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Sometimes I wonder how I fell in love with my high school best friend.
Sometimes I think to myself, how did I let it grow so quickly? So uncontrollably? How did I let something so unjust and impossible become this present in my life?
I'm thinking this in physics, which probably isn't the best time to be dissociating. Mr. Schmidberger is droning on about velocity and acceleration, drawing diagrams on the whiteboard that look like abstract art, and I'm sketching in my notebook margins when Max turns around in his seat. The afternoon sunlight is streaming through the windows, hitting his dirty blonde hair just right. A grin smothers its way onto his face, that dorky, toothy grin he loves to give me. I feel my stomach drop at the sight, like it does every time.
It's not the first time I've noticed Max is attractive. That happened freshman year when he showed up from Belgium with his accent and his confidence and his warmth and his signature cologne.
If I had to describe the feeling of loving my best friend, I'd say it feels like falling. It's like you're falling into an everlasting pit of this strong yet empty desire, with no way to climb out. It's honestly such a shame, because I always thought my heart would get put to good use, but now it's only beating for another that will never beat in my direction.
"Schmidberger's lost it," Max whispers, nodding toward our teacher, who's now irritably grunting, arguing with the equation. "Give him two minutes before he erases the whole thing and starts over."
I laugh, probably a little too loud, because Schmidberger shoots us a look that could melt steel. Max's shoulder is pressed against mine as he leans closer, and I can smell the cologne that graces his body, mixed with the avocado sandwich he had for lunch, a scent that screams his name. I try to inhale as much of it as I can, because it's a scent that I love. Sometimes I think it's the smell of heaven.
(Two years earlier)
Max Verstappen arrives at our school on a Tuesday.
I'm assigned to be his buddy because I speak French and English and a little Dutch, and our guidance counsellor thinks this makes me qualified to help someone navigate the social hellscape of the International School of Monaco. What she doesn't mention is that Max doesn't need help with anything.
He walks into first period like he's been here for years, before introducing himself to our teacher with perfect English that's only slightly accented. He then chooses the empty seat next to me without hesitation.
"Charles?" he says, reading my name off the buddy assignment sheet. "I'm Max."
"I know," I say. Everyone knows by now. New students are rare here, especially ones who look like they should be modelling for teen magazines instead of solving algebra problems.
"Cool accent," he tells me during lunch, even though he's the one with the accent.
"You too," I say back, and he laughs like I've said something genuinely funny instead of the most awkward two words of my life.
We eat together every day after that.
(Present Time)
After physics, Max and I walk to our lockers together like we have every day for the past year and a half. The hallways are crowded with underclassmen who still run between their classes, and seniors who've perfected the art of looking suicidal.
"Do you wanna come over tonight?" Max asks, spinning the lock that was keeping his clocker closed. "My mum's making that pasta thing you like."
Sophie's garlic pasta is legendary in the Verstappen household, but I don't always say yes because I'm a greedy, fat pig. I say yes because Max always asks with his big grin and a tone of intrigue. It's like my presence at his dinner table is something he genuinely wants, and not because his mum asks him to invite me every so often.
"Sure," I tell him, trying to not sound pathetically eager.
"Great." He slams his locker shut and shoulders his backpack. "I'll pick you up at six?"
I nod, and he grins again, only wider, the same width that started whatever this feeling inside me is supposed to be, before disappearing into the crowd.
I stand at my locker longer than necessary, watching him go.
Something I've realised about falling for your best friend is that it happens in slow motion and all at once, and you don't even realise.
I say "slow motion" because it's built on a foundation of small moments. Whether that be Max remembering my coffee order and showing up with it on Monday mornings when I look dead on my feet, or Max defending me when Liam makes another comment about my "pretty boy" looks. Even when Max stays after school to help me practice parallel parking for my driving test, when he stays patient even when I've hit the curb for the fifth time.
"You're overthinking it," he says, reaching over to adjust my grip on the steering wheel. His fingers brush against mine, and I nearly hit the curb again. "Stop thinking so much, and just drive."
