30. PAIN FILTER

/Charles/

“It threw me into a complete panic.
His hand appeared beside my head, he placed the coins and I immediately felt him; shivers ran through me from head to toe as soon as I realized it was him and he was standing just inches behind me.
My brain shut down precisely at that moment, when he spoke in his damned erotic voice.
I don't know what I took, or why. There was only panic, I couldn't control myself anymore. I looked at him there with me and in my head echoed only the memory of when a few minutes earlier I had thought of him after my orgasm with Pierre.
I had sex with him, it was my first time with another guy and it was enlightening in a thousand ways.
It opened my eyes to my own sexual tendencies and preferences, but also to Pierre himself. He's a nice guy whom I trust, the one I feel best with more than anyone else, but that kind of relationship isn't there, nor do I want it to be.
It's a shame I realized it too late, after we'd already had sex.
In addition to that discovery, another one dazzled me.
Pierre wasn't Max.
After that I found him behind me offering something from the vending machines; I struggled to understand what the hell I was doing with the chocolate and the can of beer in my hand. I was choking, maybe I was having a stroke, I was struggling to compose myself and what did he do? He opened the beer and drank. I couldn't take my eyes off his mouth on that can. I couldn't tame the urge, I had to pick it up and put my own on it, but it wasn't a question of 'to drink or not to drink,' as it might have seemed from the outside.
The question was something else entirely.
'I do this, or I put my mouth on his.'
I don't know why I had such a strong urge, such a desire, such a damned need to kiss him, but that's what happened. I understood how Max felt in that club, when he hugged me under the pretext of gin and tonics.
He needed it.
The conversation we had on the terrace was absurd and wonderful at the same time.
He understood me.
He knows what I feel because he feels it too and already knows what it is, because he's lived with it and is more lucid about it. He knows what it is.
What did he call it?
Pain filter? Yes, I think it's something similar. The pain we feel is so intense and so repetitive that at a certain point it creates a barrier that filters everything that comes after and prevents us from being crushed by it and feeling bad. It's a survival instinct.
He's been through it too, I know very well that his father did who knows what to him; now, from what Pierre told me, he's still abusing him psychologically.
But the fact that Max is living his own life should help him. I haven't been able to delve into this conversation, even though I wanted to, but I wasn't capable of it. I wasn't lucid and present, in my head I had Anthoine and my strange, tearless reaction, my remaining standing up and doing what needs to be done, what's best, what's right. But was it right fuck with Pierre?
Well, he endured everything with me, both that time with Jules and then with my father. Didn't I owe him that?
I look at Pierre as he sleeps, a furrow on his face and tears in the corners of his eyes. He was crying in his sleep, again.
I lie down with him and as soon as he feels me, he snuggles against me without waking up. When our bodies touch, he sighs and his face relaxes.
He needs me. He still needs me. It doesn't matter if it's not right and if I shouldn't have. He needs me and since he's always been there for me when I needed him, now I'll be there for him.
Even though maybe I should be devastated and cry out my grief.
Another loss. Another dear friend of mine is gone. I knew him well, we raced go-karts together, we spoke every time we met on the circuits in the higher categories.
'You're not a monster.' Max's voice echoes in my mind, relieving me just like it did before.
It's true, I'm not a monster. We just got used to the pain too quickly.
When we said goodbye in the doorway of his room, it was inevitable that I thought of Singapore. That night he'd tried to kiss me, who knows why.
I thought in a very quick flash at that time, that if he'd done it again now I wouldn't have moved, but he didn't and I understand why. I saw in his face that he wanted it and was thinking about it, but it was a beautiful evening and an attempt at a kiss would have ruined everything, somehow.
I don't even know what I felt. It was all strange, I felt this urge to scream, but I couldn't and then he answered my question, even though I didn't ask it and I realized that was why I felt this way.
It was exactly that.
To be understood in such a profound and complete way by someone I until recently detested and despised, was like receiving a slap in the face. It had the same effect on me this evening.
Between Pierre and Max, I feel exhausted and finally sleep is starting to take me.
They say he who despises, buys, maybe that's true. I've always fought Max because I knew we were actually the same in some way, deep down. Not on the surface, but there's a place inside that unites us and it's what I'm most afraid of, because I disapprove him and I rationally realize that it's not a good side of me. It's something that's more evident in him, while in me it's more hidden.
This selfishness, this egocentrism, the obsession with winning, the obsession with being above everything and everyone. The bitchiness, maybe.
I know these aren't nice ways to be, but I'm like that too and maybe even worse. He's able to show his feelings and emotions, he even got together with Daniel. He feels much more than me and doesn't hide anything. I, on the other hand, don't feel; I'm cold and insensitive.
I can't be with anyone, I'd only make him suffer. I can long for a couple of casual fucks, but if Pierre were to fall in love with me and ask me to get together, I couldn't give him what he wanted because I know I'd end up making him suffer by not being able to give him what he wants.
I'm not a monster, Max says, but something's wrong with me.
Pierre pulls closer to me slipping his arm around my chest, clinging to me as if there were nothing else but this bed, as if he'd fall off and be swallowed up by a chasm.
I wrap my arms around him pressing myself against him, but I feel nothing.
Maybe if Max were Pierre, it would be different; maybe I'd feel something.
Maybe I'd like to climb on top of him and do everything I did with Pierre before. Exactly that. But maybe I'd enjoy it better, go slower to remember it more, to prolong the pleasure.
As I think about these things in the half-sleep that lulls me, I feel the heat and excitement rising and I curse. I'll dream about doing Max again, I bet.

