january fourth | neymar jr

chapter fifty-six

Morgan

February 4, 22

  As soon as the paparazzi crowded Neymar, Rafaella and I got separated from him. A woman pushed me to the left, and with that I was pushed away from Rafaella myself. "Rafa?" I called, to which there was no response. Over the yelling and screaming, I probably wouldn't be able to hear her response anyway.

  "Neymar?" I said, pushing through the crowd. I stood on my tip-toes to see over the crowd, maybe I'd be able to point him out amongst the crowd. A lot of them seemed to be heading more towards the parking lot, so I figured that's where Neymar was heading.

  After a minute of being pushed and shoved, I decided to give it a break and wait until everything calmed down. I shoved past a teenage girl, who seemed to recognize me, but I didn't care. "Morgan!" I heard her yell with a French accent. I just ignored her and continued pushing my way past the crowd to get to the entrance of the museum, where I'd wait for Rafaella and Neymar.

  After making my way to the edge of the crowd, the entrance was visible and there was no longer a line. I saw a few people there, still, but they didn't seem to be in line, they were all standing along the wall.

  "You got trampled on, too?" A little girl who looked familiar said. I scrunched my eyebrows at her, confused. First of all, I could swear I've seen her somewhere before. She also looked maybe thirteen or fourteen and had absolutely no one near her that was paying attention to her.

  "Uhm, yeah," I said, dusting off my jeans and my sweater, making sure no one spilled anything on me or anything. I looked up at her and scrunched my nose. "You look familiar. Have I seen you before?" 

  She was also speaking in Portuguese, which meant she knew I spoke it. I didn't know of Portuguese being an official language of France, or anything. 

  The little brunette girl approached me, and I watched as she did. Once she got a foot or so from me, she reached out her hand. "Mariana, we've met before," I saw her smile. Reluctantly, I took her hand. I recognized her, but how rare is it to run into the same person twice in a city with like three million people?

  Once I pulled away, she spoke again. "Boyfriend's getting harassed, I see," she giggled, nodding towards the crowd. I looked back at everyone to see that there was still a hell of a lot of people. I turned back to Mariana, and sighed. "Yeah."

  "It'll calm down soon. They see him in public around here and they ask him questions, trample him, whatever, but when he doesn't respond and they get ignored they leave. Give it five minutes," she shrugged, turning back to face me. "So, how've you been?" She asked, a little enthusiastic. That was a quick change of topic.

  "Great, I think, I'm going back to the U.S. in like five days," I smiled, not elaborating on the surgery or anything. The first time I met her, I told her everything, except for my heart condition. No one could know about that, especially considering the fact at any given moment she could spill it all on social media and I'd be dead meat by A; Sierra. B; Christian and my dad. C; The media. With that said, it's no question why I never bothered to bring it up.

  A lot of people had already suspected Neymar and I were together, so you couldn't necessarily say I had anything to hide about him. I was never really private about my relationships; I never expected privacy anyway.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I turned to see Rafaella. I turned around, and she flashed a smile at me. "Glad you got out of this mess before I did," she giggled, turning to Mariana. "Who's this?" She looked at her and asked.

  I chimed in. "That's Mariana. She's.. a friend of mine?" I hesitated, not really sure what to say. Rafaella took a step forward so she was no longer standing beside me, and was closer to Mariana. The entire time, Mariana had the same grin on her face.

  "It's nice to meet you, Rafaella," she smiled, holding her hand out for her the same way she had introduced herself to me before. "How do you know my name?" Rafaella nervously laughed, taking Mariana's hand but soon pulling away. I could tell she felt a little uncomfortable, and I couldn't say I blamed her.

  I turned around again to see the crowd, ultimately deciding to step out of the way of their formal introductions. I stood on my tip-toes again, looking for Neymar. I sighed, feeling bad for him. He told me how he felt in these situations. 

  Out of the corner of my eye, right before I was about to turn around again, I saw Neymar's eyes flash towards me. Compared to the rest of the crowd, he was relatively the same size, maybe a little taller. That was, considering that the entire population were females, and Neymar stood at around 5'9.

  We made eye contact, and I could see his eyes light up. Immediately, he started pushing his way towards me. At one point, he turned to look to the side at one girl who'd touched his shoulder, but immediately looked back at me as a guide to get past the rest of them. 

  The crowd who'd been on the other side of Neymar started to make their way towards us, too. However, the crowd did seem significantly smaller, going from maybe 50 people to around 25 or 30. Mariana was right, in just a short amount of time they lost interest in him. How did she know this would happen?

  I got off of my tip-toes because it got to the point I could see Neymar without having to stand on them. He was getting closer. I held eye contact with him, but at one point I turned around to see Rafaella and Mariana still talking. "Hey, he's coming," I smiled to Rafaella, quickly turning back around.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rafaella and Mariana turn around, too. Neymar pushed his way through one more person, and even though the crowd was still following him, he approached me. 

  "Sorry," he grinned, pulling me in. I hugged him back, wrapping my arms around his neck. The hug felt warm and comfortable, and I knew just then that he was forever going to be a person I could trust and feel safe with. Once we both pulled away, I broke the silence. "Does this happen a lot?" I asked, raising an eyebrow at him. He just nodded. "Yeah, sadly."