"How the hell am I supposed to stop thinking and just drive? I have to think to drive!" I yell. Sometimes I get a little frustrated, but Max doesn't seem to mind, in fact, he finds it quite amusing.
"Obvious you still think! That's not what I meant." He said in a defensive tone, though different to the humorous smirk on his face.
And I say "all at once" because one day I'm helping him with French homework at his kitchen table, and he's frowning at his conjugation worksheet with this little crease between his eyebrows, and I realise I want to smooth it away with my thumb. I want to lean across the space between us and kiss him until he forgets about irregular verbs entirely.
I don't do it.
I never do it.
But I want to, and that's how I know I'm completely gone and an utter idiot for ever thinking so.
Max is generous with affection in a way that makes everything worse and better at the same time.
He throws his arm around my shoulders when we walk through the hallways. He steals food off my lunch tray without asking. He texts me at midnight with random thoughts. "Do you think aliens have social media," or "I just remembered that time you tripped in front of Alexandria and I couldn't stop laughing," or "thanks for helping with the French thing today, you're the best."
You're the best. I screenshot that text and stare at it for a few minutes.
The issue is that Max treats everyone like this. Not exactly like this, I'm not delusional, but he's naturally warm, naturally tactile, naturally the kind of person who makes everyone feel special. It's just who he is.
So when he shows up at my door with soup when I'm sick with the flu, I can't tell if it's because he cares about me and loves me or because he's Max and this is what Max does for people.
"You look terrible," he says cheerfully, pushing past me into the apartment.
"Thanks," I croak. "Really what I needed to hear."
"I brought the good stuff." He holds up a container from the deli near school. "Chicken noodle. And before you ask, yes, I paid for it with my own money instead of charming the grumpy lady at the register into giving it to me for free."
He stays for three hours, making sure I eat the soup and queuing up Netflix shows and not complaining when I fall asleep on his shoulder during the second episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
When I wake up, there's a blanket over me and a text on my phone. "Feel better soon, also your head is really heavy."
I screenshot that text and put it into on my gallery albums. I keep all of his warm texts in that album.
Winter formal is approaching like an inevitable disaster.
I hadn't planned on going, school dances rank somewhere between dentist appointments and public speaking on my list of preferred activities, but Max has other ideas.
"Come on," he says during lunch, stealing one of my salt and vinegar chips like he does every day. "It'll be fun. We can judge everyone's dancing and bet on which couples will break up before New Year's."
"I don't have anyone to go with," I tell him, which isn't entirely true. Alexandria asked me last week, and I gave her some excuse about being busy. I'm surprised she was still interested in me after seeing me trip over. Alex was a really pretty girl, but I can't imagine spending an entire evening pretending to be interested in someone who isn't Max. I don't wan't to do that, its wrong.
"So we'll go together," Max says, a cheerful look on his face. "As friends," he adds quickly, and I try not to flinch. "It'll be better than going with a date anyway, then you don't have to act all professional."
As friends.
The phrase replays in my head while I rent a tuxedo, while I stand in front of my bathroom mirror, trying to get my tie straight, while I wait for Max to pick me up, my palms sweating despite the December chill.
Max looks stunning in his black suit. His hair is styled back, and when he grins at me from the driver's seat. I feel my mouth go dry, and I thought as if I might faint at that moment, but I didn't.
"You clean up nice, Leclerc," he says, and I have to grip the door handle to keep from doing something stupid.
"You too," I manage.
The dance itself was pretty mediocre. I didn't find myself having as much fun as everyone else there, but I assumed most of them were drunk, otherwise none of them would be attempting the worm in the middle of the dance floor. Max makes it bearable though. He pulls me onto the dance floor when a song comes on that he likes. He buys us both overpriced bottles of water when the crowd gets overwhelming. He finds us a quiet corner by the photo booth where we can watch all the pissed people make a fool of themselves.
