the great fall | max verstappen

Chapter 6

Max's POV
Monte Carlo, Monaco.

I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be sitting in a hospital room with bandages all over my torso, waiting to be discharged so I can go lay down at home. I hated laying down. I felt useless. I should be on the sim preparing for Barcelona which is only a few days away. The worst part is that everyone has been telling me how lucky I am and how grateful I should feel to even still be here on this planet after such a bad crash. And realistically yes, I'm aware that I've been extremely fortunate to survive a situation like this. But I'd be lying to myself and to my loved ones if I tried to pretend I was content.

Because I wasn't, god damn it, I wasn't. I was miserable. I couldn't even sit alone with my thoughts and go over every little detail of what went wrong and how I could've done better. I should've done better. Now I was stuck inside this room full of flowers as if I was already a corpse. "We thought you were gone for a whole two minutes." my mom had said. And I appreciated everyone's concern, every word of support and encouragement that came from those who cared enough to check in on me. I've always been sort of a divisive figure in the sport, so the outpouring of kindness I was receiving online wasn't something I was entirely used to. With that being said, the flowers and the whiteness of the claustrophobic (albeit quite large) hospital room was only a reminder of just how badly I'd fucked everything up.

The doctors said I had to retire for the remainder of the first half of the season, and that if I was lucky I'd be able to rejoin after the summer break. But even that wasn't certain because there was no way to predict how physical therapy would go. And that's just it. All of my hard work, all of the team's hard work for this season, everyone at the factory, I had gone and ruined months and months on end of their labor in just a few minutes. It had all been for nothing. And that one stung like a bitch, because it's one thing to lose a championship and to do it with honor, fighting until the very last corner of the very last race, but retiring because you couldn't keep the car on track was shameful, and it made my blood boil at myself, and I just wanted nothing more than to disappear for a while. I wanted to be invisible, to escape the pitying looks I got from everyone in my life who knew just how much this was affecting me.

Today is the first day I'll be attempting to get up from the bed, and to say I was nervous about it would be a huge lie. In all honesty, I'd be getting lifted and placed on a wheelchair, and then I'd be directed towards the physical therapy room where I'd be completing a few hours of PT for the next two to three days. The team had set everything into motion again, having Daniel take back my seat for what was left of the season, and making all of my doctors' appointments for me to make sure that even after I was discharged I had an organized plan to follow in my road to recovery. I'd be training at the Monaco Sports Academy and completing mandatory physical therapy sessions, and I had to be a very good boy, on my best behavior actually, if I wanted to take back my seat after the summer break.

So here I am. There is nothing more depressing than needing help to sit upright as a grown man. Or maybe I am too prideful and hate admitting that I can't realistically do everything on my own.

"You are the most stubborn man I know." my mom said, rolling her eyes at me as she took a step back from me just to prove a point as she watched me struggle.

"Yeah, yeah, I wonder who I got that from." I joked, pushing myself up but pain shot right through me. "Fuck! This is bullshit." I grumbled. Taking a deep breath to regain my composure, I try once again.

"Max, stop this nonsense, you're going to hurt yourself." She replies in Dutch, absolutely exasperated. So I let her help me because I know she must be worried, and no amount of pride will change the fact that my mom is incredibly protective of me.

"How am I supposed to go to physical therapy when I can't even move?" I spat out.

"I'm sure the doctor will clear all your doubts. They did study many years in order to do that, you know?" She replies sarcastically.