"Mom!" Davi says happily
She smiles brightly at her son and brings him into her arms.
Neymar is staring at her. There's hatred in his stare. But she doesn't care. She had every right to make every decision that she ever chose to make. She didn't regret anything.
"I don't regret leaving you," she says once their son is gone
He swallows thickly and nods. He knows that she doesn't. She's cruel.
"I did love you, Neymar. I loved you more than I had ever loved anyone. But I was hurting you. I think that leaving you was the most selfless thing I ever did. I wasn't thinking about my happiness. I was thinking about yours."
"I'm sure you were."
"I don't want you to hate me for trying to do what I thought was right. We have a son together and soon the only thing he'll have left is you. I need you to love him and protect him."
"You know I will."
She smiles. She knows that Neymar loves their son. She hates that this is how it was all meant to be. She hates knowing that she doesn't have any more time to watch her son grow.
//
Lionel bites down on his lip. Neymar isn't far from him. Their children are both quiet. Davi watches everyone say their goodbyes to his mother, who is laying in a casket.
"D-daddy.. I don't wanna say goodbye," he says softly
Neymar bites his lip and looks down at his son. He picks him up and hugs him tightly.
"You don't have to baby."
"Daddy.. Where is she going? I want her to come back!"
"She's going to a better and much happier place, okay? She loves you."
"I wanna go with her then! Mom!"'
Neymar's heart breaks when he hears his son say that. Lionel walks up to him and gives him a sympathetic look. Life isn't fair. They both know that.
"You'll survive," Lionel says
"I know."
Sometimes, living seems to be worth than death. Living is the one thing people can't do right. Dying is easy, living isn't as easy.
//
Neymar wishes to say things weren't different after she died. But he'd be lying if that was the case. But he changed. All of them did.
"The thing about death is that it's not just the dead that die. It is the pieces of them that lived in you that die as well. "
"And this is what we all are. We are pieces of other people put together. And somehow we become so full of what everyone else is that we lose ourselves. So when we lose them, we lose a small part of us that belonged to them."
"We are not ours. We are for the world. We are everyone we know, every book we read, every story we tell, everything we see. So tell me, take away everything you've ever known, who are you now? What are you? You are nothing."
Neymar wasn't sure why he was here. Or why he was crying.
"You need to find yourself in the things you love, not the people. People will leave you. They will break you and shake you up. Don't let yourself be defined by the people who love you. Be defined by the way you love the people who don't love you. "
Lionel's words rung into his ears a sour melody. To say that he hated Lionel Messi was an understatement.
