Pressured Under Love / STOPPED

chapter sixteen

Gavi's POV:

"Watch out Gavi!"
Before I even wanted to turn around, I felt a ball fall on my head and looked angrily at Pedro, who only shrugged his shoulders guiltlessly.
"Where are you with your head all day?" he came a little closer to me.
I didn't want to answer him at all, best not to let him know what happened last night.
As stupid as I am, I screwed everything up.
"Leave me alone." I just hissed angrily and jogged to the others who were doing a warm-up exercise, so I can escape to Pedro's question
I thought about Eliana the whole practice, which is why my performance wasn't good and kept losing the ball when we played against teams.
That was bad of course, because I wanted to be in the next game against Manchester United.
Towards afternoon the training was over and after a short talk with Xavi, I was already sitting in the car with Pedro, who tried to drive past the fans.
This day was a real pain in the ass.
"Tell me what's going on." he brought me out of my thoughts and gave me a quick look, which made me put my head against the window pane.
"Nothing."
"Pablito, you really sucked in practice today. And you know how Xavi is, he'll let us both play on Thursday." With that, he put me in an increasingly bad mood.

The whole ride was silent, I was a little relieved that Pedro didn't say or ask anything and we said goodbye like that when he parked in front of my house. My parents weren't home, which was even better for me to switch off and I literally threw myself on the bed in the room with the phone in my hand.
I was waiting for some message from Eliana.
Even insults would make me happy, but as expected there was nothing.
I didn't know what was going on with me last night. Maybe I was too nervous?
And even if I was, I shouldn't have said something like that.
It's already too late, I'd better not do anything or it will get worse.
A painful feeling spread in my chest when I thought about her and no matter how much it hurt, I tried to ignore it.
Soon it's the game against Manchester, I don't have the time to distract myself.
My phone suddenly vibrated and with full curiosity I stared at the screen, only to see that Eliana hadn't texted me.
It was Valeria, my ex.

Valeria
𝙷𝚎𝚢, 𝚜𝚘𝚛𝚛𝚢 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚖𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚊𝚐𝚎 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚠𝚎 𝚖𝚎𝚎𝚝 𝚊𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚊𝚏𝚎 𝚝𝚘𝚗𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝?

Pablo
𝚂𝚞𝚛𝚎, 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚠𝚑𝚢?

Valeria
𝙸𝚝'𝚜 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚠𝚎 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚔𝚎𝚍 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚋𝚎𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚎

Since I already knew what she meant, I left the message on read and buried my face in one of my pillows.
The rest of the day I trained in the garden to waste time and finally made me in the evening on the way to the meeting place, where I saw her already at the usual table.
Of course, I didn't want to be seen in public with another woman, so I wore a cap with a hoodie and had a mask with me for emergencies.
"So, I need your help." she started already after we ordered something and nervously sat upright.
"Matteo and I got together about four weeks ago, but he's acting a little different now..."
It may sound strange to meet with your ex, but somehow what we had was not real.
We were best friends before the relationship and only got together because that's what everyone expected of us.
It was very stupid to do something like that, but we were young and thought it was funny.
Nobody knows that the relationship wasn't real, not even Pedro, it's just because I don't want people to laugh at me for it.
She's interested in a boy and although they are together now, there are still complications.
That's why she often needs help.
After almost two hours of talking, the topic was over and we talked about our lives, what was happening at the moment or anything else.

"I saw you have a new girlfriend?" she smiled, wiggling her eyebrows as I started to grin.
"What's her name? Tell me about her."
"Her name is Eliana, she's the same age as me. Yeah so she has very beautiful blue eyes that I always fall in love with and these beautiful brown curls that smell so nice. Her smile makes me feel like I have butterflies in my stomach and as long as she is near me I feel good..."
"You really love her, don't you?" she interrupted me, looking like she was proud of me.
"Yes, very much. I really love her."