Do let me know how your training is going? I am taking the weekend off. Last one before Euros. I can travel. 

I stared at my string of unanswered texts to Luca, something heavy in my stomach. Perhaps I hadn't alluded clearly to the fact that I wanted to see him. That this was an invitation. Perhaps it was too subtle. 

He was busy. Of course. With the Euro preparations, the award preparations, perhaps. He must have missed my message. Or else seen it, and then forgotten to respond. Or seen it, responded in his head, but in reality forgotten to actually respond.

I knew that could sometimes happen to people when they were stressed. And he was stressed.

I typed in a message slowly: Hello. Would you like to accompany me to the venue the day after tomorrow?

I sent the message, placing the phone on the table in front of me and staring at it.

Someone tapped me on my shoulder, and I turned to see Bennett standing with a wide, unnecessary smile.

"Hey!" he mouthed, his eyes peering none too subtly at my phone. "What time you leaving?" he asked, tapping his wristwatch and then pointing at me and making a plane sign with both his hands.

"I am tired. I must go to sleep," I informed him. "Tomorrow, early morning. Seven a.m. flight."

I didn't wait for his response. I simply got up and walked through the long mess hall, making my way up the staircase and into my room on the third floor. I walked slowly, ultra-aware of my phone in my pocket. No notifications. No buzzing.

I slumped onto the bed, pulling my phone out and wondering if I should simply call him. But then again, it was possible he had already fallen asleep, in which case I did not want to break his rest cycle.

"Goodnight... Luca," I muttered to nobody in particular and shoved my phone under my pillow, turning it upside down so in case it rang, the flashlight would reflect on the floor-length wall and hopefully wake me up.

Sixteen hours later, I found myself at the auditorium. Alone, except for my agent and manager who had taken seats on either side of the round table allotted to me. I watched as the ceremony commenced, my mind wandering too much to be able to lip-read anything or anyone. I glanced across the room, scanning each table that was brightly lit under the ornate chandeliers. I recognised a few faces from the Italian team, and—my breath caught in my throat when I spotted him, at the very back of the room.

He was sitting beside Lorenzo, who looked almost unrecognisable in a civilized black tux. Luca himself also wore black, with a matching shirt under it. Under the glitzy lights, I could see the hard planes of his chest, and my mind inexplicably wandered to that night at my place, his chest muscles flexing under my touch, glistening with sweat as he thrust his hips.

I took a long sip of the cold water in front of me, feeling the cool glass under my trembling fingers.

Ti amo, Elliot.

I remembered the way he had formed the words against my fingertips.

I managed to look at him again, my heart thundering somewhere near my throat when I finally spotted the unfamiliar woman beside him. She wore a deep emerald gown, one of her long legs perched on top of the other. Luca leaned closer to her, his head low as she said something in his ear and he laughed—an easy smile, his eyes bright, his hair immaculately styled tonight.

I placed my trembling glass of water on the table slowly, taking time to smooth the napkins that lay beside it. I gripped the white tablecloth with both hands, watching the way the cloth crumpled between my fingers.

It did not make sense. What had I done wrong this time?

The ceremony commenced, and it took every ounce of willpower for me to keep my gaze fixed on the stage, watching as foreign dignitaries walked up and presented awards, long, convoluted speeches that I did not bother reading. When the Player of the Season was announced, I saw the name on the screen in large gold letters:

ELLIOT JAMES HAYES

I stood up stiffly, careful not to fall over my own feet. The cheers and claps felt like unpleasant tremors in my bones, and I reached up to lower the settings on my hearing aids down to zero.

My stomach felt hollow when I took the glittering trophy from a man whose name I had already forgotten. I turned my eyes away as a million lights gazed up at me from the crowd, and I was glad that I couldn't see Luca somewhere in the same crowd of insignificance.

I went and took my seat back on the cold chair, placing the trophy on the table. The golden light from the ornate chandeliers made it sparkle like gold. Most of Ambrosiana's and England's national team came to congratulate me, whoever was in attendance. Except him.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I glanced down, the little spark of hope dying when I saw my mum's text:

I AM SO PROUD OF YOU LOVE, CONGRATULATIONS!!!

I responded to her with a thanks and shoved my phone back into my pocket, sitting through the next grueling minutes in silence until I could no longer take it.

There was a fallacy I could not place. We had made love, he had told me he loved me, and now he was—for lack of a better term—ghosting me. He sat a few tables away from me, laughing and talking to some woman.

I finally got to my feet and made my way through the crowd, standing behind Luca and the unnamed lady. Lorenzo had left. I did not care.

