Romeo and Juliet || Carlos Sainz

Nobody puts a Horner in the corner

"Miss Horner, you can come in now" said a nurse as she came out of the room next to her. From there Y/n could already see her father lying in bed.
She quickly greeted Max and entered the room. The very strong smell of disinfectant and medicines entered her nostrils and immediately she was reminded of all those days spent in the hospital next to her mom.

During her mother's illness, Y/n had always been close to her, together they played with dolls but also with RedBull models that Y/n would sneak from the shelves of her father's office. Doctors and nurses allowed her to stay there all day, until her dad came to pick her up. She remembers that when Christian came out of the room, he would immediately run to his wife, kiss her on the forehead and sit beside her. They talked for a while, while the nurse distracted Y/n with her toys.
Christian would never want to leave there either, he held her hand, smiled at her, looked into her eyes that gradually faded but were always as beautiful to him as the first day he had seen her.
Y/n watched them from afar and with a child's eyes convinced herself that sooner or later her mum would get out of there, that they would be a normal family again.

Instead, the illness worsened, Y/n could not see her every day anymore, and when that damn day her father came back from the hospital and told her that her mum was in heaven with her grandparents, Y/n ran off to her room and stopped talking to anyone. She was just a little girl, a little girl who no longer had her mum. There would be no more of her warm hugs, no more of her cakes, no more of her stories, no more of her sweet and gentle smile.
From that moment on, it was Y/n and Christian, who, from the start, did not live up to the situation. He was always at work and felt terribly guilty about it.

He had never been able to fill the immense void that his wife's death had created. He had not even been able to fill it for himself. Had never remarried, had never thought of meeting anyone else. He had totally devoted himself to work, which had drained all his energy, all the free time he should have spent with Y/n.
The relationship between father and daughter had always been complicated, impossible, difficult, silent. Yet Y/n was there, beside him, defying all the disagreements, all the spitefulness done by her father. After all, he was all she had left, and even Christian, deep in his heart, knew that Y/n was the only thing he had left in the world.

"How are you?" asked Y/n coldly, looking at all the little tubes connected to a machine next to the bed.
"I'm good, it's this place that makes me feel worse" he said, looking around. The memory and the resulting pain were the same for Y/n and Christian. For the first time in a long time, the two were closer than ever to each other.

The two remained silent for a while
"No one can put a Horner in the corner" Christian said, smiling. That had been their motto since Y/n could remember. His father used to repeat it to her. He tried to help her by prodding her, but she sometimes just needed a hug, to be understood and listened to.

"Yeah," replied Y/n smiling a little, imagining how difficult it was for her father to deal with all that pain as well. "You need to rest now. Other people can take your place for a while."
"No one can handle the team, they need me there"
"What did the doctors say?" Y/n pretended not to hear her father's words.
Christian didn't answer right away, he huffed, rolled his eyes and then said "they said my job is stressing me too much" those words were almost impossible for him to utter.
"You should listen to them, then"
"When you broke your ankle playing, you didn't want to stay in the hospital even for a day, remember?"
"I was only 11 years old. Besides, this place reminded me of..." she held back tears.
"...mum" Christian completed the sentence. His eyes were red too. The two looked at each other and found they felt the same feeling, the same pain at the same time. Y/n realised that she should no longer insist on making him leave, that the pain of a lost true love cannot be cured, and her dad's pain was, still is. Suddenly her father squeezed her hand. She stared incredulously, saw his wedding ring still there, on her left ring finger. He would forever be married to his wife, and all the mistakes he had made towards Y/n were the mistakes of a man who could not process grief, of a father who could not cope even with the grief of his only daughter he had from love with his only wife.