end up here ≫ marco reus

005

From: MaR1989@hotmails.de

Sent: Saturday, May 24, 2014, 17:23PM

To: ELO135@yahooh.com

Subject: RE:

Hi, I'm Marco and I'm from Germany. Nice to meet you.

Can we meet now?

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MARCO

        I'm not quite sure having sent this email is the correct strategy. But she told me who she is. Now I kinda felt like I had to at least tell her my name and where I was from. Yet it felt weird wanting to meet up with her. She is great, at least, that's what I like to imagine her. I hope she receives my email and I hope she will email me back as soon as she can.

        I have nothing special to do today. I just sit here in peace and I watch a game on the television. Mario and I did have a great time a few days ago. He told me all about Lillian, who's an American girl that he met in Munich. I'm really happy for him. He deserves to be loved, just as much as Eloise does. Eloise. Isn't it a beautiful name. I wonder how to pronounce it. I haven't heard of this name before, so I'll probably make it sound even worse than it's supposed to sound.

        I throw my legs on the sofa and before I know it, I'm nearly falling asleep and I haven't even had dinner yet. I close my eyes and think about what plans I have for this week. I have a few games coming up. Practice games before the World Cup starts. I think we have to play against Armenia and against another country, but I can't really remember what country. I don't really care about most of them, I mean, it's all about us winning in the end. Not about remembering the names of the countries.

        I'm extremely excited for the World Cup. I have always enjoyed watching the World Cup and the European competitions. But this time I'm actually playing in the World Cup. In 2012 I played in the European Championship and it was amazing. It was so overwhelming to play on this level. People started remembering my name when I scored the first goal for Germany in the national team. And now I've been selected for the World Championship. I can't believe how far I've come. As a kid, playing for all the small clubs, I didn't believe I would ever come this far. And now, as a 25-year old, I finally got where I wanted to be. Just the World Championships were where I wanted to be and now I couldn't wait for it to finally start. Less than a month.

        And that's when it struck to me. I should invite Eloise to one of our games in Brazil. I will pay for her, she wouldn't be able to resist. I sit up and click my phone on. No new emails. I tap on my phone a few times, hoping it will refresh, but nothing pops up and I get up to my legs and walk to the kitchen – that I rarely use, I mean, I prefer some take out, it's easier and it's done sooner, but this time it's not an option, as I'm lazy and I'm too nervous for whatever Eloise will reply to my email.

        I start forming a picture in my mind and if I could actually draw, I would have probably drawn my vision of her on paper yet, but I can't draw. I'm more a sports kind of guy, not good at languages or anything creative, unless you would consider sports to be creative, and I remember my teacher in high school saying you could make anything creative. But I never believed him. I still don't know how I ever passed my creative classes. I mean, I was way better at PE and all of the other things. Learning wasn't something I enjoyed and that's why I never really decided to go to university. Maybe I should've. I mean, I should've chosen something when I wouldn't break through as a football player, but I am happy the way it is now.

        I look through the cupboards to see what I have in stock, but there is nothing too interesting. I groan, not feeling like going outside. I end up making an egg and some sandwiches, really boring, but it works for now. I get back to the sofa and continue watching the game. Actually, I can assure you, my days are rather boring. I do almost nothing, and the clock keeps on ticking. I go to games, I play some games, I go to trainings and I do the training. I sometimes go to the gym and some days, like today are spend doing practically nothing but hanging in front of the television. I sometimes go visit my parents that live on the other side of Dortmund and when I'm feeling like it, I might even visit the pub or some of my friends that I rarely see because they actually have an office job and they have children, so I rarely see them. Unfortunately. We used to be good friends back in high school, but they got on with their lives, got a girlfriend, got married and all that stuff. I wanna get married some time.

        And again I feel myself refreshing my email. My mind is not focused on the game on the television either and I can't wait patiently anymore for the email. And I kind of feel a temptation to send her another email. I lie down on the sofa again and close my eyes, while listening to the applauding and the yelling of the audience on the television.

        There is the Eiffel Tower and I'm in the middle of Paris. I smell croissants around me and the smell of Crêpes is crawling up my nose. I just remembered that I am meeting Eloise here in the middle of Paris. She had agreed on meeting me here, but I have been standing here, with a bouquet of flowers in my right hand, not sure if she is ever going to show up. A group of Chinese people walk past me – or are it Japanese people? I look to the left, and back to the Eiffel Tower. It's getting busier the longer I wait. She should have been here a few hours ago. Have I been stood up? Maybe she just doesn't know what I look like. Perhaps I am just freaking out. The flowers drop out of my hand and...

        My eyes shoot open and I can't remember having fallen asleep. I yawn and I check the time. It's a little over half past 9 in the evening. I groan but check my email again, having remembered what I had written to her. I think about my dream, not sure if this is what is going to happen. I hope it would at least be a little more romantic, maybe like what you see in the movies, where the couples that haven't seen each other in a long time run up to each other and the girl wraps her legs around the guy's waist. But no, that is probably not going to be the case in our situation. I don't even know whether she likes me. And waiting for her replies makes me very unconfident about myself. And I'm Marco Reus. I should be really confident. But no, I'm not.

        I glare back at my phone, and yes. There is an email this time. There are even a couple, but there is online one of them I'm interested in right now. The others are either spam or messages from my parents with pictures. They are on holidays in Canada right now and they like to update me, because both of my parents don't know how to send pictures through SMS or any of the apps you could possibly use. So they stick to emails. It's fine though, I like that they update me.

         I click on Eloise's email and I smile when I read the words carefully. She wants to meet me. She even wants to meet me as soon as possible. But she says she has no money to do so, but that wouldn't be a problem for me, because I'd definitely be willing to pay for her. I get really excited and start looking at flight tickets from Paris to a city in Germany. Seeing which one is cheaper. Berlin perhaps, or Düsseldorf. Now I want it to happen as soon as possible. I have waited for a few months and now it's finally gotten to the point where I can meet her. I have to arrange this before she says goes back to no, because she starts to get scared. I am scared, I mean, she could possibly be a catfish. I'm really sure she isn't. I book a ticket from Paris to Berlin and a ticket to the game of Germany versus Armenia and email her the details. It's going fast now.