Journey || Erik Durm

♂

ERIK:

        SHE was not the midnight rain or the late summer skies. Nor was she an expertly woven string of poetry, crafted by an omnipotent force with charitable intentions. She may have been the collision of black holes, a labyrinth with no pathway to an escape, and you were indefinitely stranded within. To many, she was just Emilia, delicate with a face dotted with freckles. Tonight her lips were dangerously brushing mine with an indecipherable resolve.

She nibbled my bottom lip, tracing my mouth with the gentle caress led on by her tongue. The simple move was enough to make my adrenaline rush, to give me intense heat flashes in the below freezing weather.

I waited for more, but she was fleeting. Before her lips could continue about their journey, I was heaved into reality by an abrupt force.

The memory faded, gradually drawing an end, and as a familiar voice infiltrated the surrounding air, Emilia was no longer there. She may have been the wind, the remaining stardust—transitory. "Erik, catch it," my best friend, Marco, was beginning to say, only to release a sigh of dejection as the soccer ball soared beyond me. "Come on, mate," he lamented quietly. "That was an easy catch."

I examined the the ball once more, noting that it had landed on top of the empty bleachers. "Entschuldigung, Marco," I apologized, my eyes refusing to leave its black and white surface. I'm sorry.

We were out in the field, my team and I, training for the World Cup in Russia that would arrive in the years to come. The afternoon was torrid, and I panted heavily with thoughts of Emilia.

"Get your head in the game, pretty boy," Philipp, one of our best men, warned, asserting his gruff presence. "If you want to go to Russia, you have to show more commitment."

Releasing a sigh, I wiped the perspiration trickling down my forehead. "Sorry, Philipp," I said, my voice wavering due to the exhaustion. "I'll try my best."

"You've been saying that for the past hour, Erik. Are you sure you're all right?" our goalkeeper, always the kinder one, questioned. Manuel's placid eyes fell on my own, his eyebrows furrowing with concern. "You can take a break if you need to, you know that, right?"

I nodded, reaffirming that I was fine—because I was; I would be. It was then that Mario Götze, Emilia's older brother and one of my better mates, emerged from the perimeter of the field, a deadpan encompassing his face. My lips parted at the sight of him, because Mario arriving here may have been the least of any of our expectations that evening.

On this very day a year ago, he lost his sister, Emilia, to the unknown. She had taken her life with an inhale of brash toxins: carbon monoxide poisoning—head straight in the gas oven. Since then, the young prodigy had detached from everything and everyone that he had loved, including one of his longtime commitments, football, which had united us to begin with. Now here he was: trudging across the field after a year of disappearance. It was like he had never left.

A small smile tugging on his lips, Mario took a step forward. "Not going to give your old mate a hug?"

My body tensed, my emotions straddling in between relief and the bittersweet nostalgia that accompanied his presence, eventually pulling him into a brotherly hug. Bittersweet agony hanged in the air as we awkwardly embraced, the discomfort intensifying as we pulled apart.

"Why don't you go freshen up?" he suggested then. "Coach promised me that he would end the practice soon, anyway."

"Alright Mario, I'll see you," I told him, not once glancing back at the pitch as I sauntered toward the showers. It was always

I reached upon minutes and ambled into the showers, turning on the squeaking faucet. As cold water ushered from the showers, I found myself vehemently shivering. It was a feeling that I tended to enjoy, for the coldness would pound my mind blank, causing my nerves to crackle. The roaring liquid erupting from the showerhead usually brought my mind ease, releasing me free of thoughts of distress.