Journey || Erik Durm

♂

ERIK:

        AS Marco and Mario ambled into Mama's diner the next afternoon, the first thing they noticed was Charlotte. She was leaning against the counter, the meager blue of her uniform clinging onto her body with her oblivious to the suggestiveness her posture entailed.

"Dude, she is adorable," Mario commented upon arrival, and I had to remind him multiple times that he was already happily in a relationship with his girlfriend, Ann-Kathrin.

"Back off, Götze. I call dibs," Marco muttered, one corner of his lips twitching into a smirk.

I merely heaved out a sigh, failing to understand her charm. "There are hundreds of girls after you two and you're both pining over someone so plain?" I said as they discerned her shamelessly. Being in the national team had its advantages: women relentlessly pursued us. Yet Marco and Mario were both unfazed, their gazes sharply contrasting my disinterested ones.

"That's a disrespectful thing to say," Marco murmured, his distant eyes not straying from Charlotte. "Don't disrespect my future girl like that, Erik."

"Right," I retorted, releasing a gruff scoff. "Because that's not creepy as fuck."

"Introduce me to her," he said, his voice taking on a shyer tone. "Please."

"Marco," I drawled hesitantly.

"Come on."

"I don't even know her."

"You said you did."

"I guess the part where I said her clumsiness gave me scars completely missed your ears."

"You made her sound ugly."

"Isn't she?"

"She isn't."

"To be quite fair, she looks kind of like a hotter but feminine version of Coach," Marco observed, and it was then that I whipped my head toward her to examine her. She was no longer leaning against the counter but tending a table, a plate of warm, delicious Canadian omelets parched on her elbows. With the exception of her hair flying violently in its shimmering golden, she did resemble Jogi. Like him, she had fair, porcelain skin and hazel eyes that glistened with a cause.

"I don't see it," Marco speculated, and I followed his eyes, which were still on her.

"Just a little bit," I told Mario.

"Imagine that they are related or som—oh, shit, she's coming over," Mario digressed bashfully, nudging the side of Marco's stomach, who then nudged mine. "Shit. Look away, mate," he added, but I ignored him, fixating my gaze on Charlotte's as she ambled across the linoleum floor, her lips pressed in a thin line of indignation as she found my eyes exploring hers.

"Are you guys waiting to be seated?" she asked us upon arrival, avoiding my gaze.

"No," I began, only to be interrupted by Marco, who calmly said, "Yeah."

Charlotte raised her eyebrows, her gaze deflecting from Marco and I. A fleeting cross of hesitation flickered in her eyes before disappearing altogether. "How can I help you?" she asked sweetly, pasting a smile onto her lips. She was careless, her tone so excruciatingly nonchalant that I wondered if she knew who she was talking to: three renowned, international footballers, or if she was truly oblivious enough to not know who we were.

Marco smiled tersely, the gesture strained by his nervousness. "This may sound a little odd seeing that we are strangers," he began, "but may I have your number?"

"I'm sorry?"

I laughed at their exchange, and she froze, a visible crimson overtaking her face. She whipped her head in my direction then, her polite eyes narrowing into slits that should have been intimidating but made her seem smaller—cuter. "Is this a joke to you?" she simpered, contorting her face into a scowl. It emboldened me that I could bring out the worst in her.

"Why would this be a joke?" I asked tauntingly. Of course it was not a joke, but I felt an inexplicably overwhelming desire to make her feel as if it was.

She raised her index finger pointedly at me. "You put him up to this, didn't you? Ever since I crashed into you yesterday, you've been nothing but a jerk!"

"Don't flatter yourself," I retorted. "I didn't put him up to anything."

She reddened even more before crouching forward with a hostile sigh escaping her lips. "God," she muttered. "You know, I really can't stand people like you. You waltz around acting like you're some hot shot when in reality, your life is just as meaningless as mine."

"Hey," I began to say but she had not yet had enough.

"Don't interrupt me," she warned. "Why have you made it your goal to humiliate me, anyway? Wasn't it enough when you scattered my clothes out on the sidewalk this morning?"

My eyes widened, a defense escaping my lips a bit too quickly. "Wait, what? That wasn't me," I said. "I haven't touched anything that belongs to you."

"Of course."

"I'm not lying."

"And you've given me no reason to believe you," she retorted without consequence. "Just do us both a favor and leave me alone."

She walked away then, rendering me speechless.

It was difficult to think about anyone else as she clumsily sauntered towards the front counter, paving her way to the very end of it before her figure eventually disappeared into the back room. Someone had thrown her clothes out into the pavement—but who? The possibility of it being anyone in the diner was bizarre.

"The amount of sexual frustration you two have pains me," Mario commented then, but because I was so engulfed in my thoughts, the statement went directly through my ears.

It fazed me that someone had done something so antagonizing to begin with, especially on a day like this, when the weather was wet enough to sway dolphins into the boulevards. Her clothes could have soaked, merely gotten damp if she was lucky, which she considerably wasn't. Granted, I was angry at her for the scars, but she deserved better. Everyone did.

"Erik? Are you even listening to us?" Mario pressed, and when I reacted unresponsively, he persisted, "Come on, Erik. Are you okay?"

I nodded vaguely.

"Hey, all jokes aside, she was right, though, you know," Marco confessed, his eyes sadly boring into my own, "about everything she said. For the past year, you haven't been yourself at all, and now she associates you with words that I know you're better than."

I faced him, recoiling. "What are you trying to say, Marco?"

"Forget it."

"No. Tell me."

"Fine," he said, caving in. "I meant to say that the way you've been acting is not justifiable. I understand that you're going through a difficult loss; I understand that it's taking a toll on your being; I understand that it's hard to go on without someone you once loved and I get that, I really do, but it has been a year, Erik. You have to move on from Emil—"

"Marco," I sighed forcefully. I could not let him take her name—not yet.

He shook his head firmly. "You wanted to hear this, didn't you?"

"I'm sorry."

"I—I guess I just want my best friend back," he told me. "My best friend, Erik fuckin' Durm, who has scored more goals than I can imagine to in my lifetime. The one who volunteers at soup kitchens in his free time and dances with strangers on train platforms because life is too short to let it pass by in a blur. Because, you know, I really don't know what's happened to him. He has been eaten by some dickwad who has the tiniest attention span and undermines everyone's problems because they don't compare to his own."

"That's not true," I murmured defensively, feeling my face fall. "You know that isn't true, Marc."

"Then act like it, Erik. Because you don't—not anymore," he finished, and given Mario's uncomfortable eyes, I didn't need to question him to know that he felt the same way.