In the spotlight

57

Sofia Christensen

"Hey, baby." I smiled at my not-so-baby-anymore kitten, or should I just say cat now, while I was waiting for Madame Durand to bring out her usual stuff from the living room so we could finally go home.

She arrived back to the living room rather swiftly, earlier than expected but even better. I put everything away before grabbing my suitcase with one hand and holding Freyja with the other as we left her apartment.

I put Frey down for a little while as I unlocked the door, shoving every single one of our belongings in there before I closed the door behind me. As I stood in the middle of my living room with a full suitcase to unpack once again and with Freyja to take care of, I felt exhaustion overwhelming me.

After my birthday trip to the Maldives and then to Oslo to introduce Matteo to my parents, we left for Marseilles once again for the annual midsummer party in South France.

We had an amazing time there (definitely much better than the last time), and the party was immaculate too, but it ended as soon as it started, and we found ourselves separated once again, me on the way to Istanbul for a Prada shooting week and Matteo to the United States for the annual preseason cup in August.

After almost 5 months of dating, we expected that we could tackle the most common obstacle we faced many times while dating: distance. As it turned out, it seemed like we couldn't this time. Matteo just seemed very off lately.

I was following the pre-season cup as much as I could from Turkey, finding it rather difficult considering that I had to face an 8- or sometimes a 10-hour difference depending on whether they played in Texas or California, but I did nonetheless.

Unfortunately, I did not get to see too much of the original squad and him especially. He explained to me, rather annoyed, on the first day that the manager and the coaching staff had the idea of putting out a younger but much less experienced squad as a starting 11 and sticking to them, "experimenting," even after suffering catastrophic losses to the underdogs and the bottom of the Premier League teams too.

As a result, Real Madrid was knocked out of the tournament soon enough, without sending out veteran players such as Matteo, Marco, or even Carvajal and Modric to the pitch. And oh man, were they absolutely fuming.

Or at least Matteo was. Now I might not be an absolute football prodigy, not even an athlete to be fair, but after signing so many young talents during the summer transfer window, I couldn't imagine a better place to actually try them out than a stakeless tournament.

Yeah, people can say a tournament is still a tournament, but choosing between this and the possibility of starting off LaLiga in the very last place, it is rather easy to see which was the less taxing to the team.

However much I tried, I just could not understand his anger. And believe me, I tried a lot after having to listen to his complaints every single day for the past week, every single day. It has gotten to a point where he just ended the phone call without asking me about my day or just about anything else, literally.

I felt my chest tighten as these thoughts rummaged my mind while I filled Freyja's bowl and started unpacking my suitcase.

I have realized that we're entering that phase where the pink fog is fading away, and the first real problems will start to arise, and I knew perfectly well that we will work through them, but as of right now in my "first" real relationship ever, I did not know what to do.

I tried my best listening to him, giving my opinion on matters that needed it, or even just giving him a space to rant when he wanted no solution, just letting those feelings go. I really tried to do it perfectly, but truth be told... I am tired.