malicious | max verstappen

twenty five.

In my mind, she was in a locked room while I kept banging on the door in hopes of it opening and reuniting with her. However, now, the keys were lost, so I had no way of entering.

I ran out of tears by the second hour of her death. I watched as they covered her with a white blanket, escorting her lifeless body out of the room.

Thanks to Carlos and his mom, who arrived a few hours after she was pronounced dead, they took care of signing all the paperwork that was required. I felt immense guilt for not comforting the two of them, knowing how hard this was on them too. But I couldn't even stand up, let alone talk.

The day after, Lewis and a couple of other drivers started talking about organizing the funeral, I appreciated how they were so helpful and supportive throughout all this, hell they were even sacrificing their training time when the next race was a weekend away. Yet, simply talking about the funeral made it all feel so real. It would mean she really is gone and that once again it wasn't all just a dream. A very very bad dream.

Maybe it all really was something my brain made up considering I've been awake for 72 hours. Maybe, just maybe, my mom was still peacefully sleeping in her hospital bed and it was all false news. A prank, even. A silly prank I'll be fuming at now but would be laughing about it in the future.

But no.

That wasn't the case. Especially not after they confirmed the funeral date.

"We'll gather on the 9th of September to mourn the loss of Talia Gomez."

It was one day before we had to go to Monza for the race weekend. I was seriously thinking about letting George Russell take my place, but I decided against it. She would've wanted me to race. For her.

So, on the 9th of September, despite how formidable it was to get out of bed, I got up and dressed in all black. A few tears actually slipped and I somehow felt relief to be able to cry again. I even broke down for half an hour before going out and getting in the car with Carlos and his family.

We arrived to the cemetery, which was rather beautiful and decorated with the most beautiful flowers and greenery. The beauty of the nature around resembled my mother so perfectly which was why this place was chosen for her.

Carlos, Lewis, Max, Daniel, Lando, and Charles had the honors of carrying her coffin. I've never seen any of them so emotional before. So raw and pained. The priest started his eulogy.

I was brought on to have a speech even though I didn't prepare anything.

"My mom—" My voice broke, "My mom was an angel sent from heaven. She blessed us all with smiles and memories I know I'll never be able to forget." I took a deep breath in and was contemplating whether I should continue or not but after seeing Max's encouraging look, I pushed myself to continue, "Talia Gomez wasn't just my mother, she was my sister and best-friend forever. Sorry, Lewis." A couple laughs sounded but quickly died down, "Loosing her is the worst pain I've ever experienced. I can't help but sulk and cry each time my brain reminds me of the nightmare of I've been living in the past few days. But I keep remembering. I keep remembering how she always managed to make everyone smile even if it was the worst day on earth and then I ask myself why can't I do that too? She would want that, right?" Multiple people nodded their heads, "She was smiling even when she knew she was dying. During her last moments, she was smiling. And she wasn't faking it, she learned to look for the good in the bad and I hope one day, I'll be like her and be able to make her proud." The faint smile that managed to appear on my face vanished the moment I spotted my father at the back of the crowd, "So, Mama, if you're listening to me, I hope you know that I love you to the moon and back. Thank you for being the best parent, friend and mentor I could ever ask for. You showed me what being loved actually is like. I hope you're in a better place, looking over me, looking over all of us with a proud smile because you will be missed. So much. May you rest in peace, see you on the other side."