trigger warning: sexual assault

The treatment table is cold and I stick to the plasticky leather as I sprawl out, my hamstring presented to Daniel with no shame left to have. "It fucking kills," I say honestly, knowing he is never going to instruct anyone. He has been told by Jorge to treat me and keep me quiet. He informed me of that during one of our conversations.

"I vote you fake another injury and take a break from playing. You were there for forty-five and you are going to scream when I touch you." His cold hands begin to work into my flesh, and I have to bite down on my tongue to prove him wrong. "You see, you're young and you're able to bounce back now, but it's not going to be this easy in a few years. You'll end up cutting your career short by ignoring niggles until they become fatal."

I laugh. "You are so dramatic."

He reminds me a lot of my friends from Córdoba. I never used to get on with the girls in my year group. They grew tired of hearing my excuses as to why I couldn't join them to go shopping or to roam the streets of the city until the sun rose. Those who I was close to were the ones with whom I played football. The boys whose jerseys I'd wear when I couldn't afford the kit but would get subbed on anyway, and the boys who treated me like a little sister.

Daniel, I think, treats me a bit like a little sister. He cares for me.

His hands knead into my thigh with a tender determination to ease my pain, and I find him gazing at me while I recount some silly story from the night I won the Champions League. It's just us.

My breath hitches as he finds a particularly tight spot. "Keep going," he encourages, though the room seems to darken slightly. I think nothing of it, and I'm probably too tired to care.

Until his hands start to move higher.

Until one cups my cheek.

Until he presses his lips against mine.

I jerk backwards.

"Daniel," I begin to apologise, although I'm not sure why. Eyes wide and unblinking, I take in the sinister expression he has sprouted. The forcefulness in his brown eyes. The slight smirk as we both realise I cannot move away from him, not with him holding me down.

"Just take it," he says calmly, pressing my shoulders down. "Relax, Tali. It'll feel good."

He kisses me again, this time rougher and with an insatiable hunger that makes my stomach lurch. I writhe underneath him as his tongue parts my lips, and I squeeze my eyes shut to imagine myself out of the hell I am in. I beg, silently, for someone to come in. Help me.

And the door opens. Maybe there is a God.

He is pulled off me. I pant on the table, refusing to open my eyes though the crushing weight of his body is no longer suffocating me. My tears hit the plasticky leather and I want to die.

There is a lot of shuffling, and I think he punches something. I hear him shout, growling at my saviour, and there is a loud knock against the wall. The door slams. He must have left.

Then, someone speaks.

"Are you okay?" A hand, tentative at first, reaches out to wipe one of the tears rolling down my cheekbones. Another hand slides under the back of my head, cradling my skull as if it holds the power to erase the last five seconds.

"Don't touch me," is all I say.

The hands leave. My head thuds back down and I let out a groaning sob, mouth wide open and tainted by the taste of a man who I once trusted.

"Talia." The voice sounds equally mournful. "Talia, what do you need me to do?" It's Alexia, I realise. I still do not open my eyes.

"Go," I grunt, before everything left inside me breaks, and I am left wondering whether something so tainted and bruised and bloodied can be ruined even more.

There have been times, recently, where I cannot even look at myself in the mirror. For, in that dreaded reflection, all I can picture is a man I do not want. There is no mirror in my possession for me to have shattered, but I have wished they were all destroyed enough for the hotel staff to have left the towel that covers the shiny silver in the bathroom.

Since I found out – since I found it all out – I have been a different person. More loved, certainly. More known, more praised, and more asked after. But the crushing reveal led me to hate every bit of positivity my life has gained.

Now, it is amplified by the repetition of history. By the defamation of a body that really should never have been created; cells are treacherous and developed of a terrible, terrible crime.

All I can do is shower.

Jorge refuses to talk to me, unless it is about football. Alexia, hot-headed and fiercely caring, will never allow me in a room with Daniel again, and so I have had no physiotherapy for the last week. My agent (I suppose, our agent) indulges himself in the time difference and keeps me awake, never questioning why I am up, to discuss clubs and leagues and salaries.

I am not really in control of anything, especially considering we are at a World Cup and every second of every day is aggressively timetabled. So: all I can do is shower.

Of which, I do a lot.

Whenever I get the chance, I brush my teeth, scrubbing at my tongue as if it will remove the foreign DNA forced inside of me. I let scalding hot water trickle down my shoulders, my waist, my back. I pretend soap washes memories away, and neutralises nightmares that not even the presence of Alexia can quell.