"This is nice," he says during a slow song.
For one insane moment, I think he means us, as in the two of us standing close together while couples sway around us, how he looks as the bright lights dance off his face, how he's looking at me like I'm some modern art piece.
But then he nods toward the dance floor. "Seeing everyone happy. Our grade is pretty shitty most of the time, so I like seeing everyone get together."
"Yeah," I say, trying to hide the disappointment in my voice and in my eyes.
When the next slow song starts, Kelly appears at Max's elbow. She's wearing a blue dress that make her eyes stand out, and she's has a confident smile that probably makes most guys forget their own names.
"Want to dance?" she asks Max, and I know what his answer will be before he says it, I can tell in his face, I can tell he's forgotten his own name.
"Sure." He glances at me apologetically. "Be right back?"
I nod and watch him follow Kelly onto the dance floor. I watch him put his hands on her waist. I watch her lean into him.
I excuse myself to the bathroom and spend ten minutes vomiting up the small snacks we had eaten together a few hours ago. I wasn't sure why my body had the reflex to regurgitate all this food. I feel tears threaten to roll down my crimson cheeks as I stare into the mirror.
I press my forehead against the reflection, trying to breathe through the knotted rope around my lungs. I was crying to flood out this overwhelming and devastating feeling, trying to convince my heart to stop breaking over something that was never mine to begin with.
Senior year soon arrives, along with it all the things I was trying to push away the year before. College applications, career plans, the constant question of what comes next, asked by teachers and parents and guidance counsellors who seem to think seventeen year olds should have their entire lives figured out.
But Max seems to know exactly what he wants.
He's been karting since he was seven. Racing is practically in his blood, his dad was a Professional driver back in the day, and Max has been chasing that legacy ever since. He talks about it with the kind of certainty I envy. I wish my life was as thought out and prepared as his.
"Red Bull's Junior scouting team were watching my last race," he tells me one day in April. We're at our usual spot in the library, supposedly studying for midterms but really just enjoying each other's company. "My manager told me they had their eyes on me. I think it's a long shot, but..."
"That's amazing," I tell him, and I mean it. I'm genuinely happy for him, even as a throbbing coldness settles in my stomach. "When do you find out? If they've picked you?"
"A few months probably, not until June or July." He looks nervous for the first time since I've known him. "It's in Austria. The program, if I get in."
Austria. As in, not Monaco. As in, very far away from me.
"That's really cool," I say. What else can I say? That I hope he doesn't get in? That the thought of him leaving makes the weight in my stomach only sink deeper and deeper?
"Yeah." Max fidgets with his pen, clicking it repeatedly. "It would only be for a year. Maybe two. And I'd come back for holidays, and we could video chat all the time..."
He's looking at me, waiting for a response of approval, like my opinion matters for his dreams.
"Max, you don't need permission to live your life." I say with care.
"I know that." He stops clicking the pen. "But I care what you think. Your opinion matters to me."
Your opinion matters to me.
I want to grab onto those words and hold them close, even though I know he doesn't mean them in the way I wish he did.
"Then I think you should go for it, if it's what you want," I tell him.
He smiles, and it's like the sun coming out after rain.
"Thanks, Charles. I knew you'd understand."
I do understand.
That's the problem.
Today is leap day.
Max and I are at his house, supposedly working on our history project about World War One, but actually debating whether The Office is better than Parks and Recreation. The argument could probably last the whole day, but I'm only half participating because I'm too busy watching Max, so it'll end soon.
He's lying on his stomach on his bedroom floor, chin propped on his hands, gesturing wildly as he explains why Jim and Pam are the superior TV couple. His hair is beginning to grow longer now, and he's dropped the neat look. It's falling into his eyes, and he keeps pushing it back without thinking about it, and I want to reach over and do it for him.
"You're not even listening," he accuses, and he's right.
"I'm listening," I lie.
"What did I just say?"
"Something about Jim being the perfect man?"
