James.

My mind screamed.

As the stretcher approached us I felt the hands around me finally loosen. For a second I almost fell down, my feet couldn't hold me. I saw Scolari already giving instructions to those around him, the game was continuing. The show must go on.

I couldn't see him as the stretcher passed by us, he was surrounded by doctors. I only saw the soles of his shoes as they took him inside the locker room.

"Olivia go!" I heard a soft voice urge me and my feet finally moved and I ran after them.

What happened next was almost in slow motion. The situation was at least chaotic inside the locker room. I pushed people out of my way until I reached him. He was still in the stretcher as the doctors examined him, he was still crying in pain. His eyes were stormy and when they locked on mine my heart stopped. He was alright, right?

I ran to him, wrapping my hand around his and he clasped mine so hard it almost hurt.

"The ambulance is outside." Someone yelled. "They are waiting for you."

"What's the ETA to the hospital?"

"The roads are pretty cramped, they are trying to open the way. I don't know." The first voice answered.

"Maybe a helicopter?" I heard someone else say and recognized Dr. Runco's voice.

"Is he going to be okay?" I asked him.

"Liv?" He exclaimed, surprised to see me there. "I don't... It's too early to tell."

I turned around to look at Neymar but I couldn't know if he was following what was happening around him, his eyes were glazed.

"The painkiller is working! It's time to move him!" Someone yelled and two medics got inside with a trolley stretcher and carefully moved him to it, forcing him to let go of my hand.

My panic returned and I think Neymar realized that he wasn't holding my hand anymore because he tried to stand up.

"No, no Neymar!" Dr. Runco yelled. "If this is a spinal injury it's vital that you don't move!"

They started transporting him down the corridor, his hand still outstretched and I ran behind them, desperately trying to push the words 'spinal injury' out of my mind.

"I'm coming with you!" I said as they loaded the stretcher in the ambulance.

"Doctors only Liv!"

"He needs someone he knows to be with him!"

"He's medicated. He won't know whether you're there or not!" He said firmly and closed the ambulance door before I could object.

I looked around wondering how the hell I would get to the hospital, when I didn't even know which hospital they were taking him to.

"C'mon, you can ride with us." Someone said and I recognized someone from Dr. Runco' staff I didn't know by name.

There were three people in the car and when the driver started driving I was relieved to see the ambulance only a few cars ahead of us. "What is wrong with them? Why don't they move aside for the ambulance?"

"The street is crammed, there's nowhere to move aside to." A girl said.

"Dr. Runco said spinal injury. What does that mean?" I asked the guy that had offered me the ride.

"It could mean anything. I don't know..." He said reluctantly. "From a simple bruise to quadriplegia."

"Not death?"

He looked at me shocked. "No! No! It would have to be the rarest case!"

"So it's not out of the table?" I asked.

"It is." The girl who spoke before said. "Jo, don't scare her!" She yelled at the driver.

We remained silent for the rest of the way, tailing the ambulance. After a few minutes we reached larger streets and the ambulance was able to go faster, reaching the hospital in about 10 minutes.

When we reached the lobby they had already taken Neymar inside and said I would have to wait outside. I leaned towards the wall for support and took a breath.

I heard my phone ring and realized that it had been ringing non-stop for at least five minutes in which I didn't even acknowledge it.

"Liv? Thank God!" I heard my brother's voice. "Where are you? I'm coming."

I gave my brother the name of the hospital and he promised he would be here as soon as possible. The one TV in the hospital room was showing a TV panel discussing the game and I saw the moment Neymar got injured over and over again. It almost looked like nothing, like Zuniga's knee didn't even hit him that hard and it probably would have been nothing had it not been in the spine.

I felt my knees completely give out as I crumbled to the floor and sat there, feeling too exhausted, physically and mentally. The parallels were impossible to ignore, Michael must know it too. That's why he sounded so frantic on the phone.

I've lived through this before, I realized. But I don't know if I can do it a second time.

"Olivia, where is he?" Someone yelled from across the room and it was the first time in the two months I've known him that Neymar Da Silva Santos Senior spoke to me in English. His face looked haunted and white as a sheet, Rafaella equally unraveled by his side.

"In there mister Santos. I don't know anything, they wouldn't tell me or let me see him, only family." I said and before I even finished they were both gone through the door. I hoped they'd let me know when they knew. Alex who I didn't notice had come with them, sat down next to me.

"Hey," he said, putting his hand on mine. "He's gonna be okay, you'll see. He's a tough guy, I fought him, I know."

I chuckled.

"Liv, I'm serious." He said, squeezing my hand. "Relax please, you're shaking."

I looked at my other hand, laying on my lap and realized he was right. "I..." I started saying but the door opened again and my brother was there. "Michael!" I cried and ran towards him. He hugged me tightly and I was pretty sure he was the only reason I was standing on my feet. "It's happening again Mikey. I can't..."

"Hey, hey, listen to me." He said, taking my head in his hands and making me look at him. "No it's not. This isn't anything like that. You hear me? Neymar is going to be fine."

"They said spinal injury."

"Even if that's true." He said fiercely and wrapped his arms around me again. Behind him I saw all our friends, Sam who was wiping her tears in her sleeve and Demis with his arm around her shoulders, Haley looking pale and alarmed and Romy and Tobias with sad expressions on their faces. I took a deep breath.

