Never Let Go (Of Me) • Ferran Torres

Chapter 2: Fresh Start

🎶 Push Play — Miriam Bryant 🎶

28th December 2022

With the last bit of money I had on my bank account, I purchased the damn train ticket from Madrid to Barcelona, hoping to get away from everything. This Christmas had turned out to be the worst nightmare. My father had left my mother and our family definitely, packing his bags and leaving to live off with his new girlfriend, some rich widow in Madrid. This was probably also due to the fact that my mother had turned completely crazy in the past half year, having started to date a 23-year-old biker with tons of tattoos who did drugs - with my mother.

When my brother and I returned home for the holidays a week ago, I was originally planning to confront them with why my student fee for this semester wasn't paid yet, but was met with both of them not caring. They said they couldn't support me financially anymore, and that I wouldn't return to Manchester. My brother was equally shocked when they told him they wouldn't help him out anymore either, but he had a job at least, that got him through somehow - he didn't go to a fucking expensive private uni like me, so that was one less worry for him.

Basically, my life had turned into a nightmare. I had no job, no house, no prospect or anything in life. My phone was dinging like crazy with messages from my friends in Manchester, asking when I was landing, if I'd come to the New Year's party and so on. I'd have to block them all at some point, I wouldn't be able to stand the humiliation to tell them the truth. I had sold my Stella McCartney Falabella that I had gotten for my graduation on Vinted this morning to afford the train ticket, that had been so expensive on this stupid days between Christmas and New Year's.

The only person I had trusted to call in this whole mess was my childhood best friend Sara, who lived in Barcelona. She was also currently the one standing on the platform at Sants, arms wide open and a worried look on her face as I descended from the train. I immediately ran into her arms and started sobbing, however trying to pull myself together after a few seconds, not wanting to leave the worst impression in this city after only a few seconds of standing on its ground.

"Oh Lina..." Sara muttered, holding me close in our embrace.
"It's all such a mess... Thanks for..." I sniffled.
"Of course, everything for you" she said, and softly stroked my back. She grabbed my suitcase while I held my duffle bag, in it were pretty much all of my belongings I managed to pack, before one of the members of my mum's boyfriend's biker gang kicked me out of my childhood home. We took the metro back to her place she was sharing with her boyfriend Daniel. She was studying law while jobbing as a waitress and he worked for some football club, Barca I think. Sara once tried to explain what his job exactly was but I only remembered that it involved washing dirty socks.

"Here we are, it's not big, but it's enough and... we like it. Holds a lot of nice memories" she gushed as we got inside the tiny apartment.
"There's a lot of light" I complimented it, there was nothing worse than dark places.
"Yeah, the sun shines into it all day - a horror in summer, but saves us so much money on heating in winter" she chuckled. "Here's the couch by the way" she said and pointed at the sofa bed she had already prepared for me, putting quite some effort into it as the bedsheets were put on perfectly and she had also placed my towels nicely on it. I started crying again.

"No, no, no, no crying! This is a new chapter! I know that everything is shit right now and your life collapsed, but the earth continues moving. You'll write your next chapter" she tried to encourage me as she held me by my shoulders. The apartment door opened and Dan walked inside, dressed in some kind of jogging suit.
"Lina!" he shouted when he saw me and quickly walked over to hug me.
"Hi Dan" I replied and returned the embrace. "I'm so sorry... I'll try to keep my stay short... You're a couple and you want privacy." I muttered.
"Lina, you were there for Sara when her dad died five years ago, it's our turn to be there for you now" he said and his girlfriend nodded next to him. I broke out crying again.

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We were a few days into the new year now and I had gone on countless job interviews, as pretty much everything, waitress, shop assistant, barista,... But no one wanted to hire me because I had no working experience. Like, sorry, but there's not much experience needed for scanning items at an H&M checkout! Frustrated, I returned to Sara and Dan's that evening, thinking about other places I could apply to. Strip clubs, maybe.