Max laughs and rolls onto his back, staring at the ceiling. "Close enough."
We're quiet for a moment. I've spent so many hours in his room that I could navigate it in the dark. Movie posters on the walls, racing magazines scattered on his desk, the smell of his cologne embedded in everything, plus the carpet is littered in cat fur.
"Do you ever think about what it would be like?" Max asks suddenly.
"What what would be like?"
"Love. Like, real love. Like they have in movies and TV shows, well, not that that's real love, but you know what I mean."
My heart stops.
"Sometimes," I say carefully.
"I want that," he says softly. "Someday. Someone who gets me, someone I can be completely myself with."
What about now? I want to ask. What about me? Aren't you yourself around me? But I swallow those words like I always do.
"You'll find it," I tell him instead.
"Yeah?" He turns his head to look at me. "You think so?"
"I know so."
And I do know. Max is the kind of person who draws people in like gravity. Someone will love him the way he deserves to be loved.
It just won't be me.
A letter arrives on a Thursday.
I'm at Max's house when his mum calls him into the kitchen, and I hear her excited voice through the walls, even though I can't make out the words. When Max comes back to his room, he's holding an envelope with the Red Bull logo, and his hands are shaking.
"I got in," he says, like he can't quite believe it. Max had ended up getting a call from the Junior team, and he had to give in an interview a few weeks back.
"Max," I'm on my feet before I realise I'm moving. "That's incredible!"
He laughs, high and breathless. "I got in. I actually got in!"
I hug him without thinking, and it's a little weird at first. We've never hugged before, but it's what friends do when something amazing happens. I let myself pretend that his excitement is about something we're doing together instead of something that's taking him away from me.
"I'm so proud of you," I tell him, my face buried in his shoulder.
"Thank you Charles, thank you so much. You're so kind to me," he says into my hair. "All those times you helped me practice my English for the application video, and listened to me stress about the interview..."
You're so kind to me.
More words to add to my collection.
"When do you leave?" I ask when we break apart.
"September." His smile falters slightly. "Right after graduation."
A month.
I have a month left with him, and then he's gone.
"That's soon," I say.
"Yeah." Max sits on his bed. "Charles, I need you to know-"
"It's okay," I interrupt. I can't hear whatever he's about to say. I don't want to hear it. Whether it's an apology or a promise to stay in touch or an acknowledgement that things are going to change, I can't handle it right now. "You don't have to explain anything."
"But I want to. You're my best friend. You're the most important person in my life, and I-"
"Max." I hold up a hand to stop him. "It's okay. Really."
The most important person in my life.
Another phrase to add to the pile.
Prom happens, and I don't go.
Max does, with Kelly, who asked him a few days after he got his acceptance letter. They look perfect together in the photos that flood social media the next day. Max is wearing a sleek black tuxedo, and Kelly is in an emerald green floral dress.
I spend the night at home, telling my parents I have a stomach bug and binge watch Brooklyn Nine Nine until I fall asleep on the couch.
My phone buzzes with texts from Max throughout the night
"I wish you were here!"
"Schmidberger is chaperoning and he's actually a good dancer??"
"Kelly says hi"
"I'm missing my wingmannn"
"Seriously, this would be SO much better if you were here!!"
I don't respond to any of them.
Graduation day is amazing, but horrible.
I sit with my mum during the ceremony, watching Max cross the stage to accept his diploma. He's wearing his cap at a slight angle, and when his name is called, he grins at the audience.
When he spots me in the crowd afterwards, he gives me our little secret thumbs up, the one we developed our first few weeks together during particularly boring assemblies, and I give it back, even if it feels like I'm saying goodbye.
The party at Pierre's house is loud and overwhelming, full of people who suddenly want to be Max's best friend now that he's leaving for something prestigious. I find myself standing at the edge of the group around him, holding a beer I got nonconsensually handed and watching Max hold court by the pool.
"You're excluding yourself Charles," Max says, appearing beside me after the group of people around him had slowly dissipated.
