SYNOPSIS
(EXTENDED VERSION)
Back to: Part 1
Part 2
The Summer
Central protagonist: Pablo
In the summer of 2004, Pablo's daily coaching sessions heat up. One of the youngest players in his football club's primary squad, at the age of 22 he gets nominated to join the Spanish national team in order to represent the country in the 2004 UEFA Championship. The summer is sizzling, and chasing the ball across the field eight hours a day consumes Pablo's physical energy completely. This strenuous workout routine, the toughest he's ever had as an athlete, also serves to numb the growing pain over the feeling he'd never previously experienced.
After Andrew leaves, Pablo no longer has their communication to distract himself from reflecting on his recent break-up. The story that his girlfriend just cheated on him with another guy no longer explains the depth of his pain: something important is missing. The kind of connection he felt with Andrew almost instantly becomes that missing piece, although he's still not ready to reckon with. It becomes the truth he desperately tries to un-see by reducing the amount of email correspondence with Andrew, by focusing on the tournament prep routines and by bringing himself to physical exhaustion on the field.
Pablo gives a brilliant debut at the event, scoring the majority of goals for the national team, causing a sensation in the sports media of his home country and the rest of Europe. Millions of people watching the Championship, admiring his performance and becoming his fans, his team mates and coaches, and even his parents have no clue about the mental breakdown he'd experienced alone in the hotel room, on the night before the match.
He'd experienced it when the truth in his mind became stronger than the coping and denial exercised over the years. He felt overwhelming physical attraction towards Andrew as a man, and on top of it, he had an emotional connection with Andrew that made him vulnerable, alive, and expanded in a previously unknown way. That was what's called love, he realized. And yes, this meant he was a homosexual man.
Raised in a homophobic culture heavily influenced by his Catholic faith, Pablo never seriously considered his orientation, instead sweeping its manifestations under the mat. As testorone peaked in his blood during teenage years, he thought his physical attraction towards other boy in school was just a phase. When phase didn't end, he decided it was "a deviation", the "dark secret" no one was supposed to know about. In large part, he couldn't accept his sexuality because the homophobic stereotypes he was fed made him believe that gay men look and act like women — while his gender identity and expression was unquestionably masculine. His outward image perfectly matched heteronormative standards, so why would anyone "suspect" him? Most of all, before meeting Andrew he'd never felt anything beyond physical attraction towards other men. Emotional intimacy never emerged.
And now, he finally met that person. He understands that the quality of emotional connection he has with Andrew goes far beyond friendship, all the while the physical attraction overwhelms his body. The realization of his sexuality, crushing and appaling as it feels, coincides with Pablo's major success on the tournament. It leads to the club signing a high-tier contract with him and a massive media coverage. He receives an email from Andrew congratulating him on the globally renowned triumph, but chooses to not reply. He thinks his willpower is strong enough to erase Andrew from his thoughts, and thus un-see what he still perceives as a shameful truth about his identity.
It doesn't work that way. Thoughts about Andrew keep occupying his mind. Pablo's parents cannot understand why, at the peak of his well-deserved fame, he looks sad and disconnected. Taking a full-time vacation for one month, Pablo engages in nightlife, drinking, hooking up with random girls, hoping that heterosexual physical intimacy will change how he feels about Andrew. Instead of researching and educating himself about human sexuality, he reverts to his Catholic beliefs and regards his present feeling as a devil's temptation — or a test God wants him to pass.
But the test seems to never end. One day, he breaks the silence and responds to Andrew's email. He's sure Andrew only sees him as a friend, and thinks that Andrew could mistake his lack of response for arrogance following his major rise to fame. The fluency of their resumed communication brings him face-to-face with the nature of connection he feels. At the same time, as Andrew tells him about his newborn daughter and the moments of joy he experiences as a father, Pablo remembers that he'd also always wanted to have kids. In his religiously shaped beliefs, there was still no way to reconcile homosexuality with parenthood.
But why Andrew, anyway? Andrew is a foreigner. Andrew is married. Andrew has a child. Andrew is apparently a normal man who only sees him as a friend. Pablo's feeling, overwhelming as it it, cannot yet translate into a vision of them being together that's somehow compatible with the reality of his life. Everybody thinks he's normal too, and he believes that his entire life will go to waste should anyone know that he's not. His Big League career, finally blooming after a decade of hard work, will be instantly stamped. The God that he believes in will turn away from him, and take away his legitimate expectations of health, wealth, and prosperity.
And yet, as time goes by and he becomes closer to Andrew as a person through correspondence, his love continues to grow in spite of a two thousand miles' distance, a language barrier, and cultural differences standing between them. It all feels too complicated, and Pablo sees no easy way to fix it.
Next: Part 3