"Hey, how did it go?" Sara asked as she was sitting over her law books on the dining table.
"Awful" I sighed and slumped down on the couch.
"You'll find something. I can ask at the uni cafeteria if they need a help?" she offered and I nodded. Gosh, how much worse could it get.
"Yeah, thanks... I'll literally take anything that pays for my own apartment - which will probably only be a hole in some cellar, but I don't want to get on your guys' nerves anymore" I sighed.
"You're not a burden, Lina, everyone goes through bad stuff in life" she replied.

Suddenly, the door swung open, revealing a very smiley Dan.
"I got you an interview!" he exclaimed triumphantly.
"Huh?" me and Sara asked confusedly at the same time.
"Yeah, I talked to a colleague and turns out that they're looking for shop assistants at the Barca store and I immediately offered you up" he replied proudly. "It's not paid too badly and it's full-time, so you could definitely live off that" he explained.
"Oh my gosh, thank you Dan" I squealed and threw my arms around his neck. "But I don't need to know football, right?" I chuckled.
"Would be good if you learned some players' names with time" he replied and rolled his eyes. For him, football was everything and he couldn't understand how it wasn't every person's centre of life.

And so I found myself at the Barca store the next day, while Dan had jetted off to somewhere, Dubai, no, somewhere else Arab, I think, as Barca was playing some sort of tournament or something there.
"Hello, you must be Catalina?" a guy, a few years older than me approached me and I shook his hand.
"Yes, nice to meet you" I replied.
"Very well, Dan said you were looking for a job and boy, do we need someone. With all these handsome youngsters we have thousands of fan girls buying their jerseys and all sorts of stuff - it's an obsession. Who's your favourite?" he asked, sounding somewhat stressed.
"Um... I don't really follow football" I replied, but quickly caught myself. "But I'll certainly learn all the players' names and season results and so on... if I get the job" I added and he nodded.
"That sounds good" he replied and nodded as we walked around the store, but suddenly I stopped in my tracks.

On a wall, there was a huge picture of my Manchester boy, Fernando. He was wearing the blue and red jersey and was smiling bright at me. Well, not at me, at basically anyone walking through the store.
"Who is this guy?" I managed to mumble.
"Huh? Oh, this! This is Ferran, he's a striker. Came last year from Manchester City" he explained.
"Ferran? Not Fernando?" I asked, maybe it was just a nickname.
"I like your enthusiasm to get things right! But no, just Ferran" the store manager replied cheerily and I shot him an awkward smile. Yeah, enthusiasm - I was boiling with rage. I was still holding a crush on someone who hadn't even told me his real name.

My mind was only with Fernand-, Ferran for the rest of the interview but I tried my best to focus. They were apparently really desperate to find someone because I got the job. But instead of being happy, on the whole ride home I stalked this Ferran guy all over the internet, especially Instagram. If there was a football show only about him, I could have applied as an expert by now. On his profile there were mostly pictures of him at matches or at training, and... he had a girlfriend apparently, Sira. So much for "not looking for a relationship" - asshole. She was pretty, and his coach's daughter in the national team apparently.

When I returned home, Sara was just getting ready for her shift at the restaurant she worked at occasionally.
"Oh, hey! How did it go?" she asked cheerily.
"Manchester club guy is fucking Ferran" I said angrily and showed her his profile. She knew immediately who I was talking about as I had not stopped talking and whining about my lost chance with him for the almost past one and a half years.
"No way!" she said, her eyes widening.
"He told me he wasn't looking for a relationship but apparently he started dating this Sira girl just shortly after I met him" I told her angrily. "Typical football player, thinks he can get anything he wants and shag every girl he runs into" I added, as I tapped around aimlessly on his profile on random pictures in my rage. "Also, he failed to tell me that he's a fucking football player. What a liar" I raged.

"Ok, but did you get the job?" Sara asked in an attempt to distract me.
"Yeah" I mumbled.
"But that's great!" she squealed.
"Yeah, amazing" I muttered and walked to the loo to get away from this conversation.