"I'm observing,"
"Same thing,"
"Not really,"
"They are." There's a short silence between us.
"Are you nervous? About Austria?" I ask.
"Terrified," he admits. "But it'll be nice I guess, to race with a professional organisation."
We stand in another silence, thought it's comfortable. The night air is warm against my skin. I don't like this feeling. Max is going to leave me.
"Charles," Max says, and his tone makes me look at him. "You know you're my best friend, right? Like, the person I've felt the closest connection to."
To a normal person, that would be the nicest thing a friend could say to you, but to me, someone in love with my best friend, it feels like a knife sliding between my ribs.
Best friend.
Not the love of my life. Not the person he can't imagine living without. Only his best friend.
"You're mine too," I tell him, because it's true and because he needs to hear it and because I've become fluent in the language of giving Max what he needs while keeping what I need locked away.
Max grins, and pulls me into a hug. It had become more of a common occurrence ever since I gave him one when he got accepted. It lasts longer than normal, but not long enough for me to know it means anything beyond friendship.
"I'm going to miss you so much," he whispers against my ear.
"I'll miss you too," I manage.
When he pulls away, his eyes are glossy and stained with unshed tears, and I realise this is hard for Max too, but in a completely different way.
Max is losing a friend, I'm losing the love that keeps my heart beating.
"Promise me we'll stay in touch," he says. "Promise me things won't change between us, yeah?"
I want to laugh at the absurdity of it. Everything has already changed, since that moment in physics class when I first noticed the sunlight in his hair. But Max is looking at me with such hope, such certainty that our friendship can survive distance and time.
"I promise," I lie.
Max's last day in Monaco arrives like an execution date I've been dreading.
He's leaving for Austria tomorrow morning, and everyone wants to see him off. There's a gathering at the harbour where half our graduating class shows up to wish him luck and take selfies they can post with captions about friendship and following your dreams.
I stay for an hour before the crowd becomes too much.
"I have to go," I tell Max, pulling him aside. "Early morning tomorrow."
It's not true. I have nothing planned for tomorrow except wallowing in my room and trying not to think about him being gone.
"Okay," he says, but he looks disappointed. "I'll text you before my flight?"
"Yeah. Sure."
Max hugs me goodbye in front of everyone, and I wonder if any of them can tell that my heart is breaking. If any of them notice that I hold on a little too long, or that my hands shake when I finally let go.
"See you soon," Max says, as if two years will fly by. Maybe it will for him.
"See you soon," I respond.
I walk home instead of calling my parents for a ride. I need to compose the absurdity of everything.
Max's flight leaves at 10am.
I know this because he texted me his itinerary three days ago, along with a dozen other details about his travel plans that I had asked for.
I don't go to the airport.
Instead, I lie in bed and stare at my phone, waiting for the text that will confirm he's really gone.
It comes at 9:47am. "Boarding now! Thank you for everything Charles. See you soon!!"
I type back. "Good luck! You're going to be amazing!!"
Three dots appear immediately, like he was waiting for my response.
"Miss you already :("
"Miss you too :(((" I type back, even though "miss" and a triple sad face doesn't even begin to cover what I'm feeling right now.
I wait until I'm sure his plane has taken off before I let myself sulk into my sleeve.
That night, I sit at my desk with my laptop open and start writing.
Dear Max,
There are things I should have told you. Things I wanted to say but never found the courage for. I know you're somewhere over the Mediterranean right now, probably asleep with your head against the window, probably dreaming about racetracks and podium finishes and a future that's bigger than anything Monaco could offer you.
I want you to know that I'm happy for you. I am. Even though it feels like my chest is caving in, even though I spent today in bed staring at the ceiling and trying to imagine what my life looks like without you in it, I'm genuinely proud of you for going after what you want.
Here's what I never told you. I've been in love with you since junior year. Maybe longer. It started in physics class when you turned around to make fun of Schmidberger's terrible equations, and the sunlight was in your hair, and you smiled at me. I really love your smile.
