18

"It looks nice." James commented as he set the first box on the floor. "I can get down with this."

"Oh yeah?" I mocked him. "It's my dorm room." I said, setting my box on top of his. It was nice enough, I thought as I looked around. A small room with a bed and an office. And outside a small living room and joined kitchen I would share with three other people.

"Yes, but I'll be practically living here too. I hope you don't have very uptight roommates."

I chuckled. "I hope it's true. Well, the first part. But won't you be busy? After all, Ukraine is a little too far to commute from."

He laughed. It was that laugh of his that I had missed so much this past year. It was carefree and breathtaking and innocent and it made me weak on the knees.

"I can't believe this is happening." He breathed. "Every time someone congratulates me, every time it crosses my mind that I finally have a contract... I just can't believe it happened. I thought it never would."

"Well that makes one of us, because I was certain it would." I told him, wrapping my arms around his neck. "My boyfriend, the Premier League footballer."

"Well Ukrainian Premier League, but still."

"And if he plays well, Champions League?" I said, teasingly. "I hope you don't dump me for some model."

"I'm not a fool." He said before he corrected himself: "Well, at least not that big of a fool."

"You better not be." I said and we both laughed. "I'll be there, every game." I told him. He chuckled, because we both knew that was next to impossible. Ukraine was far.

"Every other game?" He suggested. I nodded. "At least you won't have to fear about missing my games for the next few months since I'll probably be riding the bench for a while."

I sighed. I knew he was disappointed but I was glad he would have a chance to take it down a notch. I wanted him to take it easy.

"When are you going for your physical?" I asked him.

"Next week."

"You'll tell them everything James, won't you?"

"Yes baby, I promise. Don't worry about it. Besides I told you, I'm already seeing a doctor. The one who gave me the pills."

"And what exactly do those pills do?" I asked for the hundredth time.

"They just regulate my heartbeat, nothing else. Don't worry okay? I'm healthy as a horse." He chuckled and hugged me tightly. "Now stop this. It's your first night in your new dorm and none of your roommates are here yet. Tell me you're thinking what I'm thinking."

I pushed thoughts of pills and doctors and heartbeats out of my mind and smiled at him. "You bet."

~*~

"I think we have to incorporate these findings in our report. At least we will have something to talk about in the presentation." Peter suggested.

"I'm so anxious about this presentation." Charlotte said and Alex nodded in agreement.

"It's gonna be fine." Peter said. "We'll split it in four and you'd barely have anything to say." He looked at Charlotte and smiled. She ignored him.

"So what are you guys doing tonight?" I asked, trying to change the subject.

Peter liked Charlotte and Charlotte liked Alex and Peter and Alex were best friends. And from what I gathered, no one had any idea what anyone else was feeling. And we all met twice a week for study group. It was comical and tragic at the same time. "Well there's a party tonight, at one of the fraternities." I said when no one spoke. "I forget which one. Do you guys want to go?" I asked.

They all looked at each other and Alex nodded first. Charlotte nodded as well and then Peter, after seeing she agreed, and I was sure this wouldn't end well for anyone of them.

~*~

"Hey Liv! Liv!" I heard as Peter caught up with me after our study group ended.

"Yes Peter." I said.

"So, since we're all going to the party..." He started saying. "I was thinking you should go with Alex."

"Yeah?" I asked.

"Makes sense. We have two cars."

"We can take just the one car. It's four of us."

"Nah, let's take two. That way if someone wants to leave early we don't all have to leave."

"You're right. I'll go with Charlotte and you go with Alex since they are the ones with the cars and you leave in his dorm and she lives in mine. I think it makes sense."

"But..." He started protesting. It was too funny.

"Oh for the love of God, Peter. Ask Charlotte out and be done with it."

Peter looked at me shocked.

"Look Charlotte already asked me if I wanted a ride." I added.

"Tell her you wanted to go with Alex. She'd understand."

"I think she wouldn't. Since she knows I have a boyfriend and all."

