the sun always rises || dybala

18: wake me up

mercoledì 06:35

Happy Wednesday. Or as Charlene liked to say: It's Wednesday, my dudes. Aaaaaagghh.

More specifically, Wednesday morning. The morning after a tough Champions League match against Tottenham that resulted in a draw. Paulo wanted nothing to do with it—they scored twice and then immediately conceded twice. It's frustrating considering that they blew a significant lead, and now they were going to have to work even harder to advance.

He was still a little grumpy from last night, though, he wasn't showing it because Charlene was with him.

Snuggled up in bed, under the beige duvet with Charlene started to wake up because Paulo groaned too loudly remembering what happened last night. It was like a small cat waking up to dinosaur screeches, and Paulo immediately tended to Charlene's side once he heard her quiet mewls in the midst of waking up.

"Hey, baby." He smiled.

"Morning, dragi," she yawned her morning breath right into Paulo's face, and he scrunched up his face. "Oh stop it—your breath is worse."

"I think the preferred way to wake up your loved one is: Good morning, my one true love. How did you sleep?" He kissed her firm on the lips, leaving a smile on her face.

Even despite the smile, Paulo could see right through Charlene to see that something was bothering her. "Eh. My sister called me last night, and I got like a rush of blood to the head, before I answered and she just called to ask if I wanted to be her bridesmaid."

"And you said...?"

"I hung up on her."

This made Paulo mentally facepalm, but at the same time, he understood why.

Why would Charlene pick up the phone to her sister who never bothered to formally tell her that she got engaged? Hasn't spoken to her in months? Has intense sibling rivalry with her?

"Well—" he spoke, "would you have wanted to be her bridesmaid?"

She shrugged. "It's her decision, she's the one getting married."

"But don't you think that...nevermind."

"What?" Charlene's voice was stern, sensing the change in thought in the tone of his voice. He was tense, and coming from her past experiences with men, this usually didn't end up well. "You can tell me."

He sighs, head and shoulders still tense from all the post-match emotions, edgy from the draw and mumbling in Spanglish. "Don't you think that it might be the time to...talk to your sister?"

Well, you're not me, and you've obviously never met my sister. You don't know how my sister and I talk to each other, you don't know how hard it is for us to get along without insulting each other every chance we get—she would have said. Well, Charlene five months ago would have said.

You know, she's different now, and she's still adjusting to all the changes in her head. It's a more optimistic change, but she's never really sure when around things like this.

I mean, sure she still likes to say that Iva is ugly, but it's a sibling thing. Haven't you called your sibling ugly before? Even if it was true or not?

Maybe it's just the sibling rivalry around them. The fact that her parents like Iva more than Charlene for reasons undisclosed, and that thought of that makes Charlene turn over in bed to fave away from Paulo. "I don't know," she says, and it seems like her most common answer.

Paulo sighs in defeat—he knows he can't fix everything. "I'm gonna go pee," he tells her before leaving the room.

And then it's just Charlene in bed for a while. She's just there, thinking, maybe a little too much.