Rafa's diary - days seven and eight
Sep. 8th, 2009 11:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
louiseluxTitle: Rafa's Diary - day seven & day eight
Pairing: Fedalish
Warnings: worksafe
Rating: G
day one day two day three day four day five day six
Day seven – Sunday
I have all these messages on my phone but I decided at about 3pm that I wasn't going to answer any of them apart from Maribel and my mama. Maribel told me I shouldn't worry, and then asked when I was going to take her to see Mamma Mia. Mama talked a lot about her friend's little dog, which ate the neighbour's cat. Then I spent a lot of time with Maymo and the doctor here after the match.
I just want to forget about it now.
Emails are way easier. I spent most of the time until dinner on my bed, reading the internet and chatting with my very good friend Miguel on messenger. After dinner I came back here and began talking to Miguel some more. I'm feeling pretty tired. I gave him the keys to the seacat when I left and he tells me he's taking good care of it. With Miguel that means giving German tourist girls trips round the harbour. He showed me some photos from the weekend – it looked like a good party and the sight of everyone looking so happy—well, high and drunk—gave me a sigh inside, and a tight ache in the jaw like I was about to cry.
It's weird to miss everyone but to be glad also that I'm not there on the island—that I'm doing this incredible thing with my life. I can never work out what it is that makes me different from my friends. I could have worked for my father's window company and had a good life, got a bit fat from eating too many pizzas, done anything normal at all. It's hard to imagine what though, right now.
I suppose there is the rest of my life to be normal, if having so much money at the age of 23 can be called normal even slightly. I have my dream of the boat and the sea and living down at Porto Cristo all summer long with my friends. There's a little more to that though. When I think of staying on one place… Could I even do that any more?
Toni is calling me from the other room in a sing song voice. I can even hear it when I pull the pillow over my head.
"Rafa… Rafa… Rafaaaaa…"
He thinks he's funny. Well, he's making me smile I guess. He wants to talk to me about training tomorrow, and the match on Tuesday. But partly I know he doesn't want me to be alone in here, being 'moody', as he says.
He doesn't like that, even though I'm hardly ever moody at all.
Day eight – Monday
Roger was at practise today-- he came out almost the same time as me.
I try to put him out of my mind but it's hard when I know he's watching me, and he was watching me a lot today. It sounds stupid, but it makes me hit the ball harder because I want to show off. Ridiculous! Like I'm a junior again and all I want to do is impress older players. I was like that with Charlie back when I was 13. He was a tennis superstar, so amazing! I even picked my racquet because it was the one he played with. That's not to say I wanted to be like him. More than anything I want to be myself.
I watched Roger play his "pretty" game during my breaks. He is as amazing to watch as ever, with the dramatic movement and poise of an actor on a stage, even here in the mundane settings of the tennis centre practise courts with only an audience of die hard giggling fans, me and Caroline Wozniacki's coach. He looked over, of course, and saw me watching-- of course. He raised a hand to me and I waved back.
"Would you ask him for advice?" Toni asked me, as we watched him begin to practise his backhand. He pounded it over and over like a lethal weapon, harder and sharper than usual. That shot is not so very lethal though, once I have him doubting himself.
I think sometimes on court he has looked at me with hatred. Yes, I'm sure of it. It's a mystery how that fits with the other ways I know we look at each other. The way he smiles right into my eyes. My life is so much easier and simpler if I put it all to the back of my mind and leave it there.
"Advice about what?" I said.
"I don't know. Longevity?" Toni said.
"Huh. I don't think so? We're too different. What could he tell me that you can't tell me? Or Carlos can't tell me?"
"How to stay in the game. How to love it. How to care for your body and your mind?" Toni said.
Sometimes Toni is strange. "I don't need him for that!" I said it, and then I was sorry when Toni just sighed. Sometimes when I look at his profile he looks so like my dad, and I had a pang of missing home right at that moment. "I'm not having a problem with anything," I said. "I'm fine. Roger isn't my role model, after all. I don't think he'd want to be talk to me about that stuff," I added. "We're rivals."
"Yes, I'd noticed. Well—You're probably right," he said, in a tone of voice that I was very familiar with. It said that I was probably wrong.
I was freed from the rest of that conversation by Maymo and his iodine pot. I don't think the stains are ever going to come out of my fingers, to be honest.
Pairing: Fedalish
Warnings: worksafe
Rating: G
day one day two day three day four day five day six
Day seven – Sunday
I have all these messages on my phone but I decided at about 3pm that I wasn't going to answer any of them apart from Maribel and my mama. Maribel told me I shouldn't worry, and then asked when I was going to take her to see Mamma Mia. Mama talked a lot about her friend's little dog, which ate the neighbour's cat. Then I spent a lot of time with Maymo and the doctor here after the match.
