Playing for Keeps: Finding Love Beyond the Lies - Chapter 73: Chapter 73

Back then, Diego had completely given up on himself. I was the only constant in his life, showing up every single day to massage his atrophying legs, regardless of weather or my own exhaustion.
"What's the fucking point?" he'd snarl whenever I arrived, eyes hollow and distant. "They're just useless pieces of meat attached to a has-been."
His luxury penthouse—once filled with trophies and match balls from his career highlights—had become a graveyard of shattered dreams. Newspapers with headlines about "football's lost prodigy" were scattered across imported marble floors alongside empty bottles of Macallan and untouched rehabilitation schedules.
Then came the day his mother found him unresponsive, an empty bottle of prescription sleeping pills on his nightstand. The hospital managed to save him, but something broke inside his mother that day. I saw it in her eyes—the same helplessness I felt watching his talent waste away.
His mother was at her wit's end. The physical therapists refused to return after being subjected to his venomous tirades. Even his former teammates stopped visiting after he told the team captain to "take your Championship medals and fuck off with your pity visits."
I crouched in front of his wheelchair in the hospital room and forced him to look at me.
"Look at me, Diego," I demanded, more firmly than I'd ever spoken to him before.
Something in my tone made him obediently meet my gaze.
"Everything will be okay. Trust me."
At that moment, I didn't even know where my confidence came from. What did I know about rehabilitating a professional athlete? I was just an English teacher who happened to be dating a football star when disaster struck.
From that day forward, I moved into his beachfront Porto apartment.
Diego's mother embraced me through tears. "Thank God for you, Emma," she whispered, her Portuguese accent thickening with emotion. "Without you..." She hesitated, clearly wanting to ask how long I planned to stay in this situation, yet afraid of the answer.
I saved her the trouble. "As long as Diego needs me, I'll be here," I assured her.
But the truth was, even when he tried to drive me away—and he tried repeatedly—I refused to leave.
When another frustrating therapy session ended with no progress, he exploded: "Get out! Everyone just get the fuck out of my sight!"
By then he was in a wheelchair, and in his blind rage, he'd smashed nearly everything within reach—a €50,000 crystal trophy from his Golden Boot award, his custom Louis Vuitton luggage, even the priceless vintage watch his grandfather had given him.
"Puta que pariu! You think I don't see how you look at me?" he roared, grabbing a €2,000 bottle of champagne—a gift from his last endorsement deal—and hurling it against his 85-inch television, shattering both instantly. "I'm not your fucking charity case! I'm not your broken doll to fix! Caralho! You're wasting your goddamn life on half a man!"
Glass crunched under his wheelchair as he spun it around violently, knocking over a side table holding his mother's antique vase. Another casualty of his rage.
The one improvement in his destructive outbursts was that he now deliberately avoided throwing things directly at me. Small progress, but I counted every victory.
After each storm of his fury subsided, when he sat amidst the wreckage of thousands of euros worth of possessions, I would approach him and repeat what had become my daily affirmation: "Diego, trust me. We'll get through this."
I would say those words countless times over the next two years, sometimes following with: "Remember that free kick against Real Madrid? The one that curved impossibly into the top corner? That feeling is still waiting for you on the pitch."
In the beginning, he'd curse and turn away. But gradually, he started to listen.
I created a routine for us. Mornings for stretches. Afternoons for massage therapy. Evenings for watching football matches—which at first made him throw the remote through his replacement television, but eventually became analytical sessions where he'd critique plays and strategies.
"This midfielder is absolute garbage. Wouldn't last ten minutes under Coach Martins," he'd mutter, almost sounding like his old self.
Little by little, progress came. First, a tingling sensation when I pressed firmly on his calf. Then, the ability to shift his foot slightly. Each tiny victory celebrated like he'd won the Champions League all over again.
"Did you see that?" he'd exclaim the first time he voluntarily flexed his toe. "Emma, did you see?"
I'd never forget his expression—shock mingled with the first real hope I'd seen in his eyes since the injury.
For two years, we lived between those small triumphs and crushing disappointments. Two steps forward, one step back. Some days he'd refuse to do his exercises, telling me to "fuck off with that pointless shit." Other days he'd push himself too hard and set his recovery back.
Through it all, I kept telling him: "Trust me. You'll walk again. You'll play again."
Against all medical expectations, the damaged nerves began to regenerate. The specialists were baffled but couldn't argue with the results. Diego's case started appearing in medical journals long before he could stand.
Until yesterday's surgery—an experimental procedure that even the doctor had been hesitant about. Everyone was astonished by its success.
"The nerve pathways are responding beyond our most optimistic projections," the surgeon had explained, genuine amazement in his voice.
Against all odds, Diego would stand again. All those hours of massage, all those tears and rages and moments of despair—they had led to this moment.
Every sacrifice had been worth it.
Or so I thought.