Max
I open my heavy eyelids, looking around. The sun penetrates through the curtains, which are not fully drawn, and just as I curve my face, wanting to roll over to the other side so that the sun's rays don't glaring at me, I fall off the bed, which, after all, has always been so damn big. I curse under my breath, not quite sure what is just happening in my room. However, before I have time to think, I hear knocking, or rather banging fists on the door. I pick myself up lazily from the floor, moving towards them. I can feel my head hurting so damn badly, and my memory of the party ends with drinking half a bottle of vodka at once right after the cake incident. I open the door, not caring what I look like. Because it's probably either Daniel or Christian.
I don't even want to know what kind of look I get when the Ferrari director is standing in front of me, and right next to him is Carlos, who at the sight of me nearly chokes on the water he's just had. Frederic, on the other hand, looks similar to me. We both look at each other in shock. I close my mouth, which I unconsciously opened, and blink a few times, not seeing what to say. I do the worst thing possible, as I instantly slam the door in front of them, leaning against it with my back.
And suddenly the spell is gone.
I look around my room, which is not my own. There are Ferrari clothes everywhere, and the living room is smaller than mine. I glance at my clothes. I have my shirt, pants and socks unbuttoned, and further a lot of cake stuck on my body, hair and clothes. Fuck, what am I doing in the Ferrari driver's room? And now the question of which driver. If it's Sainz's room then he reacted strangely to me being here, but if it's his and I slammed the door in front of his face into his room then I'm an idiot. BUT if it's Leclerc's room then that makes me want to jump off the bridge all the more. God, why can't I remember anything. Did I do something stupid?
"What are you doing?" I gasp when I hear Leclerc's voice from afar. Why did he...
"I... Well... I thought this was my room. Carlos and Frederic are probably waiting for you. I don't know, I slammed the door in front of their faces." He tangles his words, scratching the back of his neck.
"Today I don't have to help you climb the stairs anymore?" he mocks at the best of my memory gap. I cross my arms over my chest, thinking of a sensible answer, but that answer doesn't come, because he knows more than me.
"Did you kidnap me?" I ask stupidly, to which he bursts out laughing. I look at him in a stupor, not knowing what amuses him so much.
"You said the same thing yesterday." he comments as he calms down and grabs his suitcase, walking toward me. "Get out of my way, Verstappen. When you leave, bring the keys to the reception desk, I don't have any more time for you. After yesterday, I'm sick of your presence, so tell the media that our friendship is over, and we will avoid each other." he says quickly, avoiding me.
I move away puzzled, and he leaves me with these unintelligible words, walking out of the room. What happened yesterday that suddenly turned us from fake friends into.... Nobody? Because if we are to avoid each other, we are not enemies, but strangers.
Because of my headache, I can't focus on anything, so I decide to take my things, which aren't here much, and go back to my room. I grab my phone, which is lying on the coffee table, seeing a message from Daniel.
From: Daniel
I slept at your place, because I don't know why, but I'm waiting for you to come back from I don't know where. Bye!
I lift the corners of my mouth involuntarily. I'm not the only one who has lost touch with reality. Comforting. And it's not at all that Daniel is always like this. No. Let's get past that fact this time so I can feel good about how I got drunk.
***
"Maybe you raped him?" the boy says seriously, crossing his arms over his chest.
"What the fuck are you talking about?" I say brokenly, looking at the sights outside the plane's window. We are just flying to another race weekend, and I tell him about this morning. "I don't know, maybe i did something wrong... I don't know, with the rest it doesn't matter. I'll start challenging him and everything will go back to normal." I shrug my shoulders.
"Yeah... That's how you translate it." He rolls his eyes.
We spend the rest of the trip in silence, relaxing after yesterday. When the plane lands, I put on my sunglasses so no one can see that I don't look very good today. Probably someone at Red Bull will give me some powder on my face and I'll be ok.
We get out of the plane and almost run towards the car. We both get in the back and the driver takes us to the hotel. Due to the fact that my alarm clock didn't wake me up I'm almost late for the plane which means I haven't eaten anything. I'm already dreaming of being at the hotel and eating something.
"You, and maybe you confessed your love to him?" the silence is broken by Daniel's voice.
"Oh my God, can you shut up already? I would never do that. I hate him," I cross my arms over my chest.
"It's a short way from hate to love." He lets me off the hook, at which I roll my eyes in annoyance. "But as you tell yourself there, I don't interfere." he shrugs his shoulders.
"That's exactly what you're doing."
Just then the driver stops in front of the hotel. I quickly get out, not even going to the reception desk. My first stop is the dining room. I almost run inside, seeing Lando, Carlos, Pierre and... Leclerc at one table. Norris notices me as I take off my glasses and shows me with his hand to come to them. I take some pancakes on a plate and, ignoring the Ferrari driver, which he does with reciprocity, I sit down across from him. Before Lando has time to speak, Daniel supplies a chair, smiling broadly.
"Howdy, folks!" he shouts in my ear, to which I wince, moving away from the idiot.
"I beg you to stop already today." I mumble discontentedly.
"The party went well." Pierre comments, laughing. He's just finishing eating his waffles, and as I look at my pancakes I lose the urge to eat. I hate the day after the party, they are awful.
"For whom it went well, it went well." Leclerc mumbles under his breath.
"Fuck me, I didn't ask you to help me. You should have gone back on your own." I comment, unable to stop myself.
"Yea, believe me I considered this option. I was going to leave you in the ditch, but I didn't, and I fucking regret it!" the angry boy gets up from the table.
"You're acting like a spoiled brat!" I raise my voice, also getting angry. All he has to do is say something, and I already feel like screaming.
