the sun always rises || dybala

22: far from home

domenica 10:34

It's been really hard on both of them.

Paulo has trouble sleeping now. Not a day passes by where he wonders about Charlene. He prays for her wellbeing and safety every night, and he's not even religious. He does it because she left that much of an impact on his life.

She made him cry that night—the last time they spoke. The next day, she was at work, and Paulo was reading articles on his Macbook about people with depression. He saw her with Mario, laughing about something in Croatian. That is when he realizes that everything is not what it seems.

He constantly wakes up at four in the morning, thinking about her. He hopes she's been sleeping well, and that she's taking care of herself. He hopes that she had something to look forward to everyday.

He becomes very tired throughout the day now, he tries to stay awake during passing drills, but it's like physically fatigue now.

"Paulo!" Allegri jogs over to the Argentinian right after a straining game of possession in the box. "You okay there?"

"Uh—yeah. Just tired."

"Are you sure? You're like, about to faint." The Italian manager puts his hand on Paulo's forehead to feel for any signs of a fever, any alarming temperatures.

"Hm? I always look like this."

"About to faint?"

"Yeah. Don't question it."

Ever since Paulo began waking up at four in the morning, he's been looking tired as fuck during training that it worries everyone. Giorgio has to check up on him after every drill, and everyone's taking turns to make sure he's literally not about to faint during training. The medical staff are worried it might be harmful to his health—they've taken him in several times but he always leaves with the same piece of advice:

Get some rest.

Well, he's fucking trying.

"No, Paulo. I need you to get some rest, please." Allegri looked concerned, just everyone in Paulo's life now. "I just don't want anything to happened to you, alright?"

"What are you implying that I do?"

"I'm giving you permission to leave training early."

Paulo doesn't fight it. At this point, he's out of fuel to even speak. It's the kind of exhaustion that makes you emotionally numb and it physically hurts. It hurts the most at his chest, like there's something there eating him away, making him silently ache under a face everyone smiled at.

When he gets to the dressing room, Paulo falls asleep on the benches right next to the cubbies.

It's the only thing he really wants to do nowadays. Sure, he'll play football and train with the team, but it's not like he really wants to everyday. He used to, though. How, he just wants to sleep and sleep and sleep and sleep.

"Pau?" It's not even ten minutes until Paulo can feel someone roughly nudging his shoulder. "Paulooooo?"

"Hm?" he groans, rubbing his eyes and rolling over to his side. "Por el amor de Jesucristo y sus discípulos—what do you want, Mario?"

The Croat puts his hands up in defense just as if his wife got mad at him for doing something he didn't do even though he really did do it. "Wow. Okay, chill, princesa. I just need you to move. You're in the way of my stuff."

Paulo moved grudgingly, mumbling curse word after curse word under his breath and sat up a little too fast, making him look like he had just seen the light from the lightheadedness. They're done already?