Like Real People Do - Jill Roord

She Was Gone

Hunter's POV

I continued walking, I didn't look back until I felt the cool, evening breeze on my face followed by the warm tears rolling down my cheeks. My chest heaved, my breathing scattered as I ran my trembling fingers through my hair, my eyes darted around the French streets lit by the bright lamps and headlights of passing cars. 
I couldn't go back in there, not when he was there too, not when I couldn't let anyone know.

Vilda wouldn't only strip me of my national team honors but he'd do the same to Alexia, and I couldn't let either of those things happen, not just for myself and her but also for Nana. I had no choice to stay silent, I had no choice to pretend nothing ever happened. 

But Vilda's words kept playing on my mind, Alexia's too, they spoke about Nana as a person of the past while I still thought of her in the present. Each match I looked for her, fooling myself that the blurred face in the distance was Nana, my Nana, but now I realized that it wasn't. Now I realized that she'd never come to another match, she'd never cheer for another of my goals or be there when I won an award. 

I realized she was gone, she was gone and never coming back, and the world crashed down around me.

I was feeling things. I was feeling too much when hours ago I'd felt absolutely nothing. I felt Vilda's hand on my arm, his breath close to my face and the way his words had the power to shatter my whole world. How he had the power to shatter my whole world. I felt the absence of Nana, the gaping hole in my chest that would never be full again. I felt her hand slipping from mine, knowing no matter how hard I clung onto her, she was already gone. I'd been too late.

These feelings were going to wreck me, they were already destroying me in the few moments I'd stopped and I couldn't keep my mind busy anymore, I couldn't just pick up a football to make everything disappear. I needed to numb this sharpness in another way.

I gulped back the tears, trying to regulate my breathing as I walked down the road, every car that rushed besides me felt so close to hitting me, I braced myself for it each time. I eventually reached the strip and found people. Crowds of people; so loud and free with smiles on their faces, their hands clinging to their loved ones. I wanted that fun, I wanted to forget. 

Before even thinking, I walked into a bar, my eyes wide like it was the first time I'd ever seen a smile on someone's face. There was this magnetic energy leading me to the bar, sitting me down on the stool as everything quietened down, I felt slightly more grounded.

"What can I get for you miss?" The man behind the bar asked, his accent strong. 

I furrowed my eyebrows, suddenly lost, "Are you talking to me?"

He chuckled, "Well no one else is sitting here."

My jaw fell, my eyes pointed down to the table as every rule I lived my life by was suddenly shattered, I never drunk at tournaments, I knew it always ended badly but right now I didn't care. I just didn't want to feel like this, "I will take a very large shot of vodka please."

The burn down my throat was a familiar friend, the fire in my stomach weakened the knots which Vilda was responsible for, and the hole in my heart didn't scream as loud. In fact, I could barely hear it by the third shot, especially with the laughter around me drowning out any logic that tried to push through.

"Do I know you?" A man stumbled up to me.

"I don't think so, no."

He furrowed his eyebrows, "Are you sure cause you look a lot like that one girl I've seen on TV."

"There's a lot of girls on TV," I chuckled, "But I'm not one of them."

"Oh, well it must just be an uncanny resemblance then," he figured.