I'm sure he's fine." Thomas assured, placing a hand on her shoulder gently.
In that moment, a silence hung in the air until it was interrupted by the loud ringing of her cellphone. She whipped it out of her pocket to check the caller ID. It was an unknown number, but something in the pit of her stomach told her the call had everything to do with Ernesto and his whereabouts. She grabbed Lolita by the hand and pushed her towards Thomas. "Will you boys please play with her? Distract her while I take this call."
"What's wrong with daddy?" The little girl wondered, but no one answered her question.
Instead, Thomas easily lifted her small body in his arms ans carried her towards his locker. "Want to see what I have for you today?" He grinned, trying to get her mind off her father.
The eleven year old smiled. "A clown pop!"
"Ja," Thomas nodded. "And then you can show us your equestrian skills. Your mum has told me you're getting better and better at it each day."
"But I don't have my horse." Lolita pointed out.
"Uncle Bastian will be your horse for today." Thomas offered, and momentarily, the girl had forgotten that no one knew where her father was.
While the players did their best to entertain the little girl, they suddenly heard the cries of Gabriella, who had been given some news about her husband. "No!" She cried, "Ernesto no!"
"What's wrong with mommy?" Lolita's giggles ceased and were replaced with a look of worry.
"Nothing, Lolita." Thomas insisted. "Now show us what you've been practising."
"Uncle Basti needs to jump over this bench, but he can't." said the little girl.
Thomas eyed his friend. "Basti, jump over the bench."
"I can't while I'm on all fours!" Bastian complained.
Gabriella soon emerged from the other end of the locker room with tears streaming down her face. Her sobs were now under control, but she was doing it so as not to scare her daughter. With her purse in hand and cellphone in the other, she didn't even have time to question what Bastian was doing on the floor when she told Thomas, "I need you to get me to the hospital, please. There was a horrible accident and Ernesto's been hurt."
-
i am actually quite excited to be writing this story. so i hope you like the updates. i know i'm posting them a bit too frequently, but i'm really excited about this. so anywa, thank you all for reading and supporting. it means a lot to me.
oh, and on the top bar thing i posted a pic of what gabriella looks like. its victoria ruffo back when she was young and pretty. haha.
i love you.
-clary xx
