[ twenty three ]
Weeks passed and my routine was ever the same.
I woke up in the morning and went out for a jog; the same route each time, and each time I would see James on a morning jog. I could have changed my path, but I never did. It was like I was punishing myself, forcing myself to see James when I could no longer have him. It was at the park where our paths would cross and we would look away, avoiding each other. But we knew the other was there. James did nothing to change his routine as well.
My jog would last about an hour and then I returned to Toni's house. As it turned out, getting an apartment of my own was more difficult than I expected and Toni was positive about the whole situation. He insisted that we could live together, but I told him I didn't like relationships like that.
Upon returning home, I would shower and have breakfast before heading off to the Real Madrid training grounds. We uploaded videos of the players nearly everyday, which meant I was around James everyday. The same was the case for us at the training ground. He never spoke to me unless it were for an interview which needed to be uploaded to the team youtube page that day.
I even saw him at the grocery store.
Friday was my grocery shopping day. It had been since I was a child in Colombia and would go grocery shopping with my mom, and he with his mom. He didn't change that routine.
I would often see him at the market, both trying very hard to ignore each other.
Weeks eventually turned to months and we never spoke.
When the holiday season finally came around, we had gone nearly three months pretending to be strangers to each other. Neither of us cracked, we were much too prideful for that.
By this time, Toni and I had started a relationship. I told him I wanted to take things slow and that I wanted him to meet my parents before we could announce anything official. He was delighted that I wanted him to visit Colombia with me.
That was our plan.
For the Christmas holiday, I would head home first and spend a few days with my family before Toni would visit Colombia with me and would meet my parents. Then he would head for Germany on Christmas day and I would catch up with him on New Year's day to meet his family. I was very nervous about meeting his folks, almost as nervous as he was to meet mine.
For one, I didn't speak any German.
And second, I just knew I would feel very strange in a new country I had never even thought of visiting before.
-
Toni dropped me off at the airport and kissed me goodbye. He told me he would miss me and I told him we would be seeing each other soon.
I went through all the necessary check points before boarding the plane. Toni had gotten me a first class plane ticket because he wanted me to be comfortable, even though I told him I would be fine with a regular seat. I went down the aisle to find my seat when I stopped dead in my tracks at the sight of him. James was on the plane, with his headphones on, seemingly listening to music.
He snuck a glance at me from the corner of his eye, but said nothing. He continued not paying attention to me, just as he had been doing for the past few months.
And just my luck, my seat was the one next to his, and he needed to get out of his seat to let me in.
Tapping him on the shoulder to get his attention, I said rather loudly, hoping that he could hear me over the blaring music in his ears. "Excuse me!"