I stood still for a few seconds, trying to catch what she was saying. However, all I saw was her leaning close to him and handing him something—a card, her hand on his forearm. He did not move away, their heads put together as she giggled at something he had said.

I glanced down at whatever it was that she had handed him, and it seemed like a pass for some sort of VVIP lounge. Which again did not make sense. Why would she invite him to her lounge?

"Luca," I said before I had decided to, and both of them spun around to see me.

The lady flashed me a smile, saying something I did not care enough to read. I gave her a curt nod before turning my focus back on Luca, who still had a practiced smile on his face.

"Hayes—" he said with a nod, lifting his glass of champagne at me. "Congratulations. Well deserved."

"You did not respond to my messages," I stated.

His smile slid off his face as he glanced once, sideways, at the lady. She looked back at him, to which he simply shook his head once. Like I was an inconvenience.

"Sorry, was busy with training," he grinned, leaning back into his chair. "Euros and all. Preparing to beat England—" he said with a wink. His smile did not reach his eyes; he did not tilt his head twelve degrees to the right like he usually would when he was amused.

"Actually—" I began, taking a step closer to the pair of them. However, Luca suddenly stood up and addressed me directly.

"Let's talk away from here. Too much noise—" he winced theatrically. "Come on."

He gripped my wrist with a little too much strength, pulling me along with him outside to the empty corridor. But he did not stop there until we had reached the fire escape stairwell. Deserted, except for an "OUT OF ORDER" signboard hanging dismally above, under the fluorescent lights. He raked a hand through his hair and finally turned to face me. "Elliot—you can't... you can't do that—" he sighed, leaning against the drab grey walls. "This is a professional setting. Okay?"

"Is it part of your profession to court strange ladies?" I asked, my voice shaking. 

"I wasn't... I wasn't courting anyone, Elliot—" he said slowly. Like I was a stupid child. "She is Valentina Reznick. Daughter of the Lumera CEO. I was doing some damage control—" He shook his head. "You know they dropped me? My biggest sponsor, Elliot! Because of all the rumors about—us," he finished, pointing to the widening gap between both of us.

"Damage control?" I asked, placing my hands against the iron banister until my knuckles turned white. "Is that what I am to you?"

His eyes widened, and he glanced once at the shut door of the stairwell. "Elliot, you need to keep this quiet. Okay? If someone—"

"I cannot—" I took a ragged breath. "I do not understand you. Why... you do not respond to anything I send. I keep texting and calling you like a petulant child, and you keep—you keep—"

The air felt suddenly too solid, my vision slowly becoming hazy as he took a step closer to me, his eyebrows furrowed. "Elliot—?"

He said something else, but I couldn't catch it.

"How long—?" I asked finally, managing to look at him and wiping my eyes to get rid of the sudden haze. "How long are you going to keep doing this? Fraternizing with strange ladies, having them invite you to their private lounge in the name of—" I was sure my voice was rising, and his reaction—where he flinched—was enough of a confirmation. "—damage control?"

"Elliot—" he took a step closer toward me, one shaky hand stretched out as if he wanted to touch me but thought better of it. "This is my career. It was nothing. It was supposed to just be a dinner. Just some conversation, some food, nothing else."

"It does not make any sense!" I shrieked, and his face went pale, his chest heaving. "You told me you love me! And you want to—to accept some private invitation from—from her—over some... some... professional—"

"Elliot—" he said, placing both hands on my shoulders and squeezing gently. But his touch somehow made my heart seize uncomfortably, like something was twisting it in my chest until I was suffocating. "You can't... you can't act like this. This... this isn't how it's supposed to be."

"What—what—is?"

"Elliot!" He sighed, chewing on his bottom lip before turning to face me. "What did you think was going to happen? This is my profession! I'm building my career!"

"By ignoring me? By pretending I don't exist?" I said, my voice shaking pathetically.

"No... n—" He cupped my face in his cold hands, making my eyes meet his. "No, of—"

I wasn't sure what it was—some loud bang that felt like a tremor in my bones—but he jumped away, his hand immediately falling to his side, his eyes turning to stare at the door that was still shut.

"Elliot—" he started again, his chest heaving as he shoved his shaking hands into his trouser pockets. "We... we never promised anything. I never promised anything."

"What... what do you mean?" I asked, my throat dry.

He gulped, rubbing a hand against his mouth before he spoke again. "All we had... It's all we will ever have. I didn't... I told you... this—" He winced, his breath coming out in ragged gasps.

"You told me... you loved me," I stated in a whisper.

