Never Let Go (Of Me) • Ferran Torres

Chapter 33: Dynamics

🎶 Heathens — Twenty One Pilots 🎶

It was just another day at work, but today marked one week since I had gotten that damn letter from the Students Loan Company. My bank balance was at 29.38€ as we were nearing the end of the month and I definitely did not have the 2,250£ to pay the rate. The desperate calls I had done to my mother and father were either left unanswered or they hung up after ten seconds when I had tried blocking my number and had appeared on their screens as an Unknown Caller.

After thirty minutes of holding the line and listening to a horrible tune that was going to be stuck in my head for a week, I was finally able to speak to an operator of this damn UK agency.
"Hey! Hello! Hi! My name is Ferrero and... I wanted to ask if there is any possibility of a deadline extension for my pay rate?" I asked, crossing my fingers so hard.
"Your file number?" the woman asked back with an annoyed, monotone voice.
"Yes! Uh... it's... 3XF8152R" I read from the letter I was holding in my hands.

I heard some keyboard clicking on the other side of the line and squeezed my eyes shut, praying that she could do something about this.
"Miss, your whole loan has been paid off, there are no pending payments." she replied and I felt as if my head had been hit by a coconut.
"Uh... What?! When?" I asked, not believing this.
"We got the full payment at the end of last week" she replied. Fucking hell, thank God, maybe my parents still had some last sense of decency in them.
"Could you tell me if it was my father, Rafael Ferrero, who issued the payment?" I asked so that I could send him a "Thank you & Fuck you" note. It could only be him, my mum was shit high from drugs all the time and her brain definitely wasn't in the right place for this.

"No, and it wasn't your mother, who's listed in the system too as a second debtor, either..." the woman replied, clicking around to apparently give me some more information. "The payment came from a bank in Valencia, CaixaBank, but the holder of the account is anonymous, I'm sorry." she said and I fell off every cloud.
"Thanks" I mumbled before hanging up, still not believing this. Bank in Valencia? It could only be one person, Ferran.

He must have read this stupid letter that night he stayed over at my place last week. I was fuming. How could he do this?! Snoop in my stuff and just paying for my debts without telling me anything? I felt like a prostitute with him paying my bills and me entertaining him - did he expect more now? Sex? I was in a bad mood for the whole rest of my work day, which also included a shoot for a fashion campaign, but the photographer was absolutely thrilled by my bitch face, which could somehow still be seen as a win.

I ignored Ferran's messages and calls for the next two days and it was only a matter of time until he'd show up at my doorstep once again. Or maybe not. Maybe he just really wanted a rebound and just paid the student loan off because money didn't matter to him anyways. Unfortunately, I was called to the Barca training center a few days later anyways, because someone at the club had had the brilliant idea of casting me as a model for the third kit launch photoshoot and there I was, nervously pulling on the turquoise jersey, trying to find the perfect way of tucking it into the white pair of jeans they had given me for the shoot.

Thankfully, they hadn't cast Ferran as a model, that would have been tense as fuck. Instead, Frenkie de Jong and Gavi walked in, with Claudia Pina, who played for the women's team.
"Oh hey!" Gavi said shyly and greeted me first. I also shook Frenkie's hand, whom I had met twice before and Claudia's who was interested as to where I knew the boys from.
"She... kinda knows Ferran" Gavi explained and she nodded.

The photographer showed us to a sort of couch set-up first where he instructed us on how to sit and we just had to smile into the camera. Easy enough. Then, we were shown to the table football and I was teamed up with Frenkie as we just had to play while the video- and photographers were grabbing us. It was a fun hour we spent and Frenkie and me won every single game, which got Gavi all worked up, just like he usually was on the pitch. Way too soon however, the producers yelled "Cut" and the shoot was over.