Two weeks passed like water draining slowly, every day identical to the one before. Che moved through his routines mechanically—school in the morning, homework after, the System's voice in his mind still present but somehow dimmer, less urgent. His friends noticed. Mateo asked if he was sick. Nico asked if something had happened at home. Che just shrugged and said nothing, which was easier than explaining the weight he was carrying.
The appetite was the hardest part. His mother prepared meals and he ate them because refusing would have sparked concern he didn't have energy to address. But the food tasted like nothing. Every bite required effort. His stomach seemed to have accepted the verdict—there were no boots, so there was nothing to prepare for, so why bother with fuel.
At night, he still did the System's protocols. His body moved through the motions even though his mind was elsewhere. Squats, push-ups, burpees. The physical work remained, but the intention behind it had fractured. He was going through the movements of faith when faith had become impossible.
His grandmother coughed in the darkness. His cousins slept. The apartment held him like it always did, with walls that were too close and air that was too thick.
Then it was morning on day fifteen.
Che's eyes opened to the pre-dawn gray that had become familiar—the time before the city woke, before the barrio began its daily chaos. He moved to sit up, and that was when he felt it. Weight. Solid, unexpected weight on his feet.
His body went still.
Slowly, carefully, like he was afraid the sensation would disappear if he moved too quickly, Che looked down. In the darkness, he could barely see them. But he could feel them. Boots. On his feet. Real boots.
His heart began to move in his chest in a way it hadn't in two weeks. He sat up fully, his hands moving to touch them, to verify their existence. They were real. Worn, yes—the leather creased and soft from use, the soles scuffed to the gray of age—but real. Adidas. The three stripes visible even in the dim light.
Beside the boots, on the concrete floor, was a piece of paper.
Che picked it up with shaking hands and moved to the small kitchen window where the earliest light was beginning to suggest itself. His mother's handwriting was careful, deliberate—each letter formed with precision:
Mi amor,
I know I haven't been understanding about this football. I work hard to give you choices, and I want better for you than I had. But I see how much this means to you. I see it in your eyes every morning. These boots are old, but they are strong, like you need to be. A coworker gave them to me—her son wore them when he was your age, before he outgrew them. They are a gift from her kindness and my love.
Go play. Go train. Go be what you are meant to be. But promise me you will still study. Promise me you will remember that the ball will not be there forever, but your mind will carry you your whole life.
I love you. Do well.
—Mamá
Che made a sound. It came from somewhere deep in his chest, something between a laugh and a cry, a noise he didn't know he was capable of making. The sound escaped him before he could contain it, before he could remember that it was early morning and others were asleep.
His mother was already awake. She emerged from the bedroom, moving quickly like she'd been waiting for this moment. When she saw him holding the boots, holding the letter, her eyes grew wet.
"Don't wake your cousins," she whispered, but there was something in her voice that suggested she was already crying, had maybe been crying for two weeks too.
Che wanted to thank her. Wanted to say something that matched the weight of what she'd done. But the words wouldn't come. His hands moved to put the boots on, lacing them with fingers that were shaking slightly. His mother moved to the stove, beginning to heat water for coffee, the morning routine reasserting itself.
The boots fit perfectly.
School that day was surreal. Che moved through classes with a smile he couldn't control. His face hurt from the effort of maintaining it, but he didn't care. When people asked what was going on, he just said "nothing" and let the smile answer for him. The boots were on his feet, hidden under his school pants, but he could feel them. Every step was verification.
By the time school ended, he was vibrating with energy that had nowhere to go. He picked up Sofia and Diego from preschool—they asked why he was moving so fast—and walked them home with barely contained urgency. His mother was at work. His uncle was somewhere. His cousins needed settling.
Once they were occupied with cartoons and toys, Che changed into his football clothes and laced the boots again. He had to check if they were still real. They were.
The high school was maybe thirty minutes away if you jogged. It was Wednesday afternoon, and the weather was clear. Che made his way through the barrio, through the neighborhoods that gradually became wealthier, his feet moving faster than was probably necessary.
When he arrived at the high school pitch, he came to a stop.
The field was empty. No players. No coach. Just grass and lines and goals standing silent in the afternoon light.
Che stood there, breathing hard, understanding slowly that something was wrong. He looked around, confused. The pitch was completely unused. No training. No squad.