Pierre's eyes are small and puffy, a sign that he slept poorly and that he cried again, despite having held him close to me all night.
I smile wistfully and regretfully and instead of giving him the little speech about "It won't happen again, I'm sorry, we were out of our minds," I stroke his disheveled, porcupine-like hair and move my hands down to his face.
I shouldn't, I really shouldn't, but he's still so devastated. He's in such pain.
Pierre reaches toward me, raising his head and part of his torso, propping himself up with his elbow and comes toward me. I could pull back and tell him "no," but instead I lean down and kiss him back, coming toward him.
As soon as my lips touch his, I feel him relax again and sigh, as if he were afraid that what happened yesterday was a dream, as if he needed it to be real. A desperate need.
And as always, I understand him better than anyone, better than he himself.
He needs this, now. Because he's Pierre, he's so sensitive and emotional, he's heart and soul, he couldn't have lived this terrible loss any other way.
Seeing how he's dealing with it, I realize more and more that Max's comforting "You're not a monster, Charles" from yesterday is just a feather blanket that blows away at the first gust of wind.
It's all a lie. I am a monster, indeed, but I can't help it. The filter of pain is always there between me and others; it will help me survive another day.
- Thank you. - Pierre murmurs sinking back onto the pillow. I straighten up keeping my hand on his cheek, delicately, protectively.
- For what? - I ask not knowing what the hell to do now. My head tells me what I should do, but I find myself acting in a completely different way.
- For everything. For being with me all night, for not rejecting me, for giving me what I needed and for continuing to do so. Thank you. Without you, I think I'd never make it. 
He doesn't do it on purpose, it's spontaneous. That's the point. He doesn't know that the more he does this, the more he prevents me from doing what's right, what I should.
So I smile and shake my head, but I know that sadness reigns supreme in my eyes and will continue to make my face grotesque.
I'm about to get up and go to my room with the excuse of washing and changing, but he pulls my hand and holds me back, so I turn and look at him.
He's still lying there, lascivious in his delicate beauty, devastated by grief.
- Promise me you'll win for Anthoine. - he then whispers with agonizing seriousness.
And here, even though I know perfectly well that certain promises are never made, I nod and am solemn and serious in this answer.
- I will. 
And I mean it.

