5. PAIN

* June 24, 2017 *
/Charles/

“Jules. In the end I did it again. I swore it wouldn’t happen again given the guilt that gripped me in the months that followed, but now that I’m in the exact same situation again, I still reacted like this.
Despite the mourning, here I'm on the track a few days after my father’s death. Maybe in the end I really am like this, I have to come to terms with it. Like what? Heartless? A driver before a person? How am I, huh?
Suddenly I feel lost realizing that I don’t actually know. I don’t know what I’m like anymore, but maybe I never knew because no one really knows themselves if they never find in shocking situations and since 2014 it seems like I can’t live anything normal and peaceful anymore.
It seems like it’s time for me to open my eyes and give in to understanding that I’m made like this. Like what? Bad. Insensitive. Cold and rational. But is it true that I’m like this?
Is it true that I’m cold and insensitive? Trying to understand it, I think back.
It was all frenetic, so much so that I didn't even realize what I was doing. I moved by inertia since I got off the plane that brought me here to Baku for the fourth stage of the F2 championship.
It's as if I had been catapulted into a parallel universe where nothing had happened and I moved as usual, doing what I had to as a Prema driver. I did the usual things, the practice, the qualifications and everything continued linear, I received condolences and the usual questions as to what I was doing here and I always gave the same answers.
I do my duty.
I knew I had to say this, I had prepared it from the plane, when I said it to Arrivabene.
And this is what I have really done since I got off.
My duty.
It's not that I never thought about it, I thought about it, the thought of my father has always remained there with me, every time I said the answer pre-established by my brain, another part of me gave another.
'But when will I do my duty as a son?'
When will I stop with that of a driver. Because this is what my father has laboriously forged, this is what he wanted me to be. The driver. He put all his money and effort and prayer into this, and in the end I found myself just thinking of not wanting to disappoint him. Of not trampling on what he cared so much about.
My career as a driver.
I went straight ahead on my path even smiling, or at least I felt my face trying to do so, I hope I was convincing enough, but now that I'm about to get in the car for Race 1 on Saturday, there's this moment in which I ask to be able to be quiet for a bit on my own, because I need to gather myself and concentrate and they leave me.
I go to my usual corner inside the garage and in front of me the background of the people working on the car to make sure everything is in order for the start of the race.
Pierre smiles sweetly at me as only he knows how.
- Are you sure? Do you want me to stay? - he asks me before  isolating me.I attempt a smile and feel my mouth area tighten under the strain. No, I don't think it reached my eyes and maybe it was grotesque. From the way Pierre looks at me I realize it. However, his question is not strange since I was the one who asked him to accompany me today.
He didn't have any races, so he could and I'm happy that he’s there, I think I didn't realize well what I did three days ago.
I nod and sit in the chair, leaning my back and elbow on the piece of furniture next to me where is the helmet I will wear. The suit is half on, when it’s time I will pull it up.
Pierre leaves me and the other mechanics working in front of me are a slowly fading outline. As he leaves, he gives me one last worried look and I remember like a flash his hand that during the whole flight was holding mine, fingers intertwined as if he were my boyfriend. Now with a clearer mind I ask myself what the hell I have done. Both with him and with my father.
I think back to his copious tears in the hospital, when he came to give me support and also comes the memory of that day and my lie.

