10 Years Later Ago - Lando Norris

16

10 YEARS AGO

Its like the night happened in a series of blurs.

Between hanging up from Aaron and walking through my front door, the journey between the two did not exist.

Between sitting with the police officers at my house and coming apart wrapped up in my brothers arms, the details of their accident never resonated with me.

The details didn't seem worthy in that moment. My parents were gone, and I would never get to see them again.

That harsh reality had me questioning reality the entire evening. I have visions of me screaming that they were lying to me, and that it wasn't true. But I can't remember what the responses were. I can't remember if they agreed and tore me out of my nightmare.

But they never came home.
No matter how often I glanced at the door, it never opened.

I remember negotiating with death, begging for their return, even as a shadow, or for me to take their place instead.

But it never came.

No amount of air I seemed to attempt to fill my lungs with was enough, and I was suffocating in the moment. I needed an out.

I ran as fast as I could back to the track, no matter how mad I was with Lando in that moment, he was the only one who would be able to save me right now.

As I approach and the flood lights are off I continue down the path toward his house. Bursting through the front door and into the dining room where the entire family sat for their dinner.

Well, almost the entire family.

Lando was still missing and my final breath neglected to pass through.

I don't remember much after that, the flashes of the night return and I catch glimpses of the small moments between.

Ciscas face
Her arms holding me up.
Adam phoning Aaron and nodding to Cisca.
Cisca, Oliver and Flo all taking turns in asking Lando's whereabouts.
And no one having an answer.
Cisca putting me to bed in Lando's room, reassuring he'd be there to hold me soon.
Cisca taking his place until he got there.
Holding me close to her, and stroking her fingers through my hair.
My tears soaking Lando's pillow.

I don't know what time it was when I woke, but Cisca was still in Lando's place. The absent feeling growing deeper every minute. My world swallowing me whole. And the only person to possess the float was no where to be found.

Aaron picked me up in the morning and I went with him to organise the funerals and affairs that mum and dad had left behind.

Luckily for me, Aaron was much older and had a grasp on everything that needed to be done in order to finalise everything. He got in touch with mum and dad's lawyers and there was someone already dealing with the estate.

I wasn't even sure if their bodies had been confirmed and we were half way through burying them.

Aaron put me in charge of florals, and finding some songs that would best reflect the life in which mum and dad lived.

I spent hours cooped up on the sofa in my living room flicking through every flower ever discovered and song ever written. Making short lists and pros and cons. It kept my mind busy; and I coped by telling myself it wasn't for the reasons of my reality. I was just picking a song, picking a flower. There was no meaning.

But as soon as I allowed myself to remember, my world crumbled even further, and I still had no word from Lando.

I needed him more now than I ever had before.

I needed him to hold me and tell me that it was going to be okay.

Even though nothing about any of this was okay; he has the ability to fool me otherwise.

Lando never answered any of my calls, and he didn't come to the funeral. His family were there and stood by my side as I buried my mother and father, beside a brother who I barely knew, who had his own family standing by him.

I stood there as family introduced themselves whilst offering their condolences, and people from the past shared stories about another time.

I was surrounded by strangers and everyone else's family.

We never spoke of Lando's where abouts, but the look in Cisca's eye told me all I needed to know.

You were gone, just like my parents, without warning, without offering your goodbye, you evaporated from my life.