As soon as I step out of the room, a sigh, not one of relief, escapes my chest; I close my eyes and rest my head against the door behind me. It's a sigh of defeat.
- Is he that bad? - Max's low, hoarse voice makes me jump in surprise, as the unrestrained morning rush comes back with a vengeance. I'm still wearing Pierre's clothes, he'll see what I look like down there. I avoid lowering my gaze and instead focus on Max, a few meters away from me. He's just left his room, presumably for a surprisingly early breakfast by his standards. I always wake up late and always catch him down at the breakfast buffet, so if he's up at this hour today, it's strange.
I purse my lips in an all-too-obvious expression and nod, then shrug. I didn't want to confirm that I'd spent the night with Pierre; I don't know why, but it's late now.
It's not that my reaction was about Pierre and his condition, but because I can't stop this thing that's started between us.
- The worst will be this weekend, then I think it'll get better. - he says with surprising delicacy.
I look at him amazed and full of hope.
I wish he were right. Maybe so. Maybe everything will be heavy and terrible just these two damned days, then next week everything will clear up, I'll be able to do the right thing with Pierre and he'll be better and everything will be more bearable.
I nod rubbing my lips, forcing myself not to look down at my swollen groin, I press myself against Pierre's bedroom door and stay here, leaning at his mercy.
Max passes in front of me and slows down, looking me over carefully, lowering his gaze and inevitably glancing at me because I must look dazed, crumpled, with terrible dark circles under my eyes and the air of someone who hasn't slept much. I'm exactly as I was last night.
- I know, I'm disgusting. - I beat him to it before he can comment on my bulge which he's surely noticed. Hardly the opposite. Everything down there throbs more than ever, knowing he's looking at me.
His blue eyes return to mine, which I don't know what they look like. I can't control my expression, but I'd bet I don't have one. Or maybe I do. Always the same. Sad. Fed up. Absent.
- That’s not exactly the word I would have used... - he says allusively with a half-smile that makes me blush like a teenager.
Damn, Max! Is this the right time? How the hell can you say such things to a guy who's been drying a friend's tears all night?
But that's just who he is; it's his charm, I guess. What I really like.
He doesn't filter. Maybe that's his pain filter, but mine prevents me from returning his mischievous smile and winking even though I want to.
Does he like me, by any chance? In some way, I mean? In a way I can't quite understand?
No, because that time he tried to kiss me and I never understood why, but since he's so strange, you can expect that too without reason. And then that other time he hugged me, but he was beside himself with Daniel and I wouldn't say that's a valid point.
Now what am I supposed to think? What is he referring to? What is it, really? A little flirting? Well, he just said he wouldn't call me disgusting. If I wanted to test him and be sure of his intentions, I should ask, "And which one would you have used?" But with Pierre, who I fucked this night standing naked behind me, I'd say it's rude to do so.
So I just say: - I didn't sleep at all. -  completely ignoring what he clearly meant.
It's the way he looked at me and the way he said it that makes it clear. Not what he said.
Only if you see it and hear it, do you understand.
Some things leave no doubt.
But he nods and returns to normal moving his chin and waving goodbye as he heads toward the elevator. Other people are coming and going from rooms around us, interrupting this brief moment we shared, whatever it was.
In any case it was out of place. Very out of place.
When I see him disappear into the elevator at the end of the corridor, I realize I left Giulia to feel free to flirt with whoever the fuck I want, but I just did something with Pierre committing myself somehow and boycotting myself again.
Well, technically I fucked with Pierre so it's in line with my desire to do whatever the hell I want without having to think about various girlfriends, but I don't know why, in the end, I don't feel satisfied and I feel like I've once again missed the real opportunity I was trying to build for myself by leaving Giulia.
All right, Charles. Go wash up and have breakfast, that's better, or you'll end up fainting from hunger this time! 
Stop thinking about Max with every fucking excuse and at every fucking wrong time. I'm telling you, you have an important race to win today. 
Come back to Earth, where there's only one way to not feel that damned pain that's trying to peek into your life for the umpteenth time.
Get in the car, lower the visor and run like a demon. Run faster than that pain that's trying to take me again.”

