ELYSE's POV
Being in Brazil never failed to bring a smile on my face. Simply breathing it's air filled me with serotonin. It also happened to contain my happiest moments in life; summer break, family gatherings and my first Formula One win.
Just being here felt like reliving all these wonderful moments. But now, sitting in a hospital waiting for time to run out, Brazil wasn't my favorite place at the moment.
Once I got there, I was met with a hug by my mom's sister who arrived a few days ago. Then, she hit me with news that my mother has been sleeping for 3 days ever since they gave her some new meds. I tried not to let that affect me but once I was given permission to enter her room I broke down.
"It's so hard, Mama. This is so hard. Everything is so hard and you're not even gone yet. It feels like you are, though." I went on, "I miss you so much."
There were so many words I wanted to say but couldn't. Not even the whole dictionary could describe how I was feeling, what I wanted to say. Nothing.
Some time later, I left her room, with no signs of her waking up. I sat down on the basic hospital seats and Lewis stood up, entering my mother's room since it was his turn to sit with her.
I played some games on my phone to pass the time, I was bored out of my mind. And quite hungry. So I got up and went to the first vending machine I found, inserted a few coins and chose Twinkies.
"Would you mind sharing some of that with me?" The voice behind me spoke up. I'm pretty sure my mind was playing tricks on me from the lack of sleep and obsessing over this certain voice.
Before turning around, I hid the smile that suddenly appeared on my face, replacing it with a blank stare.
"No. Get your own, I'm hungry." I walked past him.
The sound of his footsteps was close by, "C'mon not even a bite?"
"Not even a lick of the wrapper." I shook my head as I opened, more like tried to open, the Twinkies. A look of amusement was plastered on Max's face which made my fingers sweat, making it nearly impossible to open the damn thing.
"Want help?" That bastard was practically grinning.
I huffed, handing him the wrapper in frustration.
He slowly opened it, making it look like an effortless job. But before handing it to me, he made sure to take a big bite of the little cake.
"Hey! I told you to get your own!" I snatched the cake from his hands.
"And I told you, multiple times, that I don't take no for an answer." He matched my tone, adding a playful tint to it.
I scoffed, "Is that why you're here after I told you that you can't come?"
"No, of course not. I don't come to places uninvited, I'm here to visit Talia." He seemed so innocent. But I knew he had other plans. I took a bite of the remaining cake and watched as his eyebrows scrunched up, his eyes focused on my lips.
"Are you okay?" I snapped my fingers in-front of his eyes to snap him out of it. Is this normal behavior for him or was it the jet-lag?
"Yeah— It's just—" He interrupted himself, quitting explaining and reaching out, wiping some frosting off the edge of my mouth with a single finger. Then, he took that finger to his mouth and sucked on it, making the frosting disappear.
It was all oddly attractive. I looked away to prevent showing him my red face. "Thanks, I guess." I started walking back to the waiting area in front of my mom's room, hoping Lewis was done so I wouldn't have to stay with Max alone for long.
We sat in silence for 5 minutes. It was mostly me playing on my phone and him annoyingly tapping on the chair's metal legs. I stopped myself from snapping at him multiple times but couldn't hold it much longer once his rings started banging against the metal legs.
"Could you stop?" I snapped my head towards him.
"Stop what?" He asked, still tapping.
"That." I pointed at his hands.
"Sorry, I can't help but do it when I'm stressed." He apologized and I instantly felt bad for snapping at him.
"Why are you stressed?" I asked him.
"It's a long list, are you sure you wanna hear?"
"Yeah why not—" I was interrupted by Lewis opening the door.
Both Max and I's attention shifted to him. I could see Lewis' surprised expression at the sight of Max but quickly greeted him before cheerfully saying, "She's awake."
I jumped to my feet in excitement. I stopped myself from going first, considering the fact that Max did come here to visit her and all— even if that wasn't entirely true. I still didn't want to be selfish.
"You want to go? Considering you came here for her and stuff?" I asked him and he happily nodded.
I ignored the questioning look Lewis was giving me as we watched the Redbull driver enter my mom's hospital room.
MAX's POV
I shut the door behind me and the strong smell of chemicals and medicine hit me like a bus. I've never liked hospitals, they always reminded me of my childhood— and in a bad way.
But seeing the smile on Talia's face was worth going through my stupid mental battles.
"Max, it's so lovely to see you." She opened her arms as she layed in the bed, welcoming me with a hug.
I took a seat on the chair next to her, "It's so good to see you, too. How are you feeling?"
"Do you want an honest or sugarcoated answer?" She laughed. How she manages to put a smile on her face and the people around her at times like these astonish me every time.
"Honest." I laughed along with her.
"I feel weak and so tired. I think the end is near, if you ask me, Max." Her smile quickly vanished and I felt my heart drop. Did my heart gain weight? Because I could barely breathe now.
"W-what? Why? I thought the new meds would be better for you."
She looked at me with a look I don't recognize.
