Dark Moves Of Love ~ Neymar Jr

Chapter 100

The time is blowing out
Dividing you and me
Can you see me?  

"I don't know how it happened. One minute he was there and the next he wasn't." I said, my voice nothing more than a whisper. Neymar listened to me as I spoke and never interrupted me. He only held my hand as I said to him, all these things that I'd been keeping secret for so long. The things that burdened me, the things that gave me nightmares whenever they didn't give me sleepless nights. Neymar listened to me, without saying anything, and I told him everything as the tears turned into salty waterfalls.

"In truth it wasn't as simple as that." I said when I had gathered enough strength to keep going. "He scored. It was his first game as a starter and he scored. And when he fell to the ground, everyone thought he was celebrating. And when his teammates fell on top of him and made a pile of bodies and congratulated him, no one thought anything was wrong. Until everyone started getting up and he stayed there. And they realized he wasn't moving. He hadn't moved in a while."

I remember screaming. I remember screaming as hard as I could without stopping. I remember, because my throat was on fire and because somehow the stadium had gone silent.

A player from the opposite team started CPR. The medics came soon after and took over. They loaded him on a stretcher and one of them turned towards the bench and shook his head, as if it say there's nothing to be done. They hurried him towards the locker rooms and the ambulance that was waiting there and all the while I screamed my guts out.

His roommate's girlfriend was crying and she was trying with the little English she knew to calm me down. I wasn't crying, in fact I didn't cry that day at all. I was only screaming. As the referee blew the whistle. As the players, with their heads down, walked slowly towards the locker rooms. As the jumbo screens got switched off. As the crowd stayed in their seats, too stunned to move.

James was the new guy. He was the young, talented player, the ingénue, who scored for their team. They would have loved him. Had they had the time to know him.

 Everything is wrecked and grey
I'm focusing on your image
Can you hear me in the void?  

"I don't know how I got to the hospital. I don't know if my feet moved or someone carried me in their back, it's all blank. But somehow I was in the hospital and I was the only one there of James' friends and family." I said to Neymar. And what I didn't say: That even in a death so public, you have to identify the body. And since I was the closest thing to family for hundreds of miles, it was I who did.

"They asked me if I wanted to contact his family instead of someone from the hospital stuff doing it. I called their house number and Jean, his sister picked up. They knew, they already knew."

Neymar reached and wiped his thumb across my cheek. It was of no use, his finger came up soaked.

"Jean was watching the game, in one of those live feeds, just like I used to do. It was so blurry and in Ukrainian, she couldn't possibly be sure what had happened. But somehow she knew. I asked for his dad. I remember he was already upset. He was babbling, stalling me, dragging on the seconds. Because he too knew, that when I told him, he couldn't pretend anymore. And I finally did. I told him over the phone that his 20-year-old son was dead."

I turned to look at Neymar and his own eyes were glistening with tears.

"I honestly don't remember much." I continued. "I know, because they told me later, that his father took the first flight to Kiev he could find. I don't know how much time passed that James and I waited for him. In the meantime I talked to coaches, doctors, the police. I fessed up to everything. At that point I thought that I was probably going to jail and I was glad of it. It was what I deserved."