/Max/

“It's as if he's erected a new barrier between himself and the others, his eyes are expressionless. I watch him along with everyone at Hubert's memorial service, with all the drivers and his family before the race. It's a damned touching moment and I too feel a gut punch that prevents me from breathing. I knew him, not as well as they did, and I can't say I was his friend, but we're from the same generation. Just as I know Charles from go-karting, I know him too, except that I barely connected with anyone back then, while he did so with absurd ease. Now it's almost as if things have reversed. I've opened up a lot and socialize well while he's held back, but I remember how he was always surrounded by friends and how much he laughed.
It's not easy to get over this moment; some people cry, Pierre is broken but tries to pull himself together.
Charles is like a statue. Not made of ice, but more like marble. Standing there stiffly among the others, no one knows what he's thinking. It's more or less easy to understand everyone here, some more than others, but I, with my gaze fixed on him, can't understand what he's thinking, what he's feeling, how he is. And I fucking care.
Or rather, I know how he is because I know he's Anthoine's friend and therefore can't help but feel bad, but from the outside, he's rigid and almost impassive, his eyes fixed on Anthoine's mother, his lips pressed tightly together.
Everyone's trying to hold on, but he's the only one who's truly doing it and knowing how close he was to him, it's incredible.
How does he manage it? And yet I know he's feeling bad. I know it well.
If he doesn't express anything of what he's feeling, he'll implode.
I know he feels like a monster for how he's experiencing this moment, but I'm absolutely sure it's not as he says. It's not that he's managing to do everything that needs to be done without shedding a tear, standing upright because he's numb, a monster who no longer feels anything. From the outside maybe it seems that way and he feels that way too, but I know it's not like that because we are damn similar in this. We are in the way we crush our fucking pains deep down, our black holes, our fucking traumas, our fucking shit so deeply.
We don't want anyone to know, it's our own problem. But I can only do that with things that concern my father, while with the rest I can't hold back a damn thing.
It's not that he's the monster, the monster is simply holding it inside and he does so with an impossible force.
Throughout the waking time I can't take my eyes off him, as if he were Anthoine's brother. Then he goes to hug his mother, gives a slight, almost imperceptible smile, his eyes come alive with something that's only a pale, almost grotesque imitation of what he knows he should be showing. He tries, but fails badly.
From the way she hugs him tightly and gently takes his face in her hands, you can tell she used to hang out with him, that they knew each other well.
This scene makes an impression on me. It could be a thank you for a victory dedicated to her son, but the race is yet to be run and Charles has never won anything, yet.
And yet there's something mystical here, today.
It's so palpable that I continue to watch him dazed, as he walks away with Binotto putting an arm around his shoulders, tightening his hand on his neck, pulling him closer to provide the support he clearly needs, but Charles remains rigid and actually tries to retreat. The instinct is to push him away, I understand it immediately even though he doesn't actually do anything, doesn't raise an arm or turn his head.
His head is low, his red Ferrari cap with the visor covering most of his face, his lips increasingly compressed. How he wants to scream.
I understand him well, so well.
Suddenly, as he holds back and resists and endures, I realize what he truly needs right now.
Not a hug, not all these touches, these attentions, these comforting words.
None of this.
He just needs to be left alone peace, to isolate himself, to lock himself alone in a dark, empty room and scream.
Scream like a madman.
I watch him as he continues to do everything that needs to be done.
He offers his condolences to the family, accepts the support of his team who cares for him as if he were made of crystal, supports Pierre for the umpteenth time as if he were the only one to have suffered a terrible loss.
He does everything it takes and doesn't have a single inclination different.
He's still a marble statue, moving, speaking in monosyllables and avoiding me like the plague. I don't know why he does it, but I realize he does it on purpose. Maybe he's afraid I can read inside him, deep in those dull eyes he keeps staring straight ahead or down at the ground.
He's afraid I'll understand what's in there, because he knows I understand, he knows I know, somehow. I've shown him that I feel it too, not for this specific occasion, but I also have that damned pain filter that protects us. They’re different, but we both have them.
I don't force him, I don't violate his will to avoid me. I let him.
Hold on until you get in that car, then you'll lower your visor and start running and while you do it, you can scream if you want, no one will know, no one will hear. But you won't need to because you'll run so fast that no pain, no hug, no hand or pitying look, no supportive or perfunctory words will reach you.
You'll run so fast that you'll be speed itself and then you'll see that you'll finally feel better, because I know. I know it works that way.
It's been this way with me all these years. It's the only way I've survived what I went through with my father.
So just hold on until the lights go out and everything will be better, you'll see.

Throughout the race I couldn't get him out of my head. I was nervous and dirty, my driving was struggling and I wasn't even remotely clear-headed. So much so that at one point I had to retire during the race because the car wasn't working and it was as if they were pardoning me from above. I don't believe in anything or anyone, but maybe someone had a hand in it today.
It was fucking torture. I couldn't take it, I couldn't stay there.
He was in my head, his mouth tight, his eyes staring straight ahead. He was the most beautiful and sad statue I've ever seen.

