His performance in his tutoring session plummeted. He stared blankly at a page of German literature, the words of Goethe blurring into an incomprehensible mess. Frau Schmidt, noticing his distress, ended the session early. "Go," she said gently. "Some things are more important than books."
He spent the rest of the afternoon pacing his room, a caged tiger of anger and anxiety. He wanted to do something, to fly to Barcelona, to stand at that gate himself. But he couldn't. He was an asset, a commodity, and his movements were controlled by a schedule he had no power to change.
It was in this state of agitated helplessness that his phone rang, displaying the unfamiliar Spanish number. The conversation with Piqué was a lifeline thrown into a sea of turmoil. It was the last thing he had expected.
