Letter from Steven

199 8 10

by gerlonso

by gerlonso

You could be happy, and I won’t know,

But you weren’t happy the day I watched you go

~*~

We’ll be waiting. We haven’t wanted to leave, so if you came around looking for us, you could easily find us. That’s why I’m still here in my favorite spot at Melwood, with the same people, in the same city, you know, so just in case you come back, you won’t find anything strange.

I told them I was devastated, but in reality, devastated didn’t even begin to cover it.

How to make you stay was the big question, a question which I never had enough time to answer, nor enough time to figure out that it was needed to be asked. What did I do wrong? What did we do wrong? Been wondering that for hours, days, even weeks at a time. There wasn’t anything I could have done, was there? I guess not, nothing could’ve stopped you, not with them breathing down your neck.

Were we not good enough for you? Were we not enough? How could you leave us when we needed you the most? I was out, Torres was out, we were about to embark on spiral downwards, and you could have helped us, I know you could have. We needed you, and you weren’t there. Liverpool needed you. The first game without you felt so wrong, so utterly wrong, we were incomplete. There was this, this gap in your place, this empty space where your presence was always felt. How to get you out of our system was the question then.

You’re always welcome to come back, and I’m glad you’ve taken time out of your schedule to come visit our club, because yes, this is still our club. You might’ve forgotten about us already, but we sure as hell haven’t. You will always be welcomed back, with Anfield waiting with wide open arms and the love you gave them. Special thing about the club, isn’t it lad? I bet it’s not the same anywhere else, I bet it’s not. There’s no other team that could ever give the love, this overwhelming love, this overwhelming support. There are no other voices that can lift you as much as Scouse voices; after all, what other voices could have brought Istanbul?

My God if I could talk about Istanbul for the rest of my life, I would. I never get tired from talking about it, every time it’s almost as if I get to relive it, feel all the emotions all over again.

Want to know a secret?

I knew we’d win.

I knew it; I could feel it in my bones. From that moment that I felt the Reds’ You’ll Never Walk Alone vibrate through my body, cut through the stands, overcome the walls, I just knew. Everyone always asks what Rafa said at halftime that made us produce such a comeback, but to be honest, I heard not a word of it. It’s all blur, a roller coaster, what he might have said, who knows, maybe I wasn’t meant to have heard it. Maybe that I needed was a reminder that no matter what, there would always be someone to be besides me.

I love this team, you know this, I know this, the world knows it. Everyone who has ever seen me play, anyone who has ever seen me put this shirt on knows I’m in love with Liverpool Football Club, but sometimes the band on my arm is unbearably heavy. When the captaincy of a team falls on your shoulders, it’s nothing like you’ve ever known. To know that you alone carry the weight of the team on your shoulders, that you are responsible for the team, whether in victory or in defeat… it’s a feeling you don’t easily overcome. I’ve learned to deal with it, yeah, it’s gotten better of course, except when I turn to my right, and it’s another face that looks back at me.

Someone now wears the 14 again.

He’ll be good, Henderson. He’s young, but he’s a lad. He still goes out onto the pitch with this naïve optimism that when he learns that it always isn’t so, will hit him hard, as it did when you and I both came to know, but unlike you and I, he won’t have someone to go through it with him. Not like how I had my Alonso, my soft spoken, shy-smiled Alonso. Still, I will be there for him, teach him everything he needs to know. I’ll teach him how to pick a pass, how to shoot from a distance, how to hold a midfield, I’ll teach him how to control his temper, how to ignite the short fuse of another’s. I hope that one day, he’ll surpass every bit of my quality, I hope he goes on beyond my name, my history, so that when I’m gone, I won’t be missed. It will be then, that Jordan Henderson, will take my place and be the heart of this team. It will be then that another player will come in and it will be up to him to carry on the knowledge.

It’s the sacrifice it takes to never walk alone.

We’ll be here…yes we’ll be here.

-Stevie G.

~*~

You could be happy, I hope you are

You made me happier than I’d been by far