Somewhere Only We Know • Ruben Dias

Chapter 46: Advices

🎶 Just Give Me a Reason (feat. Nate Ruess) — P!nk, Nate Ruess 🎶

Ruben POV

After our last training ahead of our match against West Ham, we got ready and changed to travel down to London. My thoughts were still with Soph this morning and it must have shown because I was scolded multiple times by my teammates and coach for having my head in the clouds. Nonetheless, I was going to start tomorrow and I was determined to get back on track after a good night's sleep in another city, from home and far from Sophia.

In the evening, we boarded our train and I sat down next to Bernardo, as usual. I put on my headphones and pulled out my iPad to watch game highlights of our opponent's last matches, when some time into our journey, James approached our seats.
"Uh... Ruben, you got a minute?" he asked and Bernardo raised his eyebrows, but stood up to leave his seat. I mouthed him a quick thanks and James also nodded at him.

"What's up?" I asked him.
"I just... I don't mean to snitch on my sister but I know that you still care about her, so I'm telling you this: she's seeing someone else" he said nervously and I almost laughed because I knew that this was about this morning's call, but I didn't want to get caught, so I just gulped.
"Oh... Ok, thanks, I appreciate you telling me" I replied and nodded.
"Yeah, sure... You'll always be my bro" he chuckled and stood up again to give me a fist bump. I gave him a small smile back, but decided to speak up.

"I know that I'm your bro... And trust me, I love you like a brother myself, but... Soph is your sister. You've got to be loyal to her first. I... don't want to know about her life from you - you understand that, right?" I asked, giving him some real-life brotherly advice. James looked at me a bit confusedly, but nodded.
"Yeah, you're right, I'm sorry" he mumbled. He was still so young and just wanted to be loved by his team and his teammates, after working for so long to achieve playing here.

"Nothing to be sorry about. Thanks for telling me anyways" I said and stood up to give him a hug before he walked away to join the other boys from the academy. Bernardo eventually returned to his seat too, obviously now looking at me with his eyebrows raised, wanting to know what James had to say.
"Gosh, you're so nosy. He told me that Soph is seeing someone... as a rebound apparently" I summed up, telling the truth about what James said, but not the truth about how the facts really were. There was no rebound and it was me Sophia was having bombastic sex with.

"Oh... and how are you feeling about that?" he asked back and I raised my eyebrows, shrugging.
"She can do whatever she wants, we're not together" I mumbled, hurting myself by speaking those words.
"That doesn't sound like you at all" Bernardo commented and I rolled my eyes.
"Can I go back to preparing for the game tomorrow now?" I snapped at him, plugging my AirPods in again and resuming the videos on my iPad.

The game the next day was won by us thankfully, but I cringed every time I thought back to the unnecessary own goal I conceded. I played a good game all in all but still - imagine Soph watched that, she was probably laughing at me. Usually, she always texted me after away games, words of encouragement if it was a bad one or sweet congratulations if it was a good one. But today, nothing. And I kept checking my phone again and again as I was on my way to the airport straight after the game to catch a flight to Portugal.

I was looking forward to spending two days with my family before having to join the national team. What I didn't look forward to however, were Mum's endless questions about how Soph was doing.
"When are you finally going to tell her?" Ivan groaned after I made up some lie again about Soph having tried some new Portuguese recipe a few days ago.
"She's always so happy and... overwhelming with questions about her, I just don't have the guts!" I defended myself, my brother only shaking his head.

"You're a whiny coward" Ivan laughed.
"Shut up, I want to see you pulling a perfect girl like her, only to mess it up. You wouldn't want to admit that to Mum and Dad either" I shot back.
"Listen, you've only got two ways to solve this. You either come clean with Mum asap or you win her back" he told me sternly.
"And what do you think my preferred option is, you genius?" I scoffed at him.

Sophia POV

Me and Alice had taken advantage of the two days off we had gotten after our 36-hours shift and travelled down to London to watch James play Austria with the U21s. The score was even on 1-1 after the first half and we got ourselves some snacks and drinks before taking our seats again.
"So, how's your sex thing with Ruben going?" she asked and I shushed her immediately, not wanting anyone to listen in and possibly connect some dots.

"Just call him... Pineapple" I muttered.
"Ok, so how are things with Pineapple?" she asked sarcastically.
"I avoid talking. I'm not ready to forgive him" I replied, looking at the ground.
"But you're not ready to live without him either. You're playing an unfair game" she analysed.
"Thanks for reminding me, I know that, but what would you do?!" I asked.
"Talk to him!" she urged.

"He'll tell me he wants to try again but... I just can't let myself fall for that again! His life is still the same and I'm not ready to get hurt again. I don't want to be the naive WAG that stays with the footballer regardless of how she gets treated just because she can't live without him. That's a toxic relationship, just like I had with Ed" I told her, tears pricking in my eyes. Alice sighed and slung her arm around my shoulders.
"I get that, but... you do love him, unlike Ed" she replied.
"And I know that. But I feel weak by doing that" I sniffled, wiping my nose.

"Then you've got to let it go. Continuing to sleep with him will only hurt you both even more when this goes crashing down" she said and I nodded. I knew all this, but I couldn't get myself to act. I was stuck in this situation where I had him without any strings to get particularly hurt. But Alice was right - this was going to crash down and I needed to step on the brakes quickly before that would happen. Reluctantly, I pulled out my phone and opened the chat with Ruben.

Soph 👸🏼
We need to talk when you come back to Manchester

Ruben read the message almost immediately, but there was no reply yet and the second half started, so I tried to focus on that. And James provided an assist and scored a goal to help his team win with an impressive 4-1. Alice and I were cheering loudly after the final whistle and we even got to say hi to James, which got my friend heavily blushing as she saw him up close, all sweaty and sticky. I smiled at her, even though I wasn't one to go for younger guys, I found her cute - seeing how just one small crush could make you lose all control. I wished I could be that carefree again with Ruben and not always think back at where we turned wrong.