False God

Chapter six

Max pov

Brazil 2021

The championship is tied.

I look around and all faces are blurred, I can't identify anyone, it's so strange, I can't identify this noise coming from them, is confusing, I don't know if they are applauding me or laughing at me. Maybe they're doing both, but I don't think the applause is for me. They pull me into the picture, and I go, I smile, I try to look minimally normal, I think I'm doing fine, nobody comments on anything. People are leaving the podium, I think I don't want to go because it will hurt, or maybe I want to go, because it will hurt.

I don't think anything he does today will overcome the pain I' m already feeling, nothing he says today will overcome what I' m already thinking, I guess. He glares at me, says nothing, just glares at me, I feel so small, like he can crush me with just one glare, and maybe he can, because all I feel now is pain and fear and weakness. I wait for the screams, I wait for the purple, but they don't come.

- I hope you're satisfied.

That's it, that's all he tells me before he leaves. I don't even deserve all the attention he gave me before, without the screaming and the purple it's like he doesn't even care anymore, as if he already knew I'd be a failure, as if everything was over. And maybe it's, when not even your father believes in you anymore, what should you do? Maybe to have hope that everything will work out, but maybe hope is just one of the plagues cast upon mankind, a punishment for all the shit we do, because in the end, hope is just something people hold on to hoping that the future will be better than the now, until that future arrives, and everything continues the way it is.

Lewis was getting closer and closer in the last few races, and I believed I could hold him back, I wanted to believe for a moment that I could be good enough to do this, I had hopes. Until today came violent enough to send even my father away, Of all the people who have left throughout my life, I always thought that my father would always stay, always hovering around me and showing me what to do and, not having him here is uncomfortable because all I know of disappointment is that it comes along with pain, the physical pain, and when I am left even by the one who is always present the realization that the emotional pain is greater than the physical comes as palpable as the second place trophy that is shining in the corner of the room and, staring at it as the sun sets among the buildings of São Paulo I think about how the trophy, this place and the booing are a reflection of the great farce that I am.

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Max pov

Brazil 2022

Sitting in my plane looking at the sky through my window I listen to my father complain about Lewis, he's been talking for half an hour about how unfair all the honors Lewis is getting is. Apparently, in my father's conception, love, respect, and admiration are things exclusive only to some people and certainly Lewis is not among those people, because of everything I would say that even I am not. Although, to charge my father with love for me at that point in life would be childish of me.

- I will love to see the disappointment on people's faces when that idiot loses, when you stand on the highest podium and lift the trophy in front of them all. I know you will win. You have to win, last year was a shame. - My father continues, apparently there is no time to finish this topic.

- I'll try. - I say without enthusiasm.

-There is no such shit as trying, you either win or lose like a pussy.

- I already won, I have the championship and the record.

- But that is not enough, there is always more, you need to remind them that it is their turn now, you are the best, not him. Don't be a disappointment like last year, show me that you haven't wasted all my time and show me what I taught you, show yourself ruthless and merciless, real champions are like that. - He says.