No Name

Chapter 1

What is your first happy memory ? When asked this kind of question people usually look at you weirdly. And if they think about it, they will answer something that they did with their family, the first time they rode a back, first time going to the beach when they were 4 with their parents.

Me ? I was 5 in my first foster family and one of my foster siblings played with me in the garden. We played football and when he had enough I kept shooting the ball against the wall. For my birthday they offered me a football ball, and at six a few months I changed foster home.

This one wasn't a nice one when I talked in Spanish, they would hit me. I learned Spanish with my mom, I don't remember her but I remember Spanish, when they died I spent two days in my house without food, before someone came looking for me. I don't remember my dad either, he was French and we lived in France.

I kept playing football, there wasn't any wall you could use so I learned to juggle and dribble up and down the street. This house didn't keep me long, just a few months, Summer vacation you were sent back to an orphanage. I kept being sent back to foster families, but they didn't adopt me or wanted me for long, I was too boyish or too introverted, too reserved. I didn't like wearing dresses and I didn't trust easily and weren't really friendly with the other kids in the house. But one day, when I was 13, almost 14, a foster family didn't send me away after the school year, they took me on vacation with them.

Clément and Sandra could have kids but preferred adopting "because there are so many children out in the world who deserved love" that's what Sandra said. They had already adopted a little girl in Argentina where Sandra was from, her name was Olivia and a boy Marin who was French like Clément. Olivia barely talked French when I arrived, and Marin was struggling to learn Spanish. In the house it was a linguistic chaos of French, Spanish and English. Clément and Sandra wanted us to be able to work in whatever country we wanted, but I thought ,and still think, it was just because Clément preferred to watch movies and series in their original language.

Soon I began feeling at home with the Blanc family, Olivia was like an annoying little sister who snooped around and we talked in a mix of Spanish and French. Marin was a good big brother, protector and a good listener. The whole family encouraged me to continue playing football and Clément registered me in PSG academy.

During a holiday, Clément and Sandra decided that they wanted me to be more familiar with my Spanish roots, so they organized a trip to Madrid. We stayed there a week and half, visited the spanish capital, the old town was beautiful but Olivia soon got bored of just walking around. We had to do games like find the best restaurant to stop on later to keep her walking but either way it was fun. We tried spain and madrid food specialities, churros were a big hit, tortilla was also well appreciated but callos (it's tripe for those who don't know) and snails had been a big no for us, Clément was the only one who liked it.

After the Spanish break, the PSG association coach proposed to Clément and Sandra to make me join the association which formed future professional footballers. They sat me down after the request and asked me if it was what I wanted to do, so I began training with the PSG association. They all came to see me play matches. For the first time in my life I had people on the sideline here for me, I could hear people scream my name to cheer on me. Olivia made a sign with cardboard for a game after seeing them on tv for the US players. "Nemo you are the best and we ❤️ you!!!!" it didn't definitely didn't make me cry, you cried... okay I cried but just a little.

One time when I got home, I was so tired and called Sandra "Maman". The next day I kept my head down and tried to avoid her the entire day. She ambushed me at training, she came to pick me up, she hugged me and said she was really happy that I saw her that way. I began calling Clément "Papa" a few weeks after. At Christmas I received a letter with a copy of adoption's papers with my name on it. You were overjoyed, almost fifteen and you were finally gonna get your forever family and your actual first family.

Five months later, I was waiting for the adoption to be official, and to finally be officially called Nemo Blanc and not just Nemo anymore.

I was training at the PSG facility when my assigned child protection services agent approached the training ground. The coach called you out of practice and the worker informed you that Clément and Sandra were involved in a car accident and died. I was placed in a group home, too old for the orphanage and I wouldn't be with Marin and Olivia because the paper hadn't gone through so they weren't my siblings on paper. It was a load of crap but I knew the system and even if I argued it wouldn't change anything.

A few months after I turned 16 alone again, no cake, no candles, nothing. I was called to begin training with the PSG senior team, two weeks after my birthday. Which was great but living in a group home was harsh and I didn't get nearly enough rest. I was always late at training and it made it all the more difficult to make friends with my teammate. The coach knew about my living situation and was trying with his staff and my child protection worker to get me out of the group home legally. I didn't want anyone to know about your family situation which was nonexistent, the pity stares were too hard to ignore and upsetting.