**

- Hey, Dad, do you know I have great news? - I don't think about it, my mouth is moving by itself. I decided it when I came in a little while ago and saw him. They told me, but you can still see that he's leaving. These are his last days with us, maybe even his last moments. Every time they call us we think it's time because he's there, he'll leave at any moment.
However, knowing it was one thing, seeing him was different. As soon as I had him in front of me I understood that I had to give him the last joy of his existence, because I know what he wants more than anything else, what would finally make him happy above all else. And I also know that this is that day.
He looks at me with a light of hope as if he knew, because this is what he's always waited to hear from me. As if he were waiting to hear it to give up. He's tired, he's terribly tired and exhausted and the oxygen bothers him, he tries to take it off, but I put it back on as usual.
I bend down and caress his forehead after lowering my hand towards the oxygen mask.
It's not like me and I'll never do it again in my life, but now my mouth moves on its own and doesn't hesitate for even a second.
- I signed with Ferrari for next year. - the lie comes out of my lips fluidly as I smile forcing myself and hoping to be convincing. Please, make him believe it, make my smile believable enough.
Do what you've been doing since Jules died, smile to convince. You know how to do it now, you just have to keep going.
As soon as his eyes light up and show me the joy I was hoping to see, I feel stupidly better.
I'm mean, I'm a truly mean person and a terrible son. When the others find out, they'll all tell me I did wrong, no one will agree with me, but only I know what my relationship with him is and how much my career matters.
With his mouth covered by the oxygen mask he lets me know that he’s asking ‘really?’ And I nod and my eyes burn and become blurry. I can’t see well anymore, but it’s the tears that are forming in reaction to his tears at my false news.
I don’t even have a vague hope at this moment of signing and not just for Ferrari, but also for F1. I hope to get there one day, I know I’ll make it, but at this precise moment, all things considered, I have nothing in my hand, but he’s moved with happiness at my news and so we end up crying together.
The most terrible blow of my life begins with him moved by the realization of all our greatest dreams and I read the victory in his tired and pain-filled eyes. The sacrifices made to get me where we had always dreamed, everything he did for me, how much he pushed but always in the right way, without ever exaggerating, urging me to believe in myself. And it was our dream, not his that he poured into me, it was both of our dreams, it always has been. Something we had in common and that we will always have, even after.
Slowly all the words he always said to me, every support, every hug at the end of the race, come to my mind and warm me and I cry without trying to hold back anymore. We shake hands and remain like that smiling at each other through tears, but while he does it out of joy for my fake news about signing with Ferrari, I cry because these are the last moments with him and I know it perfectly.
It's as if he's finally relaxing now.