It was Wednesday.
Training was on Tuesdays and Fridays.
The realization hit him with the weight of something physical. He'd been so focused on the boots, so consumed with the arrival of the moment, that he'd somehow forgotten—or maybe never properly processed—that he'd be coming back on Tuesday. Not today. Tuesday. The day hadn't changed just because he had boots now.
He stood alone on the empty pitch, wearing borrowed boots, understanding that his rush, his joy, his inability to contain himself had led him to a field that had no need for him today. He almost laughed at it. The cruelty of it. Two weeks of waiting for this moment, and when it finally arrived, he'd gotten the day wrong.
Then another realization, sharper than the first.
Sofia and Diego. He'd left them at home. He'd told them he was going to practice. He hadn't actually told them where. And they'd been sitting there, probably wondering when he was coming back, probably getting concerned as the afternoon moved on.
He turned and started running back toward Barrio Pérez.
It took him longer to get back than it had taken to get there. His urgency had burned off, replaced by the knowledge of what he'd done. By the time he reached the preschool—even though the preschool wasn't technically his destination—he realized he should have gone there first.
The teacher was still there, sitting with Sofia and Diego, both of whom looked tired and confused. When they saw Che, they stood up immediately.
"You forgot," Sofia said, and her voice had that quality that children's voices got when they'd been worried and were now processing the relief.
"I'm sorry," Che said. "I'm really sorry. I forgot. I thought—I got confused about the time."
The teacher gave him a look that suggested she was calculating whether this was a situation that needed to be reported to his mother. Che understood that calculation. He understood the weight he was now carrying—the trust, the responsibility, the fact that his ambitions had literally cost his cousins hours of waiting.
"I'm very sorry," he said again, and he meant it with a depth that surprised him.
Sofia and Diego moved with him as they left, their exhaustion showing in the slowness of their walking. On the way home, Che made a decision.
"Don't tell Mamá," he said quietly. "About me forgetting. About practice. Not yet. I need to figure out the schedule first. I need to understand how to do this without messing everything up."
Sofia wanted to protest—she had the moral clarity of childhood that made rule-breaking feel wrong. But Diego understood something in his voice, and he pulled Sofia along.
"Okay," Diego said. "But you have to tell her soon."
Thursday morning arrived with the clarity of things that have already been decided. Che woke before dawn, did his protocols—the full three sets, the full intensity—and then waited. His mother left for work. His uncle remained asleep. His cousins stirred and began the morning.
Che repeated the walk-through, the breakfast, the sending-off to preschool. Everything was the same except for the knowledge that today's afternoon would be different. Today, at 4 PM, instead of heading home after school, he would take his cousins there and then jog to the high school. He would arrive late, probably, but he would arrive.
The day moved with glacial slowness. School felt like it lasted weeks. When the final bell rang, Che moved faster than he'd moved all year. He collected Sofia and Diego, walked them home, changed his clothes, laced the boots, and explained that he had to go somewhere but would be back before dinner.
His mother might find out. His mother probably would find out. But right now, in this moment, all that mattered was reaching the pitch.
The jog took twenty-five minutes instead of thirty. His fitness had improved enough that the distance was manageable, just demanding. By the time he arrived, the squad was already assembled. Ramón was reviewing something on his clipboard. The other players were doing warm-up drills on the pitch.
Che stood at the edge, watching, still wearing the boots that didn't look new but felt new to him.
"You're late," Ramón said, not looking up from his clipboard.
"I had to take my cousins home," Che said.
Ramón nodded like this was information he'd expected. "Join the squad. Warm-up drill first, then we move into possession work."
Che moved onto the pitch, and the moment his feet touched the grass—the real, maintained, perfectly cut grass—something inside him settled. This was where he was supposed to be. This was what all the waiting, all the training, all the hunger and desperation had been leading toward.
He joined the warm-up line, moving through stretches and light jogging with the other players. Nobody acknowledged him directly. They just accepted him into the rhythm of the squad. Matías caught his eye from across the pitch and gave him a small nod that said: welcome.
The System was already running analysis, already tracking his positioning, his first touch quality, his awareness of the space around him. The data was accumulating in real time.
When Ramón called everyone together for the possession work to begin, Che was ready.