Dopamine | Adrenaline Book Two

10- I'm Alive If You Are

"Charles?"

He said his name like he had been suffocating.

"Max?"

He said his name like a prayer.

Charles held his phone to his ear, holding his breath to hear Max's voice again. He fought back the tears that threatened to fall as the full ache of how much he had missed him set in.

"Are you okay?" Charles asked.

The hospital was enveloped in silence, broken only by the rhythmic beeps of the machinery connected to him, filling the gaps in their conversation. Despite being at the best hospital Monaco had to offer, everything felt cold and foreign. Listening to Max speak brought a wave of relief, but also a sense of homesickness he hadn't known was possible to feel for a person rather than a place. He was hurting, and all he wanted was for Max to be at his side—a task deemed impossible by their line of work.

"I miss you," Charles whispered, his voice cracking as the ache in his chest grew. Just before the call, he had been contemplating whether being together was bad for Max and if it was selfish to take him away from Kelly and the family they'd built. But as he heard Max's breathing on the other end of the line, Charles felt that his own breathing would cease if he were to lose what he had with Max.

Unbeknownst to him, for the past hours, Max had been in a perpetual state of fight or flight, with adrenaline and cortisol levels in his body soaring to the point where sleeping or eating had been impossible until the past few hours. The moment he heard Charles's voice, his body seemed to finally release all that tension he had been holding onto, allowing him to feel all the fullness of the pain and exhaustion his body had sustained.

Leaning against one of the walls of the balcony, Max felt his body begin to collapse. And slowly, he let himself slide to the cold floor, closing his eyes as he focused on the soothing sound of the voice across the phone.

"Charles..." he recalled his name, his voice sounding weaker than his first attempt, as if his vocal cords were melting inside his throat. A breath of relief. "Are you okay?" he asked, whispering urgently through the phone. 

"I'm okay," he reassured the man on the other end of the phone, his desperation mirroring Max's. "I woke up with no recollection of anything, feeling like I'd taken a long and unexpected nap, but nothing else," he added, further reassuring Max that he was not in terrible condition. The ache in his body and the IV in his arm were painful, but talking to Max made him feel like everything else didn't matter.

"They're keeping me for observation for another two days," he broke the bad news, holding his phone like a lifeline. He paused to gather his own thoughts, but upon hearing the man's voice, any form of self-control escaped through the window.

"Reporters are keeping a close eye on me, waiting to report any updates according to my mom. I'm scared that if they see you here they'll create a narrative," he confessed, his voice small, his eyes glistening with emotion. "I know it's really late," he continued, desperate to have Max with him one way or another. "The staff signed confidentiality waivers. They're not allowed to give any information about my condition, it extends to visitors. Would you be willing to come in disguise? Just past the doors so there's no pictures. They'll need to know it's you once you're inside, but that's it."