"Wait, you have a boyfriend?" Peter stopped on his tracks. "I didn't know that."

"And it was at that moment, that the boy, shocked and astonished, realized he didn't in fact know everything about everyone in the world..." I said dramatically.

"What I mean is, I've never seen you with anyone at parties." He said, rolling his eyes at me.

"He's not here."

Peter gave me a somewhat condescending look.

"What are you guys talking about?" Alex said joining as for the rest of the way to the dorms.

"Liv has a boyfriend, did you know?" Peter asked Alex.

"No, I had no idea." Alex answered quietly.

"Well I do have one. He's working so we don't see each other very often."

"How old is he?" Peter asked.

"19. Almost 20."

"He's not in college?" Peter asked again as Alex shot him a warning look. Peter was always annoyingly voicing everything that was in his mind.

"So I'll see you at the party." I told them and hurried towards my dorm.

"Thanks for nothing Liv!" Peter yelled after me.

~*~

"Another party, ha?" James teased me. "You're going to more parties than I do and I thought it would be the other way around."

I laughed. "I don't even know why I go. It's not like I won't spend my time wishing you were there."

"Just two more weeks, baby." He said. I sighed. In two weeks I would finally fly to Ukraine for the first time to watch James play. It still killed me that I wasn't there for his first three games. But I had classes and exams and couldn't leave.

All three times I spend my time refreshing the live feed of an online Ukraine channel every few seconds to try and watch the game. It was the middle of the night and the quality was crappy. The feed was freezing every two seconds and it was so blurry I couldn't even tell the players apart.

But in all those games James was an alternate. He only played a few minutes in each game. But he played well, he even had an assist in his third game, so his coach told him we has starting him at the next game. And James went online and bought me a ticket. It was the last game before Christmas so we'd stay in Ukraine for a few days and then go on vacation together. He still hadn't told me where we were going and I was looking forward to the surprise.

"And then after Christmas, you have to come here, for me to show you off, because people are starting to think you're not real and frankly, so do I." I said to him.

"I told you, I'll camp in your room, you won't be able to get rid of me." He told me.

"I miss you..." I said and he echoed my words.

I put him on speaker and we talked about my life here and his in Ukraine. He lived with another player because they still weren't payed that much money and he wanted to save as much as possible. Still he organized the vacations and payed for it all by himself.

"The guy is crazy. He has at least three girlfriends and somehow none suspects anything about the others. And his English suck."

"How about you? How are your Ukrainian lessons going?"

"Я отримую краще кожен день."

"What does that mean?"

"I love you."

"No it doesn't." I said. "It's too many words."

"No it doesn't. But I do." He told me.

~*~

"Okay, I will admit, I didn't know much about Kiev before I got here but it's shaping to be one of my favorite cities." I said as I drank another sip of my hot chocolate. My fingers kept fiddling with the silver necklace with the amber stone that now hung from my neck, a gift from James. It was my second day in Ukraine and we were already having a great time. It was the first time it was just the two of us, for an extended period of time and being in another country made it all that much more exciting. "I mean, look at this view." I added, pointing towards the water. We were sitting on a little coffee shop by the Dnieper River which ran across the city. We had spent the morning on an exploration of the Kiev Monastery of the Caves, a historic Orthodox Christian monastery which was founded in 1051.

James smiled. "I'm glad you are enjoying yourself." He told me and winked at me. "Wait till we go on our actual vacation."

"You have to give me a hint. Will we stay in Ukraine or another country?"

He shook his head.

"Do we take the plane or train? Or bus?" I tried again but he shook his head at that one to.

"There's no way I'm telling you anything. You'll have to be patient for two more days."

"Ugh!" I groaned. "You know patience isn't my thing."

He was about to say something when his expression changed.

"James?" I asked.

"Sorry, I got distracted." He said a few seconds later. "You can't blame me, I haven't seen you in weeks."

It was my turn to smile at his words. "On second thought, I don't care where we're going. We'll be together, so it will be the most amazing place on Earth anyway."

