“You look terrible,” Tomáš said, sliding a plate of eggs across the canteen table.
“I say this as— as your friend and also as a person with eyes.” “Cheers, Tomáš.” “The eggs here are very good, better than Czech eggs, don’t tell anyone I said this because I’ll deny it, and also my grandmother will kill me.” He took a big bite of toast and kept talking through it.
“You didn’t sleep?” “Not really.” I picked up my fork, and the smell hit me before the food reached my mouth, and not just the eggs, but everything, the coffee machine across the room, someone’s cologne that was way too strong, and the soap from the showers down the corridor.
All of it layered and sharp, when yesterday it had just been canteen noise.
I put the fork down because my stomach was doing a slow roll, and I wasn’t sure the eggs were going to stay where I put them.
My skin felt hot, too, a low-grade warmth that had started sometime in the night and hadn’t gone away, and I’d checked my temperature that morning, and the thermometer said 36.4, perfectly normal, which made no sense because I felt like I was running a fever from the inside out.
Either the thermometer was broken or I was.
“The club flat?” “The flat’s fine, I just couldn’t settle.” “You’re not eating,” Tomáš said.
“Your mother texts you, yes?
She’ll be very angry.” “She’s always angry.” “My mother is also always angry.
Czech mothers and English mothers are the same.
They believe we’re all starving and also dying and also wearing the wrong coat.” Baresi dropped into the seat across from us with a bowl of yoghurt and fruit arranged in a pattern that looked more ceremonial than nutritional.
“New boy.
How are the legs?” “Fine.” “They won’t be fine today.
Tuesdays, the gaffer thinks we’re soldiers.” He started eating his yoghurt in precise, tiny bites.
“Also, a warning: do not nutmeg the captain again.” “I wasn’t planning on it.” “Good.
Because he— uhh, he remembers.
Defensive midfielders always remember, and they wait, and then in week six they tackle you, and it’s perfectly legal, but you feel it for a month.” He pointed his spoon at me.
“I have seen this happen to Okafor, and Okafor cried.” “He didn’t cry,” Tomáš said.
“He made a noise, it was close to crying.” “That was his knee, Baresi.” “My point stands.” He turned to me.
“Do not nutmeg the captain.” “You’ve said that 3 times.” “Because it’s 3 times important.” The fluorescent strip above our table was humming at a pitch I’d never noticed before, a thin, high whine that sat behind my teeth.
I could hear the groundskeeper’s mower from the pitches even though the canteen windows were shut, and I could hear Okafor’s music leaking from his earbuds 4 tables away clearly enough to recognise the song.
“The captain is already outside,” Tomáš said, glancing toward the window.
“He runs alone before sessions, every morning at— uhh, 6, but maybe earlier today.
I don’t— I’m not sure.” He paused.
“He didn’t eat breakfast.” “Is that unusual?” I said, and I hated that I was asking, honestly, like it mattered, like I needed to know where he was and whether he’d eaten.
“Yes.” Training started at 10.
I ran out onto the pitch, and the cold hit me differently than yesterday, every edge of it clean, and I could feel individual blades of grass through my boot soles, which was crazy because they were the same boots I’d been wearing for 6 months.
My training shirt was bothering me too, the fabric sitting on my skin, every seam noticeable, every fibre too close, like my body had suddenly decided it hated being touched by anything that wasn’t air.
I was faster.
Tomáš jogged up beside me during the warm-up and said, “You’re quicker today.
What happened?” “Nothing happened.” “You’re— you’re definitely quicker.
Did you take a supplement, or is this just your actual speed, and yesterday was, like, a lie?” “Yesterday was jet lag.” “Yesterday was not jet lag, I’ve seen jet lag, jet lag doesn’t nutmeg people.” He looked at me sideways.
“Also, your face is red, and I don’t think it’s from running.
Are you ill?” “I’m fine.” “You keep saying that and it keeps not being true.” The gaffer ran us through a positional exercise and I was seeing spaces I hadn’t seen yesterday, passes opening half a second before they actually existed.
My body was running at a speed my brain hadn’t approved, and it should’ve felt good but I was too distracted to enjoy it, because Kessler was avoiding me.
He did it in small ways, nothing anyone else would notice—just rotations, swapping out whenever the gaffer shuffled the groups and I was about to land on his pitch.
During water breaks, he went to the far end of the touchline, and when we ran in the same line, he kept the maximum possible distance.
Yesterday he’d been cold, but today he was careful, and careful was worse, because cold could mean he didn’t care, but careful meant he was thinking about me enough to plan around it.
“He does this,” Tomáš said, reading my face.
“New players make him uncomfortable.” “You said that yesterday.” “I’m saying it again because you have the same face as yesterday.” “What face?” “The face of a person who’s going to do something stupid.
I recognise it because I also make this face regularly.” Then the gaffer called set pieces, and there was no rotation and no shuffle.
Defending a corner, the box was tight, bodies everywhere, and Kessler was marking the near post, which put him close enough that I could count the grey hairs at his temple.
He didn’t look at me, and he didn’t speak, but I caught his scent again, and my vision went soft at the edges, and my skin was hot from my collar to my hairline.
I was breathing through my mouth because breathing through my nose was making it worse, and the worst part was that my body was pulling toward him, actually pulling, feet wanting to close the distance, and I had to lock my knees to stay where I was.
The corner was delivered, and I missed my runner completely, stood there while the centre-back headed it in unmarked because for 3 seconds I’d forgotten there was a football match happening.
“Wray!” The gaffer, furious.
“What the hell are you doing?” I moved to reset, and my shoulder brushed Kessler’s arm, and his whole body went rigid, every muscle locking at once, and he stepped away so fast it wasn’t even subtle anymore.
“Sorry,” I said.
He looked at me, grey eyes on my face, jaw clenching and releasing, and said, “Don’t apologise, just stay away from me, Wray.” He hadn’t said stay on your side of the box; he’d said stay away from me, and the difference between those two things hit me in the chest before my brain could catch up.
After training, I was heading for the dressing room when I heard voices through the wall of Henrik’s office.
The door was shut, the walls were thick old stone, but the old vent grille near the ceiling carried sound like a speaking tube, and I could hear every word.
Kessler first.
“He needs to go.” Henrik: “He just got here, Damjan.
We signed him.” “Then unsign him, loan him out, I don’t care how, just get him away from me.” “That isn’t your decision.” “Henrik.” And his voice changed, dropped low and rough enough to make every hair on my body stand up.
“You know what he is and you can smell it too.” A pause, then Henrik, quieter: “I can, but he doesn’t know yet, Damjan, and he has no idea what’s happening to him.” “That makes it worse.
That makes it so much… worse.
Because if he stays, if he’s on my pitch every day, I can’t—” He stopped, and I stood on the other side of that wall with my hand flat against the stone and my pulse in my throat, waiting for him to finish that sentence, and he never did.