"Somehow you didn't think so yesterday when you kissed me!" he exclaims. Suddenly he realizes what he has just said and falls silent, and the anger immediately goes away from his face.
I hear Pierre next to me start coughing because he swallowed a piece of waffle badly. Lando slaps him on the back, bawling his eyes out, Carlos falls from his chair to the floor, moaning in pain, and Daniel slaps the table, looking at us.
"I said this! Fuck, i'm brilliant!" he shouts proudly to himself.
I, on the other hand, sit in a stupor, looking at Leclerc, who looks as if he is angry with himself for having said too much in anger.
"I did what...?" I mumble, trying to analyze his words, but my headache makes it damn difficult.
A piece of waffle that Pierre had impaled on a fork falls to the table, and Lando follows it with his eyes as the boy stops choking. Carlos finally gets up from the floor, wincing in pain as Daniel grins, sitting exaggeratedly upright, as if he's just won a world title.
What a circus.
"You should be thanking me for not being a prick like you and not going to spread rumors to others." Leclerc turns and quickly leaves the room.
Without thinking too much I get up and, leaving the pancakes untouched, follow the boy. I don't know why I'm doing this, but I feel the need to explain myself.
"Run for your boyfriend!" Daniel shouts after me, and as I turn toward them, I see Lando hit him in the back of the head.
I roll my eyes at their stupidity, walking out into the hallway. I look for Leclerc, looking around, and spot him walking toward the stairs. I move behind him, ignoring the glances in my direction.
"Wait." I say when I'm right behind him, but he ignores me. "Leclerc." I add, but he does the same again. "Please, Charles, let's talk." I mumble, and it only works on him. He stops abruptly, turning from my direction.
"What did you say?" he asks in shock.
"That we should talk. These rumors..." I begin.
"Not that." he interrupts me. "You said to me by name. Sober." he says, looking at me carefully. "Have you been drinking something? Has it been holding you since yesterday?" he asks suspiciously.
"What, no. I don't know why I did it. Irrelevant, can we talk?" I ask hopefully.
I can't explain the fact that I want to confess to him. I don't know why, if I don't care about him in any way. Is it the fear of telling someone about yesterday? No. I don't give a damn. But I do care about the explanation. It's sick.
"Come to my room. You'll have five minutes, because I don't want to look at you anymore." He turns his back to me again and we quickly go up to the second floor.
Brunet opens the third door from the left and lets me in first. He leans against the wall right next to the closed front door, crossing his arms over his chest. I stand, like a beaten child who has do something wrong, a meter away from him, and think about how he should start the conversation.
"You destroyed my life. I know it makes you happy, so congratulations, and now you can leave." He points to the door. I shake my head quickly, and he moves his hand away from the handle.
"No, it's not like that." I start quickly. "I have nothing to do with the rumors. I didn't say anything to anyone, and you didn't give me chances an explanation yesterday, immediately accusing me. You could have been the worst person in the world, and I still wouldn't have done that to you, because I know how shitty it feels when everyone around you is saying something at you, and you want them to stop, but you have to ignore it for fear they'll discover the truth." I say frankly. It's stupid. I am stupid. Why am I telling him this? And why am I still here? It's alcohol's fault, one hundred percent.
"What?" he crinkles his eyebrows. "If it's not you, then who, then?" he rejects a combative posture. He stands resigned, wiping his tired face with his hands. He has hardly slept at all, and it's because of me.
"I don't know, but I promise I have nothing to do with it. I cut off the subject when you told me not to go into it. I didn't even talk about it with Daniel, and at the party I just walked in and you were already next to me." I lean my back against the dresser, looking at his face. His skin is pale, his eyes bloodshot and tired.
"So I was an idiot, believing those strangers that you told them." he mumbles, sighing with resignation. "I just... It's a damn weak feeling. I feel like shit because it's all true, and I don't know what to do. I thought it was a closed topic, far behind me, and now it's coming back, like a fucking boomerang, and I feel worse than I did then. I don't know whether I should respond to these rumors, or keep quiet, or cry, or laugh..." he says concerned, pushing away from the wall.
"Is that true?" I furrow my eyebrows.
He raises a tired gaze at me, raising an eyebrow.
"Seriously? That's the only thing you heard?" he says reproachfully, crossing his arms over his chest again.
"No, I heard everything, but I didn't think you..."
"That I'm disgusting?" he interrupts me, at which I wrinkle my eyebrows, not understanding these words. "Don't be shy, you can say it. You can break me as I have always done to you, talking about your father. You've found something that will make me feel like crap." Tears stream into his eyes. He clenches his jaws, fighting them to keep them from running down his face. He looks away from me, waiting for me to start saying the horrible things he said about himself.
And probably just a few days ago I would have been happy to find something on him, but now, as I watch him almost crying in front of me, I can't get a single word out, because I see before me a boy who reminds me of me a few years ago. A boy who is lost, scared and alone. There is no one who can help him get up on his feet again, because no one understands him. Everyone sympathizes, and no one knows what it's like, so he has to try to build his own wall again, which will separate his feelings from people.
"I'll help you find the person who is spreading these rumors." I say without thinking. The brunet freezes and slowly turns toward me again. The first tear runs down his cheek.
"What will you do?" he whispers in disbelief.
"I'll help you, but don't cry anymore. I hate it when someone cries, because I don't know what to do." He lifts the corners of his mouth up by my confession and nods, rubbing his eyes with his hands.
"Why are you doing this?"
"Because in the past no one has helped the one person I know."
Which is me, but I won't tell you that anymore, Leclerc. That's my secret, which I'll take to the grave.