Football Short Stories

These Letters I Never Sent - Thiago Silva

Dear Thiago,

It's been a week now since we broke up. An entire week that I haven't seen your face, been held in your arms or kissed by you. A whole week that the walls of that apartment we used to share, have stopped echoing to the sound of our incessant fights.

This morning I decided to take out my favorite pen and a piece of paper to write you this letter because it's the best way I found to reach out to you, through writing.

You'll never read these words because I won't send them, I think I'll just keep them in that drawer in the cupboard where your favorite shirts used to be before you packed your things.

But I feel closer to you somehow by laying my thoughts on this piece of paper, which is sort of contradictory since I don't even know where you are in the world right now. You could still be in Brazil but I don't know for sure. What I do know is that I miss you, a lot.

Dear Lena,

Today, I came back from practice around 8 p.m, we had a tough training session and I felt exhausted. I drove to that temporary apartment I rented after we broke up and when I opened the door, for a second, I almost expected to find you there, to be greeted by you, to be able to kiss and hug you. But reality hit me hard when I came up to an empty apartment that felt nothing like the home we built together.

My tired mind commanded me to take out a piece of paper and a pen and I ended up writing you this letter. Pretty old school, I know. It feels weird to know you're just a phone call away but I don't intend on sending this either. Too much pride i guess. But no amount of pride could make me deny, not to myself at least, the fact that I miss you, a lot.

Dear Thiago,

I woke up this morning to the sound of Ora, meowing in front of her empty bowl. You usually were the one who woke up early to feed her. This morning I had to do it myself for once. But I think Ora could sense the difference because she kept meowing for a while after I had filled the bowl with her usual morning dry food. I guess Ora misses you too, not as much as I do though.

Dear Lena,

I'm back in France, training with the club. We had a pre-season match today, a friendly against Roma. We lost 4 to 0, it was pretty painful even for a friendly match. But I wasn't even looking at the score board, all I did was wonder whether you still watched every single one of my games on TV when you couldn't be cheering from the sidelines. I hope you did but I'll never know. If you saw this game you would've seen me lose but at least you'd see how nothing is right when you're not there.

Dear Thiago,

Today my sister came to visit. She wanted to check up on me mostly, I can't say i blame her, I'd be worried too if I saw her in the state I'm in. She asked me how I was and how I've been holding up since the breakup. It felt good to have a shoulder to cry on. She tried to cheer me up by staying over, ordering pizzas, watching movies... The usual post-breakup remedies.

It was nice. But it would've been better to have you there.

Dear Lena,

I've been in Brazil for 2 days now. We had training with the national team this morning. As I greeted all of my teammates, David and Dani asked me about you. I had to tell them we had been broken up for over two months. They were surprised, almost shocked, they tried to comfort me and I knew they were feeling sorry for me. Today was one of those lonely days where I also felt sorry for myself.