Alexia, in protection, will not let me have a moment alone.

She thoughtfully hums as I step out of my most recent steaming waterfall of distraction. As usual, she is sitting on my bed, probably texting Fleur.

"Jorge said we could talk to him this evening." I look up from where I am drying my body, as if expecting her to appear in the open doorway. "I... Do you want to? I cannot read your mind, but I feel as though you expect me to be able to."

"What is Jorge going to say that will change what happened?" We only refer to the incident as the thing that 'happened', otherwise I collapse into a screaming heap. I prefer numbness to that.

"He might," Alexia hopes. In vain, of course. I pull my kit back on and join her on the expanse of cloud-like white.

"It could have been a misunderstanding. Jorge will think of it like that, at least." Daniel, the same evening, sent a poetic paragraph to me confessing his unwavering fondness and attraction. He said that he would overlook it and I could easily redeem myself.

"It wasn't."

"I know."

"You didn't want him to–"

"I know, I was there."

Alexia begins to seethe, as she always does when she thinks about it. "He should be sent back to Spain immediately, and he should be locked in a cage so that he can never touch anyone again. He loves you? What bullshit!" Her legs kick out and I see her wince.

"Your knee hurts," I say, partly with the aim to stop talking about this. I am yet to hate him. I am just pushing through the days. "Have you told someone?"

"It's fine," she grumbles. "What isn't fine..." And she starts again.

Later, after dinner, Alexia and I join our manager in the hotel lobby. The place is devoid of all non-robotic life, seeing as the concierge moves so rigidly that I am convinced they are made of metal. I don't like how Jorge selects an arrangement of furniture that forces Alexia and I to separate, with him in between us.

He places a notepad on the glass coffee table, looking at Alexia expectantly.

"You wanted to talk to me, with Natalia," he prompts, raising his eyebrows as if to thrust Alexia into her explanation instantaneously. I watch her prickle. She swallows and sighs and her eyes moisten as though she is about to cry. "Alexia, I really do not have time for this. Is it a matter for the psychologist? Have you confused us?"

His taunt is unnecessary, but Alexia fights her sentences still. I clear my throat. "No, no," I say, "we needed you." For some reason, I send him a small smile. It takes him by surprise.

"Talia was sexually assaulted by one of the physiotherapists. Daniel Garrido. The one you assigned her." Jorge does not react. He does not seem bothered. "He pinned her down against her will, and kissed her. No consent was given – verbal or otherwise. I found him and pulled him off her. He tried to punch me, but he missed. I pushed him into the wall and he proceeded to run away."

I did not know this.

"This is one of your employees. He is a member of a team of staff that is supposed to keep your athletes safe, and he has done the opposite." She speaks as though she is detached from herself. I see her struggle to breathe in.

In this, Jorge must only hear a plea for help. Alexia makes no explicit demand. From that, he knows we are at a loss. He must see the disarray and confusion, and he can smell the disagreement between us. She wants a fuss, and I do not.

Jorge leans back in his chair, palms flexing in his lap.

"Did he treat you?" he asks, directly to me. I let my eyes drift to Alexia's uncertain expression, though they eventually land on his sardonic features.

"Yeah," I reply with a shrug. "But he also–"

"I've noticed you limping. You have stopped seeing him, haven't you?"

He could not give less of a shit about the lips I feel on me every night. It does not affect him, nor does it worry him. He cares about my untreated hamstring more than me. That is because Jorge Vilda needs my legs to win the World Cup. He does not need my heart.

"She will not receive treatment from him," declares Alexia. Her firmness was not stripped when they took her captaincy away from her. I shuffle on the armchair I am sitting on. "I would rather take a course myself and give her what she needs."

"You would be far from qualified, but it would be a good attempt at making yourself useful." She brushes off his venom. "But, yes. I agree. Daniel may prove to be a bit of a distraction now." He picks up his notepad, readying himself to leave, and he turns entirely towards me. "You may switch with your cousin."

He stands before Alexia can protest.

"I would be sensible about this, if I were you." I blink for a second too long and Daniel's tongue is in my mouth. Bile rises in my throat, and I have to shake my head to return to reality. "Keep in mind, Natalia, that the only bad thing about stars is how quickly they burn out." 

notes: 

i honestly think i've been hallucinating again

idk how rushed this feels but i am v determined to finish this fic

thanks for reading!!