I know you don't feel the same way. I've always known. You've never given me any reason to think otherwise, and I'm not writing this because I expect anything to change. You're my best friend, and I would never want to ruin that by making you uncomfortable or forcing you to navigate feelings you don't share.
But I needed to say it somewhere, even if it's only my laptop screen at midnight while you're 30000 feet above the ocean.
I loved the way you remembered my coffee order and showed up with it on Monday mornings when I looked dead on my feet. I loved the way you defended me when people made comments about my looks. I loved the way you stayed after school to help me with parallel parking, patient even when I was clearly hopeless.
I loved how you threw your arm around my shoulders in the hallways. I loved how you stole food off my lunch tray without asking, like mine was automatically yours too. I loved your midnight texts about aliens and embarrassing memories and random thoughts you wanted to share with someone.
I loved that you trusted me with your fears about the Red Bull Academy interview. I loved that my opinion mattered to you when you were making the biggest decision of your life. I loved that you called me your best friend.
I want you to be happy in Austria. I want you to find someone who loves you the way you deserve to be loved. I want you to win races and make friends and build the life you've always dreamed of.
And I want you to know that even though I have to learn how to be a person without you in my daily orbit, loving you was the best thing and the worst thing I ever did. Even if you never knew, especially because you never knew.
You were the most important person in my life too.
Thank you for four years of a love that keeps my heart beating.
Love always, Charles
I read the letter three times, correcting typos and adjusting sentences until it says exactly what I mean.
I delete it.
I start classes at the International University of Monaco.
Business administration, because it's practical and my parents approve of it. I need something to fill the space where my dreams used to be. I don't have dreams anymore. I have plans, which are different and smaller and easier to achieve.
Max texts me on my first day. "Hey Charles! How's university? Are your professors as bad as Schmidberger??"
I write back. "So far so good, how's Austria? :]"
"Amazing. Hard, but amazing. I miss having you here to complain to >:("
"You'll find new people to complain to!"
"But it's not the sameeee"
I stare at that sentence with three extra E's for a long time before putting my phone away.
Max calls me while I'm studying for my economics midterm.
"Charles!" His voice is bright and energetic, and I can hear unfamiliar voices in the background. "How are you?"
"Good," I lie. "Busy with school. How are you?"
"Really good. Really, really good." He pauses, and the background noise fades like he's moved away from the group. "I have news."
My stomach drops. I don't know why, but something in his tone sets off alarm bells.
"What kind of news?"
"I'm seeing someone."
Oh.
"Oh. That's... that's great, Max. Tell me about them."
"I will another time, I don't want to say too much now, I'm with other people." I can hear the giddy sound associated with blissful love in his voice.
"That's really great Max. I'm happy for you."
"I wish you could meet her. I think you'd really like her."
I'm sure I would. She's probably exactly the kind of person Max deserves.
"Maybe when you visit for Christmas?" I suggest.
"Actually, about that..." Max's voice gets weary. "I'm not coming home for Christmas. She invited me to spend the holidays with her family in Munich, and I thought it would be good to meet them."
"Oh, of course, that makes sense." I say quickly.
"You're not mad?"
Mad wasn't the right word. I was more devastated. Devastated that I probably wouldn't be seeing him until next Christmas. Devastated that our "promised connection" was slowly ceasing to exist.
"Why would I be mad? You're building a life there. That's what you're supposed to do."
"Right." He sounds relieved. "You get it. I knew you would."
We talk for another ten minutes about classes and mutual friends, anything but his newfound relationship. When he hangs up, I sit in my dorm room, staring at my economics textbook and trying to remember what I was studying.
I don't call him back for three weeks.
Christmas morning.
I wake up to a text from Max. "Merry Christmas! I hope you're having a good day with your family!"
There's a photo attached. Max and a beautiful blonde girl in front of a Christmas tree, both of them grinning at the camera. She's wearing a sweater that probably costs more than my all my textbooks, and she has her arm around Max's waist.