Normally when I go out and don't finish races for whatever reason, I'm pissed off and leave early, quickly answering the journalists and disappearing because I can't stand standing there watching other people's races like my colleagues usually do, but today I stayed until the end with the mechanics. As if I were interested in my teammate's race. But obviously, that's not the case. I don't give a damn about Alex, even though we get along well and immediately became friends.
He's part of Charles's group; they and George are inseparable. Lando joined and I often ride with them, even though I can't really call myself part of their group.
But it's not because of him that I'm staring at the screen broadcasting the race.
It's because of Charles, who seems like a devil.
I've known him for a long time, I've seen him race in tons of races, but honestly he's never raced like he did today.
Today he's impressive; he doesn't make a single mistake. He's at one with his car. It's absurd, impossible considering what he's just experienced and how he is.
It's like hearing it in my ears, that scream he had inside.
His race today is that scream.
Seb helps him a lot by slowing down Lewis, who otherwise would have caught him, great support, but beyond the hand he gives him in one of the most crucial moments of the race, I have to say that Charles is flawless today.
How the hell does he do it? How the hell does he run like this today, with this monster inside him?
It's almost like seeing that monster. I can almost see it chasing him. It's been chasing him from the start, unable to catch him.
Charles ran today to escape that monster he thinks he is. And maybe there's that monster inside him that he's afraid of, but not because he himself is one. it's just infecting him.
I hope he gets rid of it once and for all, but I don't know if running like this is enough, after all. Because yes, I know well that while you do it, it works and you feel better, but I also know too well that, unfortunately, when you stop, that damned being, that demon, is there to catch you and devour your soul again.
So I hope it works, but I know well that it won't.
It's just that I don't know what else he could do, I've never understood it myself. If I could, I'd help, but I can't because I don't know. I don't know how to beat that damned monster inside us.

When he wins I'm not even surprised, nor do I applaud—that wouldn't be like me—but I do offer a happy smile. There was no one who deserved the victory more today. Damn, that's not normal. I remember perfectly well that he also won the races in which Bianchi had his fatal accident and then the one the week of his father's death.
There's something incredible about him, impossible not to notice and striking. He's truly different from anyone else.
When he gets out of the car, every eye on the planet is focused on him, as if he were a magnet for everything. He stands on the car and with his helmet still on, he raises the visor, closes his eyes and raises his finger to the sky.
It's the first vaguely emotional thing he's shown all weekend.
Just his eyes closed and his finger pointing to the sky, dedicating the victory to Anthoine.

I keep wandering around the track even though I have no real reason to stay, it's as if I'm looking for something specific. Or in my case, someone. If he crosses paths with me, will he look away again to prevent me from reading his thoughts, or out of some shame?
Looking for exactly this, to see how he'll react if he runs into me now after a race like this and the vent with the run that will surely have helped him, I see him hugging Pierre and Charles is protective, still as if Pierre were made of glass and on the verge of breaking.
- Thank you for keeping your promise. - Pierre whispers, I can't hear him well, but it seems like he's saying something similar. I'm not far away, I'm talking to someone else nearby as if it were important, but I don't really understand what we're saying. I'm on Charles and Pierre.
Charles is a man who keeps promises, the important ones, no matter how impossible they are. If there's a promise involved, and I don't need to know any details because it's obvious, nothing and no one will stop him from keeping it.
As I watch them together, a burning wave washes over me. Usually it hits me when I have a shitty competition or when I hear or see my father, but now I feel it after seeing the two of them together.
It's almost hatred, but not for them, obviously.
It's for what I see. For the way Charles takes care of Pierre, how he smiles at him sadly forcing himself to unleash a strength he doesn't have, but which he absolutely wants for him.
He doesn’t have any more, he's exhausted, he's drained and he just wants to cry, but he can't because it's more important to support Pierre.
Is it really that important to him?
As I watch them keeping my distance so as not to let him know I'm here for him and to be noticed casually, I clearly distinguish this feeling that stiffens me and devours my insides.
Jealousy.
Pure, terrible, atrocious jealousy. The kind I won't swallow easily. Before I do any of my usual bullshit, I turn around, say goodbye to the person I was talking to and leave.”

NOTES: Each part is from the perspective of the individual involved, who sees things in their own way, how they perceive them, how they interpret them, but it doesn't necessarily mean they're true, just as sometimes it's incredible that they are. These are delicate moments that I've inserted taking inspiration from real events, we know that before the race Pierre asked Charles to win for Anthoine and that at the end of the race, when he did, they hugged. The pre-race vigil actually happened, I took photos of those moments from the web. I noticed how rigid and closed Charles was and how Binotto forced him to be consoled, anyway that's how it seemed to me. I have a precise image of Charles at that time and I hope I've managed to convey it. Trying to understand how they went from openly hating each other to being so close (which is certainly something evident at a certain point in their careers), I thought they must have noticed that something in common that made them understand each other. In other words, I think Max has always been the only one who understood Charles perfectly and vice versa, but clearly these are just my visions. Happy reading. Kisses, Akane.