Cigarette Daydreams

2022 part 5

Max is not okay, Lewis can tell this by the way he stays silent, despite being close to his friends, he's holding on tightly to the bar of the car that's taking them to parade around the Silverstone circuit, Lewis is far away, but he can still see him with his jaw clenched and sweat dripping down the back of his neck. Max hates being "weak" with so many people staring at him, but it's strange, for Lewis, because the people around him don't seem to notice.

Lewis wonders if everyone is blind, or if he knows Max too well to let this kind of detail go unnoticed, probably the latter.

Max's eyes meet his at some point and they stare at each other for a while, the blond remains tense, he wonders if it's the booing, but he doubts it, he wonders if it's about the accident, this thought gives him shivers, he remembers the smell of the hospital, he remembers the dark shades of purple on Max's torso, all the pain, but for some reason he feels it's not that, he knows Max has been through a lot before and nothing has made him afraid to get in the car, quite the opposite.

So this questioning remains in his mind until the moment of staring is broken by Daniel slipping his arm around Max's shoulders and shaking him a little, which should make Lewis angry, but he notices that Max relaxes a little and even smiles, so he's fine too, but he doesn't need to stare at that, so he goes back to paying attention to Sebastian and Mick in front of him.

The race is strange for a few reasons, the first one is that Max is not on the podium, the second is that Lewis is on the podium, again and completely out of the blue, but he's not complaining, the third is that Max is still tense, the same way he was before the race, and Lewis knows that this is not how the Dutchman looks after a bad race, Max usually gets angry and frustrated.

But, once again, he finds himself looking at the rivals/friends/supporting rivals, he still doesn't know how to define it, it's instantaneous the way Max relaxes his shoulders when Charles gets close to say anything, he thinks he's reached his limit when he has to see Max being shocked and a little disgusted by what the Monegasque is telling him, at which point he doesn't care about Max's explanations and simply turns his face away so he doesn't have to see.

It turns out that, after this lestappen moment, God he needs to stop being chronically online, he and Max are standing next to each other, waiting for Charles to finish his interview so they can do the same, the tension returns to Max's shoulders, and he even starts holding his water bottle tighter.

"You've been extremely tense all weekend, and you still are." He says as if he wants nothing, and also so as not to attract inconvenient cameras.

"Have you been staring at me all weekend?" Max says and Lewis can see a little smile in his corner.

"It was just easy to notice." He says and they pretend it's true.

"This is where it all started to go wrong, before it was difficult but somewhat manageable, but here was the first domino to fall that triggered everything that came after." Max explains ruefully. "Don't you feel that?"

Not him.

"I feel like the first domino fell in Bahrain. But you're probably right when you say that things got too much from here." It's hard for him to admit that Silverstone was a critical point in their relationship, personal and professional, especially as he takes the blame with him, but it's even harder to deny the clarity of the facts, everything changed that day.

Max can't answer anything because Charles finishes his interview and soon it's his turn, it's not long before the Dutchman finishes and Lewis goes to do his bit, but before he says anything he sees, out of the corner of his eye, Max and Charles leaving together, laughing a little, as if Max hadn't just talked about something sad that happened to both of them.