❝the stars, they aligned.❞
SEP 26,
four months and twenty
six days after the funeral.
three months punctuated by calls and messages of all kinds from the two best friends would never be enough to fill the unbearable void they felt far from each other. no conversation, no laughter would ever replace a simple hug between the two. yet they were forced to, thousands of kilometres and a sea separating their two souls. fortunately, the international break was back, just like jude in england.
nisha couldn't contain her excitement as she approached wembley, where england would face germany, where jude would be present. she was almost jumping for joy, a smile plastered on her face since this morning, the adrenaline rush growing even stronger in her belly.
jude had told her via a message that he would only have a few minutes to spare before kick-off, but for nisha, they were the most precious.
thanks to an exclusive pass she had obtained from the footballer, she eagerly awaited the arrival of her best friend. when his trotting silhouette emerged in the london night sky, nisha burst into laughter as she finally felt his body pressed against hers. the boy's large, strong hands intertwined with her hair, before moving to her waist, and her neck, holding her as tightly as his strength allowed. no words were exchanged, only excited laughter, masked by their heads nestled respectively in each other's necks. discreetly, the young woman took a whiff of jude's scent; she had missed it so much.
"it feels like an eternity," the boy whispered in her ear, and nisha could only confirm the facts; never being separated from her best friend had been so complicated.
taking a few steps back to better observe her, without thinking it possible, jude fell even more under her charm. it was surely her high cheekbones, or the blush tinting her cheeks, or maybe the way she smiled with full teeth whenever she looked at him. anyway, he smiled at her in such a cheesy way that anyone outside the scene could have read through jude like an open book.
"how have you been?" tenderly, he asked her.
"good," it was sincere. although university was not easy, nisha could say she was proud to be getting up every morning to study there. going back to a normal life rhythm, surrounded by people her age, did her more good than she could have imagined. "are you nervous about the game?"
with a simple shrug, he declared that if all went well, the english team should have the upper hand over the german one. his words quickly made him realize that the few minutes he had been granted with nisha had passed and he had no choice but to return to the locker room.
yet, as his mind told him one thing, his feet thought otherwise, and he didn't move an inch, the invisible thread connecting them preventing him from doing so; this link that transcended words and gestures.
with his gaze locked in hers, jude's breath mingled with nisha's in the warm evening air, creating a silent echo of their palpable connection. he could have stayed there indefinitely, lost in the whirlwind of their exchanged glances, but duty called, reminding him that he had to join his team in the dressing room.
finally, they hugged each other one last time, in an embrace that could have been mistaken for an eternal goodbye from an outsider's point of view. it was silly, in just two hours they would be reunited again, yet something deeper, subconscious, pushed them to hold each other so tightly.
