It all started with a match. One simple match. Just a match between Argentina and Saudi Arabia. The match on November 22nd.
.
Then, she discovered the thing called World Cup. The World Cup (with capital letters). The one thing that united the world...
"Where?" I turned my head to the source of the voice. Liv.
"Down there," she tilted her head at the direction of the pitch as if she was a secret agent.
"What?!" I exclaimed. "Why?" I asked, unaware of her intentions.
"You like to take good quality pictures, right?" she stressed on the expression "good quality". I nodded because it was true. "Then, let's get the best good quality pictures we can!" she told me, and in a second of time, she was already on the stairs near our seats.
"Liv!" I whisper-shouted. "Liv!" I hissed again after seeing her gesturing me to come with her hand. "Ugh," I groaned, finally following her down the stairs.
***
"We have to get right there," Liv pointed to the open space before us, so I could orient myself where we were going.
"But it's restricted!" I whisper-shouted for another time. "We can't! Let's go back," I said and grabbed her hand, trying to act like the role model citizen my parents brought me to become.
"It's not, look!" she removed my hand from hers, directed my torso to an opened door she obviously had spotted, and before I could say anything, she was already walking towards it.
"Liv!" I hissed for he third time in just a few minutes. "We are not supposed to be here!" I wanted to dissuade her from her intentions, but for the time, I didn't have any luck with that. "It's restricted!" I repeated, desperately trying to stop her from whatever she wanted to do.
"Actually, it's not," she returned, and I my expression immediately turned into a bewildered one. "There weren't any security guards. This is a fan access zone," she explained with another annoying for me shrug. "And it wasn't locked, so..." she said, but suddenly froze on one place. "Come on," she exclaimed all of a sudden. "We have only one shot," and with that she disappeared behind the door, firmly holding her phone with her right hand.
"Uf," I said to myself. "This girl is totally obsessed," I chuckled and decided to run after her before she could do something even more unreasonable (which we will surely regret in the future).
***
"Okay, be quiet now," my one-time-crazy friend warned me. "We have to be quick because then they could catch us," she "calmed me down". "Fortunately, things like this happen almost every match. The guys are used to it," she laughed a little.
"Shhh," I teased, and she looked me with a you're-kidding look. She uses it quite often. "And what are we taking pictures of?" I demanded to know the price of us going to the arrest for the night.
"Barca's goal celebration," she told me enthusiastically, sneaking to see if everything is going as planned. Was there even a plan?!
"And how do you know that they'll score?" I asked amazed by her outburst to take that picture. "We could get into prison for that! " I almost shouted, keeping the volume down, so we don't get caught without even committing something.
"Just a feeling," she explained. We were going to risk our freedom just because of a feeling?! "But listen," she turned my to torso to herself. "The plan is the following," she stopped to take a breath, preparing to say the next words quickly as if someone had been eavesdropping. "When the fans start getting loud, we get out of this secret spot to have a better view. Then, we'll have to wait them to score and just go closer to get a clear picture!" she explained once again, and in the same second, we felt the fans above us standing on their feet. I don't know how we felt that, but it just happened.
Liv got on her legs after kneeling down for a few minutes and checked if we had to get our "plan" into action.
"They are going forward!" she exclaimed and looked down at me. "Let's get out there."
We got out of our secret spot beneath the stands, which immediately led us to the area where the ball boys and the photographers were (or so Liv told me). We just stood there and watched the players closely, so we don't miss our shot (and go to prison for literally no reason, in my opinion), just trying not to get noticed by anyone that could kick us out.
All I did was blink, but as I opened my eyes again, I could see and hear the fans who were celebrating the way of the ball to the back of the net. Liv nudged me in the ribs. This was our signal to act.
We quickly ran near the photographers, but, unfortunately, shock was following us tightly behind our backs-the players ran to celebrate the goal but on the other side of the pitch! And if that was luck!
"Come on, Paige," Liv suddenly told me, still holding her phone with tight grip.
"Liv, what the actual heck are you doing?!" I exclaimed at the sight of my friend removing her shoes. "It's winter!" I reminded her. "It's cold," I said like she was a little kid.
"We're running to the other side, but my shoes will betray me somewhere in the middle," she explained so quickly that I could barely understand what she had said. "I can't risk disgracing myself in front of so many people! And besides," she held her shoes in her left hand. "I have socks. Come on!"
As a result of Liv leaving me behind, I had to choose. To run after her or to stand still on my place alone, risking to get caught!
"Liv, wait!" I screamed, slowly catching up with her running. Where did she learn to run like that? And only in socks! Luckily, my shoes were suitable for running in snow or on ice.
***
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(Pinterest again. Credit to b)
"Do you like it?" Liv asked, turning her phone screen to me as I finally got to her. I nodded, out of breath. Luckily for us, for me, the girl with no luck, the surprises were far from their bus stop.
"Hey!" we heard a voice behind us. With a reflex I didn't know I had, I turned to face Liv (just like in the movies when someone gets caught red-handed, you know?), who also had bewilderment written on her face.
It was one of the guards.
"Uh-oh," Liv murmured and took my hand. "Let's get out of here," she pulled me and started running all the way back to our first place.
"More running?!" I exclaimed, soon realizing the guy was right behind me.
This was my motivation to begin my "little jog", but, unlike Liv, I grunted almost every time I touched the floor with my legs.