"It was in a moment of passion," he answered. "It... it doesn't... it doesn't matter how I feel. This... this is my career. My sponsors, my image, I can't—"

"You told me you loved me," I said again, unable to get beyond that one kink in the data.

"I never said we were anything," he said, and I couldn't hear his words. I could only see his mouth forming them, and I wasn't sure he was even speaking out loud.

"Why... not..." I struggled to breathe, leaning against the banister to try to get my respiration to function normally as the walls spun around me. "Why... not—"

Suddenly, the air was too cold, a strange ringing in my ears even though I wasn't supposed to be able to hear it, my legs feeling weak even though I had been sitting for the past two hours. I placed an arm against the cold metal, leaning my head against it as tremors travelled through my body, my vision blurring.

I was aware of his hand against the small of my back, his face near mine as he muttered. More lies. More pretenses.

I straightened up to look at him, my chest physically splitting into shattered pieces. "Why not?"

"What?"

"Why are we... not anything?"

"Elliot—" He took a deep breath, his eyes dark. "Elliot—"

"What can I do?"

"Wha—?"

"What can I? So we are... something? How... how can I... HOW DO I BE NORMAL FOR YOU?"

My words ended in a shriek, something I hadn't expected, torn right from my bleeding chest. He took another step closer to me, reaching toward me, but I jerked his arm away. "How do you want me to be normal for you? I can not be normal, Luca! I do not get it! I do not understand how you can tell me you love me, act like you love me, and then tell me that we did not promise anything!"

A dark shadow that had nothing to do with the flickering lights of the ceiling passed across his face. He glanced at the shut door again, his throat bobbing.

"You lied to me! You... you—" An ugly, embarrassing sob escaped my chest, my limbs suddenly too weak to support me. But I gripped onto the bannister, refusing to fall down. "You act like you are blind! You don't even see how much I—"

"Elliot—!" He took a step toward me, grabbing my shoulders and making me face him. "D-don't. Please. Don't make it harder—"

"This is hard? For you?" I laughed, rubbing my eyes vigorously to let the blur behind them settle. I could feel numbers, colours, metrics, flying off the page I had meticulously written them on, the ink spilling like blood from a torn artery, splattering the white pages with nothing but blood. "I c-can't—can not I can not be normal, Luca!" I sobbed, placing a fist on my chest, tapping it to try to lower the erratic, seemingly fatal rhythm of the pieces of my heart. "I never asked you... for anything! Everything was on your terms... and it is still not enough. I am still not enough. I am still not normal enough!"

My throat felt like it was splintering open, my vocal cords fraying at the edges. "How... how do I be normal for you... how... what... how— I do not know... I do not know... I do not understand... what do you want—"

I couldn't breathe, my words drying in my closed-up throat as I leaned against the cold banister, my boots barely holding me up. Everything was spiraling out of control, a car with failing brakes. Everything was too loud, and I could hear none of it, and feel all of it. Too much of it.

It took me too long to become aware of Luca grabbing my wrist, speaking to me. Or trying to speak to me.

I turned to face him, putting every last ounce of courage in my words through my tongue that felt like sandpaper. "Luca— do you love me?"

He fell quiet instantly. I couldn't read the expression on his face.

"Luca—" I asked again, wiping my nose on the back of my designer tux. "Do you love me?"

"It's not... that easy, Elliot—" he answered in a breathless gasp. "Please. You... you know if—"

"DO YOU LOVE ME? IT'S A BINARY QUESTION, MORETTI, JUST FUCKING ANSWER!"

"I can't answer that," he said finally, slumping against the wall and looking away from me, his height suddenly shrinking down. He said something else, but I didn't know. I didn't hear. It wasn't what I needed to hear. 

Our gazes met in that second, suspended on the edge of oblivion, tethered to reality by my last shred of sanity. I could see how tenderly he had kissed me, how gently he had held me, how earnestly he had ruined me, how lovingly he had cared for me. How he had read all my tells even when I didn't know I had any, how he had heard me even when I hadn't spoken, how he had spoken to me when I hadn't heard.

All I had asked for, was a yes.

All I got, all I ever got— was silence.

And I took off sprinting down the staircase, afraid I would perish if I stayed in the coffin of my own feelings for too long.

I could feel the vibrations on the staircase behind me, whether they were him running after me or my own hallucinations from not being normal enough—I wasn't sure. I didn't turn to check.

Someone said they wanted to see Elliot crying, heartbroken— (I KNOW IT WAS YOU—) 
So...what do we think is going to happen? I am curious; are you guys picking a side?