There is nothing that prepares you for your father’s death. Nothing. Not even long months of suffering and agony on his part.
Knowing that he’ll be better now and will no longer suffer like that, doesn’t help me because the desperation that grips me in this instant, for just one moment, is excruciating.
It is as if all the air in my body is sucked out of me. My lungs empty and contract, my throat tightens in a vice and I cannot breathe even though I feel the need to, but I cannot. I remain out here, sitting outside the hospital after we have said our last goodbyes, in this more isolated and hidden area where I can be outside without being seen by anyone, under this hot and suffocating mid-June sun.
I only hear silence even if I don’t know if it’s real, but I think I would faint if it weren’t for the two arms that are wrapping around me hastily and invasively.
For a moment I feel angry, I’m about to give a sharp elbow to whoever dared. Even if it were my mother or my brothers, but someone's mouth closes on my cheek while his arms forcefully turn my head towards him and he forces me to hide my face against his neck with such force that shocks me.
Only when I feel the consistency of his body and smell his very sweet perfume, I realize that I have started breathing again and even without seeing I know who is.
- I'm so sorry, Charles. - Pierre whispers, hugging me while sitting on the floor next covering me with his arms. I reciprocate after a moment of hesitation, acting without realizing it, as if moved by someone else, as if I were hypnotized and I were a spectator of myself.
I remain here crying on him while I hear him sobbing too.
Pierre not only rushed here as soon as he heard, but he also found me. I had hidden myself well enough to be left alone to cry and despair. I don’t want Mom and Lorenzo to worry, I didn’t want to be seen like this. How did Pierre find me?
When he takes my face in his hands firmly and pulls me away from his neck to look at me, I see that he too is in a sea of ​​tears and for once we react in the same way to something. The crying is so similar and again, since he also does what I do and feels the same things as me, I don’t feel judged and alone. I feel understood and shared.
Because even if the dead father is mine, he acts as he’s his own and I think it’s so like him, this thing, so much like him, that it comforts me to know that he’s here. He didn’t ask me if I wanted to come like the others did, he just came.
We look at each other without saying anything, I know that soon he will attack with some comforting phrase full of a wonderful sensitivity that characterizes him, but in this moment, in this precise moment, I don’t want anyone to say anything.
I want to stay like this in silence and cry in front of him, to cry with him, because this shared pain is suddenly the only thing that allows me to continue breathing.
There’s nothing that can prepare you for your father's death, not even long months of agony from a terminal illness. But there’s something that can help you survive it, maybe.
Without thinking about it, again for the second time in a few days, I find myself doing something impulsively.
I don't think about it, I just do it, like when I told my father that lie.
I follow the impulse that I need to live and taking his face in my hands just as he takes mine, I close the short distance that remained between our faces and kiss him.
It's the first time. The first kiss to a boy and the first to him, although for a long time in my time I had fantasized about kissing Jules.
Jules comes back to me like a second punch and if it weren't for the fact that Pierre's lips, instead of rejecting me, welcome me by opening and merging with mine, I think I would go back to apnea. But as he kisses back and our tongues intertwine with desperation and impulse, the taste of our cries becomes one, giving us a bittersweet memory of our first kiss.
God, what am I doing? I'm kissing a boy, I'm kissing my best friend.
Have I gone completely crazy?
Get a grip, Charles. Get a grip or you'll regret it for the rest of your life and then you won't even be able to bury yourself to fix this mess. He's your friend. Come to your senses. Come to your senses and do what needs to be done. You're 19, you have to grow up, what are these tantrums?
I suddenly pull away from him, holding my breath, and look at him, lost and confused. Terrified that he might think badly of me and judge me. Just because he likes boys and has always talked to me about them doesn't mean I have the right to stick my tongue in his mouth. Just because I've always suspected I was madly in love with Jules, doesn't mean that if I feel bad I have the right to kiss him just because he's the first nice guy I come across.
What's this reaction?
- Sorry, I don't know what came over me. I'm shocked, you shouldn't have accepted...
But Pierre smiles sweetly at me and caresses my tear-soaked cheeks with his thumbs, he dries them and only when he does that, do I realize that I've also stopped crying, finally.
I'm breathing better, even my heartbeats are more normal, my head is pounding less, everything is starting to become breathable and acceptable.
- It's all okay, Charles. I'm your friend, I'm here for whatever you need. Always.
With that he hugs me again like before and I let him do it without resisting. I let my head rest on his shoulder and the world fades and becomes confused. As does my pain.
It's all strange, all absurd. It's all over.
My father is gone forever and now I just have to move on without him. From here on out, forever. Make him proud and proud from above or wherever that may be. All I have left. All I can do for him.

**

I open my eyes after what could have seemed like a meditation, the world around me resurfaces, the Prema garage, the mechanics, the car I will drive.
Dad, Jules, I will do it again and don't take me for an insensitive selfish person, you know I'm not. It's just that I know how important it’s for all of us that I get in that car, today and tomorrow, and give it my all.
In fact, I won't just give it my all. I'm here to win, to not throw away all your sacrifices and the hopes you had, all the help and support you gave me.
If I can do something truly worthy to honor your memory, that will be to get on the track and run so perfectly that it will make you proud.
From today I will run for both of you. From today everything I will do, will be to win and become what you have always seen in me.
A champion.
I will do it for you and for myself. Because that's what you have always taught me.
Dreaming is not inconsistent.
Dreaming is reality. And I’ll transform mine into this.
In reality.
I get a call from my team, I focus on them, they’re here. I look at them, nod and get up and start putting on the top part of the suit that was hanging from my waist.
We go down to the track.
I have a duty to do.
Wait for me there for a moment, I go, I win and I come back. Then I’ll raise the visor and I’ll go back to thinking about you and feeling guilty for having been so good as a driver, so good that while I take the car on the asphalt I’ll even be able to forget my name.
I’ll forget about you, I know because it already happened with Jules three years ago.
I'll forget that you died, the pain, the tears, the promises. I will forget everything.
I’ll only be speed.
Curve. Straight. Acceleration. Braking. Finish line.
Just a moment. The time to do what needs to be done.