~*~

The noise of the keys in the door was what finally brought me back to reality. I heard laughter as James and his roommate walked inside. "Livvie I'm back!" James said as he closed the door behind him. "You'll never guess—" He stopped when he saw me.

James looked at me, a look of dread etched on his face. His roommate looked back and forth between us, not understanding the sudden change in the atmosphere. He said something to James in Ukrainian and went to his room, closing the door behind him.

I must look crazy to him, I realized. Sitting on the sofa, with James' laptop on the coffee table in front of me and a bunch of pills spilled on the floor, my eyes red and my face tear stricken. In truth, the pills were an accident, I didn't mean to spill them, only compare them to a picture online.

"Liv..." James whispered, making no move to come closer to me. "I was going to tell you."

I opened my mouth to speak but only a high shriek came out. I took a breath and tried again. "Tell me? Tell me what exactly James? That you are lying to everyone, lying to me, putting yourself in danger, every day?"

"It's not like that, I have it under control, I—"

"Bullshit! This is all bullshit! You didn't tell your team doctor! You promised me! You promised me!" I stood up, yelling. I was livid now, my voice coming out in screams, scratching my throat. "Have you ever been honest with me?"

James looked at his roommate's closed door worriedly, and in that moment I realized, that he never had any intention to come clean to his coaches about his condition. He had been lying and reassuring me, all this time, but when push came to shove, he preferred to put himself in danger instead of risking his football career.

"It's a stupid game! It's a stupid fucking game! It's not worth it!" I screamed at him.

He pursed his lips so hard they turned white. "How can you say that? You of all people, you know what it means to me. The game is my life."

"If you keep playing, you won't have one." I said flatly.

"That's not true. Look, I have it under control, I promise—"

"You promises mean nothing to me!" I yelled again. "You've been feeding me promises for months now! Oh God, I should have known." I said, pressing my hands hard on my forehead, trying to alleviate the throbbing headache I had. "Aren't you afraid?" I asked him, trying to be as calm as I could.

This was the thing that broke him. I saw his lips quiver as he whispered: "What do you think Livvie? I'm fucking terrified."

"Then why, why, why are you doing this?" I said, crossing the distance between us and putting my hands on his chest. "James, this is so dangerous."

"I am not leaving things to chance Liv! The pills are doing their job just like I told you."

"The pills aren't a remedy! You can't take them and go on training at that intensity! You are supposed to slow it down!"

"I have! I am not training as much as before. I don't even play that much!"

"You are starting at the game tomorrow! How is that not playing that much?"

"Liv, this is my chance. It's just 90 minutes. I have to show them what I can do, to convince them, so when I come clean about my heart, they don't send me packing! I have to become indispensable to them!"

I wanted to tell him he was deluding himself, that no team would do that. But hadn't I done the same? All those months, I ignored what my gut was telling me and chose to believe him when he told me that Dynamo Kiev knew about his condition and employed him anyway.

"It doesn't work like that James." I finally told him.

"Let me play this game and I'll tell them after." He said pleadingly. "I am sure the doctor will find a way for me to play. Maybe I will train for less hours than the others and—"

"I can't let you do this. We tell them today."

He shook his head. "After the game Liv. It's just 24 hours. Nothing will happen." He took my hands in his and gripped them tightly. "Please Livvie, please."

~*~

I had never been at a football stadium that big before. It was breathtaking. People cheered and yelled happily. I was seating next to James' roommate's family and his girlfriend who was the only one of the bunch to speak some English.

I was so anxious, having a bad feeling in my stomach for letting James play. But I tried to convince myself that it was fine, like he said, it was just this one time. And as the game started and I saw how wonderful he was, I forgot about my worries and immersed myself in the game. He had gotten so much better, I realized, those past few months. Now that he was training with such a great team, it brought out the best in him and I knew that for him, sky was the limit. Soon he'd get even better offers, there was no stopping him. This was just the beginning. And I would make sure it would happen.