I just want to forget about it now.
Emails are way easier. I spent most of the time until dinner on my bed, reading the internet and chatting with my very good friend Miguel on messenger. After dinner I came back here and began talking to Miguel some more. I'm feeling pretty tired. I gave him the keys to the seacat when I left and he tells me he's taking good care of it. With Miguel that means giving German tourist girls trips round the harbour. He showed me some photos from the weekend – it looked like a good party and the sight of everyone looking so happy—well, high and drunk—gave me a sigh inside, and a tight ache in the jaw like I was about to cry.
It's weird to miss everyone but to be glad also that I'm not there on the island—that I'm doing this incredible thing with my life. I can never work out what it is that makes me different from my friends. I could have worked for my father's window company and had a good life, got a bit fat from eating too many pizzas, done anything normal at all. It's hard to imagine what though, right now.
I suppose there is the rest of my life to be normal, if having so much money at the age of 23 can be called normal even slightly. I have my dream of the boat and the sea and living down at Porto Cristo all summer long with my friends. There's a little more to that though. When I think of staying on one place… Could I even do that any more?
Toni is calling me from the other room in a sing song voice. I can even hear it when I pull the pillow over my head.
"Rafa… Rafa… Rafaaaaa…"
He thinks he's funny. Well, he's making me smile I guess. He wants to talk to me about training tomorrow, and the match on Tuesday. But partly I know he doesn't want me to be alone in here, being 'moody', as he says.
He doesn't like that, even though I'm hardly ever moody at all.
Day eight – Monday
Roger was at practise today-- he came out almost the same time as me.
I try to put him out of my mind but it's hard when I know he's watching me, and he was watching me a lot today. It sounds stupid, but it makes me hit the ball harder because I want to show off. Ridiculous! Like I'm a junior again and all I want to do is impress older players. I was like that with Charlie back when I was 13. He was a tennis superstar, so amazing! I even picked my racquet because it was the one he played with. That's not to say I wanted to be like him. More than anything I want to be myself.
I watched Roger play his "pretty" game during my breaks. He is as amazing to watch as ever, with the dramatic movement and poise of an actor on a stage, even here in the mundane settings of the tennis centre practise courts with only an audience of die hard giggling fans, me and Caroline Wozniacki's coach. He looked over, of course, and saw me watching-- of course. He raised a hand to me and I waved back.
"Would you ask him for advice?" Toni asked me, as we watched him begin to practise his backhand. He pounded it over and over like a lethal weapon, harder and sharper than usual. That shot is not so very lethal though, once I have him doubting himself.
I think sometimes on court he has looked at me with hatred. Yes, I'm sure of it. It's a mystery how that fits with the other ways I know we look at each other. The way he smiles right into my eyes. My life is so much easier and simpler if I put it all to the back of my mind and leave it there.
"Advice about what?" I said.
"I don't know. Longevity?" Toni said.
"Huh. I don't think so? We're too different. What could he tell me that you can't tell me? Or Carlos can't tell me?"
"How to stay in the game. How to love it. How to care for your body and your mind?" Toni said.
Sometimes Toni is strange. "I don't need him for that!" I said it, and then I was sorry when Toni just sighed. Sometimes when I look at his profile he looks so like my dad, and I had a pang of missing home right at that moment. "I'm not having a problem with anything," I said. "I'm fine. Roger isn't my role model, after all. I don't think he'd want to be talk to me about that stuff," I added. "We're rivals."
"Yes, I'd noticed. Well—You're probably right," he said, in a tone of voice that I was very familiar with. It said that I was probably wrong.
I was freed from the rest of that conversation by Maymo and his iodine pot. I don't think the stains are ever going to come out of my fingers, to be honest.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-09-08 11:16 pm (UTC)I am clearly way out of the Rafa loop tho' - who's Maribel?
no subject
Date: 2009-09-09 04:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-09 07:30 am (UTC)Such a cute picture!
no subject
Date: 2009-09-09 04:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-08 11:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-09 12:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-09 02:12 am (UTC)These have been very sweet, in a good way. (Sweet like a good apple, not sweet like candy, is the way I usually try to explain it.)
no subject
Date: 2009-09-09 12:59 pm (UTC)I think what I like most about this series is that you are writing it 'on the go'. You are using massive skillz to put the real life, day to day events into the details of his diary. Very well done!