Defeat.
"New meds or old meds, nothing works anymore. It's all useless. Just enough to keep my organs running for a couple hours before giving me another pill." She stopped me from asking any more questions and moved on, "Anyways, enough about me. Tell me about you. I could feel like something is troubling you. Is it the same thing we talked about by the pool?"
I shamefully nodded, "It's worse now."
"How so?"
"She thinks I don't trust her. And that I'm being untruthful with her." I explained.
"Well, is that true?" She asked me.
"I—" I paused. I didn't quite think about that. There are quite a few things I've obviously never told her because I can't but other than that, I've been nothing but 100% truthful with her. But there's no way she knew about the plan. "No. I don't think so."
"Think harder, Max. There has to be something you might be hiding from her, anything?" She pressed, as if she knew everything. It was quite stressful, if I'm being honest.
"There is one thing." I admitted. "But there's no way she could know about it."
"You have to tell her."
"I can't." I shook my head, "She'll hate me."
"Keeping it from her will only make her hate you more." She had a point, but still. No way.
"I can't. I really can't, Talia." I anxiously ran a hand through my hair.
"You have to, Max, at some point, you will have to." She held my hand, squeezing it, somehow making my raging heartbeat slow down. "But, whenever it happens, I'll be happy to see you two together." She joked, "You just have to find the right moment. Make it right. You two are more stubborn than each other and tend to do stupid decisions based on heavy emotions so don't let that stop you two from doing what's right."
"Thank you, Talia. Really." I thanked her sincerely.
"Anything for my future son-in-law." She winked at me before starting to laugh.
"If Ly heard you, she'd kill you." I laughed along with her.
"Ly?" She raised her brows in intrigue.
I playfully rolled my eyes at her, "Yeah, I accidentally used it once and she told me she liked it."
She quietly squealed and winked once more.
We continued to talk for a while then decided that it would be awfully rude to take up all of Elyse's time with her mom. I got up to leave and hugged her.
"Thank you for everything. And even though you won't be here to see if you'll be my future mother-in-law or not, you've been like a second mother to me all summer, so thank you for that."
I could see her eyes fill to the brim with tears, "Come here, son. One hug can't suffice." She opened her arms to me again and I just couldn't say no.
Finally, I could leave her room despite how much I wanted to stay for longer. I opened the door and found Elyse resting her head on Lewis' shoulders as they watched something on his phone while laughing.
I didn't realize how tight I was holding the door handle until Elyse's voice spoke up, "Are you done?"
I nodded, "Yeah. You can go now." I stepped aside and watched her thank me, entering the room.
Now, it was just me and Lewis in one big room. I chose to sit on the seat across Lewis as he stared me down, skeptically.
"Uh, is there something on my face?" I asked him after 3 minutes of the same thing going on.
"No, but my gut is telling me that there's something going on between you and Ellie."
Damn, are we really that obvious? I scoffed, "Pff, why would there be anything between us?"
"I don't know. Ever since you two suddenly became friends she's been acting.. weird."
I furrowed my brows, "Weird how?"
"Excited to party, dress up, easily flustered. You get me?"
"And you think I have something to do with that.. why?"
"Last night at the party, I saw how she tensed each time she saw you and Kelly together. And suddenly she was kissing a random guy on the dance floor." He explained, "The odds of that happening are zero. Never happened before. And, I mean, I never really paid attention but you two are awfully close to be 'just friends'. Trust me, we've been best friends ever since she joined the team and we've never been like how you two are."
I took a moment to take in what he was saying before laughing, "Hold on, is this what I think is happening?"
Lewis' forehead creased as he furrowed his brows in confusion, "What's happening?"
"Are you jealous of my relationship with Elyse?" I asked.
"What?! Of course not." Lewis stared at me with a funny look as if I was the biggest idiot ever. "I'm just worried about her. She's like my little sister and I don't want someone like you to hurt her."
"Someone like me? Hurt her?" I didn't understand what he was saying, "What do you mean?"
"C'mon, Max. We know how you destroy everything around you, like your tainted relationship with your girlfriend, it's bound to happen to Elyse too and I don't want that for her."
I felt my blood boil, "You have no right to talk about my relationship."
"Yeah, you're right. But I still worry about Elyse when she's with you." He told me, "Even if you claim there's nothing going on between you two."
"There is nothing going on between us. That's it." I wanted this conversation to end before I end up doing something dumb.
"Fine, whatever you say—" Lewis was cut off by a shrill scream.
A cry for help followed that scream and nurses were running into Talia's room. The door opened, revealing Elyse desperately holding onto her mother's hands while the heartbeat monitor had a flat line and played a continuous monotoned beep.
Yells and shouts flooded my ears and I watched as Elyse broke down. It was as if my body was on autopilot as I ran by her side, catching her before she fell while she weeped in my arms.
Suddenly, the shouting came to a halt as the doctor spoke,
"Time of death, 18:05."
-
sorry...