Like We Used To || Manuel Neuer

5

        I'm a wreck. 

For the past hour or so, I have been tumbling forward on the blazing city streets with only a single hope: of wanting to get out, though to no avail. Mascara courses down my ashen cheeks with each step taken forward towards nowhere in particular, unwanted tears involuntarily freefalling from my eyes, which have gone moderately puffy due to my crying.  

Ducking under seamless faces and barrelling past currents of sickeningly oblivious people, I, in a depressed haze, eventually walk into a bistro. Flashbacks of days spent without Manuel Neuer fill my mind as I do so; the days that I'd spent wallowing in my own misery, sometimes refusing to leave my room until my mother had to drag me out.

I am so stupid, I think, wiping my eyes with my arms. So, so, so stupid.

My entire life, previously splashed with unique, lively colors, feels as if it has been overtaken by the darkest color possible, a color darker than the blackest, and now, no amount of brushstrokes, not even those comprised of the brightest colors, can wash away the darkness that has been imprinted.

I supress more unwanted tears as I saunter over to the bar of the bistro, which surprisingly winds up being the only station which is completely isolated, and situate myself on one of the bar stools. The bartender, an old man possibly in his fifties, tends to me instantaneously. "Rough day?" he questions, his accented voice speaking to me in English. 

I raise my voice to speak, only to have a pathetic croak released instead.

"It's fine, dear," is his response. "These things happen to the best of us."

"Do they?" I hoarsely mumble. 

He smiles wearily before saying, "Of course. Now, what drink do you think could ease all of this?" 

"A vodka tonic, please."

The bartender nods, and, a several minutes later, slides a drink over to my side of the counter. "A vodka tonic, on the rocks, poured over ice," he announces, a kind smile playing on his lips.

I catch onto the beverage immediately, my fingers sliding around its glassy cup just as it collides with my chest.

Without another thought, I raise the beverage to my lips, taking an extensive quaff. The alcohol winds up sliding down my experienced throat with ease, the numbing liquid soothing my pipes for a lingering amount of time. After I've heartily finished my first glass, I order another.

And another.

And another.

And ano—

"Three vodkas is more than enough, hon," the bartender interweaves, reluctant to accept my fourth order. "You wouldn't want tp get a terrible hangover—or worse, alcohol poisoning!—the next day." 

"No, no," I slur. "Just one more. Please."

"You sure?" he asks uncertainly. 

I nod, laboriously sliding some spare cash towards the bartender's end of the counter.

Although hesitant, the bartender obliges, shuffling behind his counter as he prepares more vodka tonics. 'One more,' however, turns into multiple mores, and soon enough, I find myself bizarrely intoxicated. The alcohol eventually crashes into my organs, intensely seeping into every bit of them, leaving my mind to be a haze.

And the rest of the evening, with the exception of the small snippets of events, is oblivion. 

"Have you had your heart broken?" I remember the bartender questioning me, his voice thick with concern, sometime that evening. "Because the only time I've drunk as much as you have was two seven ago, when I arrogantly left the love of my life."

I vaguely remember telling him that I hadn't had my heartbroken. Because I hadn't—because there couldn't be a way (not even a tiny, infinitesimal chance) that my state of grief then could've been summed up as just a heartbreak. It was more than that. It had to be. 

"Tell me your story," he had said to my dismay. "You'll feel better."

Although reluctant at first, I eventually gave in to the bartender's words. Perhaps it was the lack of fatherly figure that drove me into confiding in a stranger, or even the desire of wanting someone to just listen. However, regardless of what it was, I found myself telling this stranger every memorable detail about Manuel and I, not leaving a single bit out.

Our story begins Gelsenkirchen, I had begun, where Manu and I met as simple kids. And it seemed like days—or even nine years—passed as I continued onward with the story—Manuel and my story—telling the old man everything that he'd vowed to listen to. When my story drew an end, I was back to the way I had originally been: in tears.

"That can't possibly be the end of such a lovely story, Miss," the bartender had remarked, his voice laced with sadness. "It can't end without you giving him a chance to explain it all; without you two making up; without you two having some sort of closure."

I sniffled. 

"It doesn't have to be this way, Azelie," the bartender murmured. 

"Yeah, right," I retorted. "I don't even know why I'm in Rio, to be honest. I don't fucking know anything. Every time I think about him, I know that I'm still in love with him, but when I saw him in person, I just felt so goddamn angry!"

"Anger has no place in love, dear. Please don't ever forget that."

"But—"

"No but's. I was once in love too, you know, and it was the hardest thing I'd ever done. Her full name was Beatrice. So beautiful, she was; her beauty mesmerizing enough to cause envy to the stars in the sky. I used to call her Be—beautiful. My name was Leonardo. She used to call me Le—leaver.

"One day, after a seemingly trivial fight, I told her that I never wanted to see her again. I told her that loving her was too laborious of a task; that I couldn't do it anymore, not now, and definitely not for the rest of my life. But now, more than seven years later, I sit miserably in this forsaken bistro, a place where I had fallen in love with Be, with my name no longer Le, but Bele."

"Don't call me Leonardo," he continued. "Don't call me Le—call me Bele."

I sat speechlessly on my stool, floundering for words as my mind numbed, racing in circles, unable to make sense of what Bele had just said. In that moment, all syllables of every existing word seemed prolonged, feeling inexplicably difficult to pronounce. The look in Bele's previously kind eyes, which currently mourned grief, wasn't nearly enough to cover what he was feeling. To my dismay, I wasn't educated in giving sympathy.

"But—why?" I eventually queried. "Why did you change your name to Bele?"

Bele heaved out a sigh, a long, anguished gesture that left me feeling mournful. "Because without Be, Le is nothing. And I can see that without Manuel, Azelie is nothing."