~*~

"You can see him now." The nurse told me as she opened the door to Neymar's room and let me in.

He was awake and staring out the window. His back was bandaged and his left hand was hooked on an IV.

"I was starting to wonder where you were." He said still looking outside. He then turned to look at me. "Part of me feared you'd have left forever."

"Never." I said and took the few steps to the bed in almost a run. I took his hand in mine but he let it go and instead pulled me to him. I couldn't believe the butterflies I felt in my stomach when we touched. And the peace that came right after, because he was alive and safe.

"You don't know how worried I was." I told him.

"I know. Believe it or not, my dad told me. He also pulled some strings to make them let you come in here."

I chuckled. "And he spoke to me in English. I didn't even know he could."

Neymar smiled. "I suppose you know now."

I nodded as I sat on the chair by the side of his bed.

"This is it, huh? I never thought it would go down like this."

"It's not over yet." I told him, laying my hand on top of his again.

"But it is for me." He said flatly.

"You'd still be a world champion if they win."

"It's not the same."

"I know but—"

"No, you don't know!" He cut me.

"I do." I said, my voice shaky. Suddenly I was so full of memories and emotions that I thought I'd explode. "Trust me I do."

He focused his gaze outside the window again. There were a million things I wanted to say but I didn't say anything.

~*~

Rafaella hadn't told me much on the phone, only that I needed to be there. They had already moved Neymar to a private clinic and I heard Cisco Oriveira had helped with that. When I reached Neymar's room, the clinic stuff didn't even bat an eye at my presence there.

"Oh I see. You've brought the cavalry." Neymar said when he saw me. I looked around the room at his father, sister, Dr. Runco and a bunch of other doctors that I knew were treating Neymar. There were two screens in the room with two people on video calls, one of which I knew. It was Dr. Makenzie Sufford, the redheaded doctor who once found me hiding in Neymar's bathroom.

"What is this?" I asked.

"Conference call." One of the doctors said.

And why am I the cavalry? I wanted to ask but didn't.

Rafaella motioned for me to come inside the room.

"So, now that we are all here—" One of the doctors started saying.

"There's nothing to discuss! This is my decision!" Neymar yelled.

"We all know that Neymar." Dr. Sufford said. "But you have to consider the risks."

"I know. I have. I want to go through with this." He said adamantly.

"Through with what?" I asked, seeing Neymar's father bury his head in his hands.

"He wants to do a stupid, risky experimental surgery so that he plays against Germany!" Rafaella yelled.

"What?" I turned to look at him. "Neymar, you have a broken back!"

"It will be okay. I will be given something for the pain, I won't even feel it. And then after the game is over, I'll rest and stay immobile as long as you want." He said glancing from me to all his doctors.

"No, it doesn't work like that. You saw how aggressive the game against Colombia was! You can't guarantee that you won't suffer another injury!" I said incredulously.

"We're talking paralysis here." One of the doctors said.

"But doctor Maltene said—" Neymar started saying as he pointed to the doctor on the other screen, the one I didn't know.

"Do you really want to take this chance? All the other doctors are against it." Rafaella said. "This guy comes out of nowhere and all of a sudden he's the only one that you listen to?"

"Yeah well, I don't expect you to get it!" Neymar yelled at her. "Mas pai, você entende, certo?" He asked his father. "It's my chance, it's our chance. It's what we always wanted. To win the World Cup and to do it here, in Brazil. That's the highest honor."

"Nenhum filho. O que eu quero é que meu filho seja feliz e saudável."

"Is it worth your life?" Rafaella asked. "Your ability to move? Your whole football career? Just for one game?"

Neymar wiped his nose.

"Okay, why don't we all step outside and let him think about it." Dr. Runco said and the doctors started walking outside.

"I'm gonna stay." I said to Rafaella and her dad and he shot me a look that I interpreted as 'I may not have liked you in the past but please help me convince him'.

"So I get it that you agree with them." Neymar said when we were alone.

"Well if the alternative is that something happens to you, you know I do."

"But Liv, you of all people, you know what it means to me. The game is my life." He said looking at me pleadingly.

"Oh Neymar..." I said, closing my eyes. The brown eyes turned to blue, but the gaze was the same, clean and brave and desperate. "There's something I have to tell you." I said, sitting on the chair his father previously occupied. "You said before that I didn't get it, that I don't understand. But there's something you should know about me."

He looked at me curiously.

"Yesterday morning when I told you there was someone else—"

"Liv please don't do this, not now." He cut me. "I can't listen to this."

"I have to. You have to know." I said, squeezing his hand tightly. "I can't let you make the decision you want to. I can't live with that. So you have to know." I took a deep breath and started again: "When you asked me if it was over, I said no."

"I know, I was there. Unfortunately."

"The reason I said no is because... well, it never will be."

Neymar's lips formed a thin line but he didn't say anything, so I took it as my cue to continue.

"When my family moved because of my dad's work I was 16." I said. "It was a very different place to the one I was used to. Very different people. It was a small town, but Neymar, they breathed football. And that's where I met him. He was my first boyfriend and his name was James. And now I have to tell you. All of it."