Pierre's big smile is there as soon as I get out of the car and he welcomes me making me understand that it's all true, that I really did it and I didn't just dream it. It wasn't my imagination.
I did it, Dad.
I won it for you, this race.
It's Race 1 of 2, tomorrow I'll give my all like today and be what it may, but I'm here and I'm doing my duty and I'm doing it well, as I've always promised you.
I'll do everything and more to make the prediction I made you come true.
I made you go away by saying that I had already signed for Ferrari even if it wasn't true, but it’ll be like this. It’ll be like this, one day. I’ll sign with Ferrari and then mine will no longer be a lie but a prediction, until then I’ll never give up under any circumstances, for any reason in the world!

I raise the cup of the first place winner, on the highest step of the podium, I raise my fist with the other hand and squeeze it, I throw my head back and look at the sky above me. A beautiful blue sky from where my father will now watch me in the front row.
I raise my finger and point it at him, because I know he’s there and I close my eyes for a second, smiling with a serenity that I never thought I could feel again.
It’s a distinct moment, fleeting like a gust of wind, but I feel fulfilled and I have no doubt that it’s so. It’s not the euphoria of winning a race, it’s fulfillment, serenity, relief. I have not only won, I have not only done my duty.
I have made him happy, I’m sure of it. I came for this and I have done it and as I realize it I understand that in the end it was right this way.
I had to come, run and win.
Despite my decision against everyone, I never hesitated and went straight down my path. No one would have run in my place, I wanted to do it, but the truth is that I had doubts until the last moment and I’ll probably still have them in the days to come, when the adrenaline will drop. But here, now, while I’m with the cup up and my hands in the air, while I look up there where he is, I feel that in the end I did well.
In the end it was the right choice.
This is my gift to you because you will see, I didn’t lie to you. I only anticipated what will happen in a few years.
I will really sign for Ferrari, you will see.

I was prepared for many things, but not this.
Usually F2 and F1 drivers don't meet by chance, the schedules are always very different and the program is designed specifically to avoid overlaps and disorder, unless there are events that unite them or the drivers themselves want to meet the others, it's something that doesn't happen.
That's why I didn't expect it today.
Of course after our race they have Qualifying, but it's far away.
When I see him coming towards me for a moment I think about turning to see who's behind, because he's definitely going towards someone else. But I don't turn because I can clearly see his blue eyes staring into mine. He's not looking beyond, he's aiming at me, so I brace myself and even if he wasn't among the people I wanted to meet, I put on my best mask that I'm used to by now, and I don't run away.
Max stops right in front of me and holds out his hand while making a sign that I can't interpret. I don't think it's a smile, he's definitely sad.
His face is usually very open, but now he seems confused about how he feels.
Despite myself, I shake it without hesitation.
- Condolences, I'm so sorry about your father.
His voice, as always low and scratchy, reaches me in a particularly tense tone.
I do as I have done until now, I smile but I don't know what my eyes do, I doubt they follow the example of the lips.
I nod without getting upset in any way, I remain straight and rigid, our hands separate immediately after.
- Thank you. - I reply politely. That's how it's done, I know how to do it well by now.
Smiles, handshakes, polite answers.
He stays in front of me for a moment too long and it's as if he notices something, something that strikes him and I have confirmation that he is, as always, very expressive.
However, he doesn't say anything to me and without prolonging this embarrassing moment any longer, he goes back the way he came.
I follow him with a surprised look. He didn't meet me by chance and since he was there he offered me his condolences.
He actually looked for me, he came for me.
When I see him enter his garage, I notice that he’s now starting to get animated with his team, not even all of them have arrived. Usually at this moment the drivers are in the Motorhomes resting after the free practice in the morning, some are not even here yet.
He’s the first one I see among the F1 ones.
Did he want to see me on purpose?
The question remains unanswered and a gentle hand rests on my back, I recognize him before hearing his equally sweet voice.
- Hey, are we going? - Pierre says with his typical delicacy. An encouraging smile.
I nod and go away with him towards the exit of the Paddock. We're done for today, tomorrow is another day, another important race that I'll do everything to win.
As I walk alongside Pierre who showers me with compliments for my run, I realize that the fog that filled my head this week is finally going away and I understand again, without a shadow of a doubt, that there is another important thing to do. I have to talk to Pierre about that kiss before it ruins everything between us or makes up some stories. I don't know what he really feels for me, or if he was pleased, terrible moment aside, but I know that I want that everything stay the way it has always been between us. A beautiful friendship. I want him to be my friend forever, my comfort zone, my refuge, the one who will understand me and who will be with me in every circumstance. I don't want a boyfriend, much less anything else.
Now I wouldn't be lucid for anyone other than a friend. I can't allow things between us to get ruined, I don't want him to consider changing our relationship. I'll be clear before he thinks of anything else.