I text back. "Merry Christmas!! You two look amazing. You look happy :D"
He replies immediately. "Happier than ever."
I delete the photo that for some reason saved to my camera roll and spend the rest of Christmas morning helping my mum cook lunch, grateful for any task that keep my hands busy and my mind occupied.
It was Valentine's Day.
Max doesn't text me.
This shouldn't hurt as much as it does. We're not together. We were never together. He has a girlfriend who probably expects romantic gestures and thoughtful gifts and all his attention on the day dedicated to love.
But for the past two years, Max has texted me on every minor holiday. Halloween, Thanksgiving, New Year's, random Tuesday afternoons when he's bored or stressed or missing home.
I spend the evening at a bar near campus with some guys from my finance class, drinking beers and pretending to be interested in their conversations about internships and career prospects. When they start talking about their girlfriends and Valentine's Day plans, I excuse myself and walk home alone.
My phone stays quiet all night.
Max wins his first race.
I find out from Instagram, not from him directly. The photo shows him on a podium holding a trophy, champagne soaking his hair, grinning like he's conquered the world.
I read the caption out loud. "First win in the books! Thanks to everyone who believed in me!"
I stare at the post for a long time, reading the comments from other drivers and friends and family members congratulating him. My thumb hovers over the like button, but I can't bring myself to press it.
Instead, I text him. "I saw the news, you did it!!!!"
He doesn't respond for six hours.
When he finally does, it says, "Thanks man. Means a lot."
Man.
When did I become "man" instead of "Charles"?
I graduate from university.
It's not too big a deal, but my parents are proud, and I smile for pictures and pretend that I'm excited to enter business administration.
Max doesn't text me.
I check my phone obsessively throughout the ceremony and the dinner afterward, but there's nothing. No congratulations, no acknowledgement, no sign that he remembers this day was important to me.
Maybe he doesn't remember.
Maybe I'm not important enough to remember anymore.
It's been two years since Max left Monaco.
I commemorate it by going through our old text conversations, scrolling back to the beginning when we talked every day. The evolution is painful to track, from constant communication to weekly texts to sporadic event wishes to the nothing we exchange now.
His last text was a month ago. "Hope you're doing well."
Generic, polite, but missing any heartfelt intention. It was like he felt obligated to maintain contact but don't actually have anything to say.
I start typing a response a dozen times.
"I miss you."
"Do you ever think about home?"
"Are you happy?"
"I'm still in love with you."
I delete them all and put my phone away. He said he'd be back by now, but he's not.
I see Max on television one time, and I'm surprised I still remember his face.
He's moved up from the academy to actual Formula One racing, signing with a team I don't recognise. I only knew RedBull anyway. The sports commentator is talking about his potential, his natural talent, his bright future in the sport. The camera switches to his girlfriend, someone different from the woman he had sent me the photo of at Christmas last year.
I turn off the TV and go for a walk along the harbour.
New Year's Eve.
I'm at a party thrown by someone from work, with champagne and dozens of people. A few minutes before midnight, I step outside for air and check my phone.
No messages.
At midnight, when everyone around me is kissing and cheering and welcoming the new year, I realise I haven't heard from Max Verstappen in five months.
I delete his number from my phone.
Not because I'm angry, but because I've finally accepted what I should have known ever since that physics lesson. Some people are meant to be chapters in your story, not the whole book. Some people should stay buried in the depths of that everlasting hole you feel yourself falling into, never to surface again.
But Max, Max was my favourite chapter, the one I keep rereading. He was my favourite cliff dive, that breathtaking moment of surrender before the fall. I still haven't moved on from the way he made me feel like I was suffocating.
But I have to continue without him, don't I? Even when every page feels blank without his presence. The fall has to end when I finally hit the bottom, even though part of me wants to keep falling forever if it means holding onto the memory of him.
I have to let go of the love that keeps my heart beating.