breathe | r lewandowski

4

so I just checked and my last chapter TOTALLY fucked up and half of it was missing for some reason, so go back and read the updated version of that first!

thanks!

Fortunately for me, the plane flight was extremely quiet. Most of the team slept as it was an early morning flight, and the others watched films or listened to music; there was little conversation going on to say the least. The journey was practically dead weight.

I was sat by Albert after trading seats with another staff member who seemed more than happy to sit next to Mario for a painful number of hours.

Because of this, the journey didn't seem particularly long and was over before I knew it. I managed to watch a full season of Suits and demolished a pasta carbonara before the plane landed, which to me, was an achievement in itself. Along with not losing my mind, of course.

Once we landed, I kept my headphones in, hoping some music would drone out the bustling sounds of the airport and make the rigmarole of security, fans and finding 50 people suitcases less painful. Nevertheless, I signed some shirts and took a couple of photos with fans before making a b-line to the team bus that was waiting for us outside the airport.

That journey was more short lived and involved a small Chinese man trying to give us a tour of the centre of Beijing as we drove through it, though nobody was listening.

We arrived at the hotel and were all escorted off the bus and into the reception. Upon our arrival we were handed flutes of champagne which I gladly accepted, throwing the alcohol down my throat without hesitation.

The hotel was the same as all the hotels we stayed in. Marble floors, high ceilings and white furniture everywhere. Nowhere had any originality these days, which was part of the reason I hated leaving home. Home was the only place that I felt like had some personality, pieces of me dotted around the place. But anywhere else I stayed felt like I was intruding on something that wasn't mine, and I hated it.

"Would it kill you to smile?"

I looked down to my left and saw Jagger. She daintily held the champagne flute between two fingers, sipping it elegantly and leaving a pink lipstick stain on the rim of the glass, her eyes gazing up into mine the whole time.

"Yes, as a matter of fact it would."

Jagger rolled her eyes, laughing slightly, "You're something special, you are."

"What do you mean by that?" I asked, raising an eyebrow and feeling somewhat intrigued.

"I mean, that you're so introverted, quiet and shy, but then on the football pitch you're loud and rowdy and aggressive and-"

"You watch our matches?"

Jagger looked at me as if I had said something ridiculous, "of course. I have to do my homework, don't I?"

"Robert! Room 864, eighth floor." I caught a keychain with a slim card attached to it, thrown to me by Pep. It was embellished with the hotel crest, printed in gold lettering and a font that I could barely read despite it being in English, which I was much more fluent in that Chinese.

"Where are you?" I spoke, instantly questioning myself as to why I asked, and why on earth I was bothered. Because I most certainly wasn't.

"862. Lucky me."

Laughing slightly, I followed Jagger to the lifts. At first I thought she was joking but the more I thought about it, the more I wondered if she did actually mean it. Admittedly, I wasn't a very sociable person, I didn't particularly like talking to people and I wouldn't try to hide that. Did she not like me? Maybe I said something to piss her off. Probably.

We took the lift together, staying in silence the whole time. She stared at her nude coloured nails and occasionally ran a hand through her hair, whereas I stood still, staring straight at the metal doors ahead of us.

I followed her down the corridor and once I reached my room, I sighed when I heard the voices of my other team mates. They were shouting, someone even screamed over the pounding music that was playing. I decided that I'd give it one night, and if I didn't get a decent sleep, I'd request to move rooms.

"Dinner is at eight, meet downstairs in the reception. Don't be late."

Without having time to tell Jagger that I wasn't going to be having dinner with anyone from the club, she closed the door to her room just as I opened mine.

* * *

As I lay on my bed that evening, I watched the digital clock at the bottom corner of my television flick from 19:59 to 20:00. They probably already knew I wouldn't be joining them, but I wouldn't put it past Pep to wait in the reception another twenty minutes just in case I decided to show up. For some reason, Pep was blind to my bluntness and that did majorly but the ball in my court, and I mostly played it to my advantage. I told myself that I'd tell him tomorrow morning that I had a migraine so I couldn't come to dinner, he'd definitely believe me without question.

Pulling me from my adolescent daydream, my phone rang. Pulling it from my pocket, I saw Dylan's name appear on the screen. I stared at it for a moment, before answering it.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Robert. How's China?"

I sighed, walking over to the window in my room and staring out at the skyline covered in a thick fog of factory pollution and exhaust fumes.

"Fine, great actually."

"Good. I just thought I'd call and check up on you, that's all. I don't want to keep you."

"Oh, right. Well I'm all good."

"Good," she repeated, "I'll let you go now, you probably have stuff planned. Talk soon, yeah?"

The call ended before I could even say goodbye. The monotonous drone shredded my ear drums before I finally placed my phone back down onto the bed.

Dylan would usually know that whenever I said anything was 'fine', I meant I was in Hell. However this time, she acted as if I truly meant it. Her call was short and meaningless to me. In fact, I would have preferred no phone call over the one she just gave me. She clearly didn't care about what I had to say, so why she called was a question floating in my mind.

She didn't care anymore, and I was starting to think that I didn't either.

As the night crawled on, I watched the sun set and the fluorescent lights illuminate the city. I ordered a pizza to my room, eating the whole thing in silence, a beer to wash it down with. Though it didn't compare to German beer.

I managed to work out how to turn on the TV around ten PM that evening, but my body clock was so messed up that I ended up turning it off not long after and getting into bed.

I felt like I needed to sleep for days, but I lay wide awake in the darkness. My mind was clear, yet I felt like I had a weight on my shoulders and my chest. Something was eating away at me and the more I forced myself to think about it, the more I told myself that it was Dylan. She was changing, and I couldn't keep up with her. She was changing, and I wasn't.

A door slamming jolted me upright from underneath the covers. My immediate thought was that someone was in my room, but I soon heard a feminine giggle and realised that it was just Jagger next door. The hotel walls here were clearly not as solid as the ones back in Germany.

I rolled over and closed my eyes, trying to fall asleep, only voices kept me awake. Jagger was talking to someone, a man. At first I thought it was a phone call on speakerphone, but then I realised I was wrong. His voice got louder and Jagger laughed more, usually before a light whisper to which the unlikely gentleman would respond with something incredibly dirty that I most certainly didn't want to hear.

Soon enough, their intentions became clear and I plugged in my headphones before I could hear anymore. I didn't have much music on my phone, but the loudest thing I owned was Muse. I decided that guitar riffs and an incredibly haunting voice would have to do.

The only problem was, his voice was almost too haunting and the guitar riffs were almost too deafening, because once my ears finally registered the screaming, it was too late.