Pierre smiles understandingly. He was expecting it, he already knew before me. But what am I surprised about?
- I'm sorry, I was just out of my mind and didn't know what I was doing. You were there, you were crying like me, you were hurting like me and you understood me so well that in that moment I understood that's all I needed. Someone who understood me well. I don't know why I ended up kissing you, I hope everything is okay between us.
I started by saying 'I have to talk to you about that kiss'.
He with his composed serenity made me understand that he imagined it and was waiting for it.
After my nice little speech he squeezes my hand and accentuates his splendid smile. His eyes shine making him as sensitive and sweet as ever, the positive and splendid person I need by my side.
I want everything to stay like this, unchanged.
We’re sitting next to each other out here, the sun that has gone down has given relief from the heat of Baku. It's finally decent even though it's still very hot.
Pierre lets go of my hand right away and nods.
- I knew it, you don't have to worry. I was out of my mind that day too, so we're even. That's fine.
I think in the end it didn't even need to be specified in words, but for me clarity is essential. I mustn't leave anything confusing around me. I must know exactly where to walk.
I throw him one last look here nearby, I push him with my shoulder lightly, he swings to the other side and returns the friendly gesture while crossing his arms on his knees.
- Thanks. - I finish. He smiles and I feel relieved again, lighter than before.
- How are you? - he then asks, looking at me again to study my micro expressions. I stare in front of me at the garden of the restaurant where we’re having dinner, the team inside continuing on their own. After my victory they wanted to give us a nice dinner, I think it was more for me than for them, but it was an excellent result.
- Good. Better. Clearer. I know it may have seemed selfish or crazy, but racing helped me. It cleared my mind and calmed my nerves. - I answer honestly. That's what I need. Him. My best friend to tell everything. I don't need a boyfriend or someone to have sex with. I don't need that.
- Any regrets? - he asks because he remembers well how things went after Jules. I was so convinced before racing, I felt like shit afterwards.
- Probably from Monday. Now, the way I feel, I still think I did the right thing. It was what I needed to... you know... be able to live with my pain. My life goes on and I have to find a way to continue without wasting the efforts my father made to get me this far. He believed in me, so I have to... I have to succeed at all costs. For him.
Pierre listens to me while I talk freely without feeling like an idiot who talks about things that are too personal or sentimental. I don't feel weak, just put through a meat grinder. I don’t know if this feeling will ever go away, but for now I’m thinking about the next step in the near future. Today I’m a driver, I have to race and win. Paradoxically this is easier than being a boy who lost his father. So I’ll focus on this and see from time to time.
Few plans, from now on, other than not disappointing my father.
I’ll do it for you, dad. One last look at the sky, then I rest my head on Pierre’s shoulder feeling a great need, he puts a hand on my cheek and rests his head on mine holding me with him. Thank you for being there.”

NOTES: that weekend Pierre was really there with Charles, in fact the photos are all taken from that race; it’s assumed that he was there to support him because he had no races and they weren’t racing in the same category at that time. On the flight to Baku, Charles really met Arrivabene and really told him that he was doing his duty, which really struck Arrivabene himself. Charles often spoke about those moments and his choice to race that time, as well as the lie he told his father on his deathbed about having signed for Ferrari, something he never regretted only thanks to the fact that in the end he actually signed, even if not immediately. Obviously there’s no news about Max offering him condolences and this is my addition. Thanks for your attention. Kisses Akane