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It was always on nights like these that this sort of thing happened.
The warm sweet air blew gently through the opened windows and balcony door, wistful with a humid hint of crisp saltiness from the sea. The waves lapped tenderly against the soft sand in the distance; low tide, water retreating almost shyly.
Monaco was a city, no doubt about that, but late at night the usual bustle was muted and the echoes of hearty laughter resounded faintly, more a remnant than a pinpoint-able sound.
Charles’ eyes stayed fixated on the barest sliver of stars that were poking out of the dark night sky. He fruitlessly tried to recall any constellations he’d been taught, knowing that if he’d been told they had gone in one ear and out the other.
But they shouldn’t have. Because if anyone had taught him it was his father.
Charles huffed, a weary, brittle thing, before delicately extricating himself from the warm safe embrace of Max behind him. They had both fallen asleep mid-cuddle on the living room couch, television muted but playing onwards sports highlights from somewhere.
Charles stood and stretched, looking down at the neutral expression painting Max’s features.
With a slight adjustment to his clothing and a scratch to his scalp, no doubt messing up his already messed up hair, he walked on quiet feet towards the balcony overlooking the city.
Maybe if he could see the stars more clearly it would come back to him the names and outlines of these constellations that surveyed the world from the heavens.
Maybe then he could stop asking himself “Papa, where are you?”
It was an old wound. Scarred over with tissue. While most would assume that after so long the injury was faded, in reality, it still ached and throbbed with a dullness whenever Charles caught sight of it. It was raised and discolored, jagged and disrupting. Nothing could ever truly heal it completely. That was the wont of scars he supposed.
While he could safely say he had continued forward and grown in the wake of his father’s death, Charles wouldn’t dare to say he was over it. There was no getting over it. Time didn’t lessen the blow; his dad was still gone.
Charles used to be so busy. As a kid, he didn’t stop, he only knew how to go forward, and fast at that. His father had held his hand at first before letting go to propel him forward. Charles might’ve looked back with a smile and wave, already lost in the process of forging ahead.
He didn’t regret where he’d gotten to, but he perhaps regretted not fully embracing those around him then.
Even after all this time, he still wasn’t sure he knew where to go in order to find his father once more. He’d said to Charles through his actions, “go, find your way. Leave me in your wake. Never settle. Make your mark. Follow your heart.”
And Charles had and would. He knew that. He may not yet have “won” necessarily but he was living his dream, trying to carve out his place in the world and leave his mark.
Still, sometimes he’d pick up his phone after a particularly great day or a particularly bad day and go to call his father only to come up short because of course his father was still dead..
He’d count his fingers and take slow deep breaths. He’d try and settle himself and the tiny weevil of his father’s absence would burrow just a little deeper. It used to be that Papa knew what was wrong without Charles even having to speak, but he didn’t have that anymore.
Charles looked up at the stars, closing his eyes and still seeing their afterglow painted onto his eyelids. Where are you hiding, Papa? Are you watching over me? Me and my brothers?
That old familiar ache returned, leaving him hollow and bereft. Charles recalled how hard it had been to clean out his father’s room with his mother. One moment he was fine and the next he was sick. And then suddenly, they were removing clothes that had still been folded in drawers.
Charles was still trying to find and accept the lesson in the heartbreak, but he still wasn’t sure there was one. Was there a silver lining?
Perhaps it was his papa’s very existence that was supposed to be what made it all worth it? And most days it did. It did. It’s just sometimes he’d still find little pieces of his father scattered around his house, his thoughts, his actions, and even though it seemed like Charles was moving forward, improving even after the loss, what was he actually gaining? Not a lot, he thought.
Charles swallowed, his eyes stinging. Useless, empty tears gathered. Why was there even the word “good” in “goodbye”? There was nothing good about goodbye.
He swiped angrily at his cheeks, sniffing, trying to suppress the outflow of emotions; sadness and anger an ugly amalgamation in his chest.
The night’s welcoming atmosphere became stale, Charles trembling in the misery, shuddering through and clawing his way through the viscous sludge of his grief.
He could rise above. He did every time he drove a car, not just for his father but for others he lost to the sport and to time.
Behind him, inside the apartment, there was a wild and harsh gasp followed by a plaintive mewl, drawing Charles’ attention away from his ghosts and back to reality.
~~~~~
It was always on nights like these that this sort of thing happened.
The hot clammy air blew through the opened windows and balcony door, making the whole place feel muggy and clogged, making breathing hard. In the distance, the oceans callous indifference meant the waves slapped loudly onto the sand; low tide, water biding its time to rise and drown anything unaccustomed to its fluctuating moods.
The echoes of yelling still rattled in Max’s brain. The city of Monaco, like any city, didn’t sleep, but noises that should’ve been a harmless din instead coalesced to a roar in his ears.
Despite the heavy humidity, Max shivered, cold and drenched in sweat, phantom aches throbbing to the beat of his racing heart, blood rushing in his ears.
His own breathing was harsh and raspy, and one of the cats - Jimmy? Sassy? Donut? Didn’t matter - wailed shrilly, probably at being disturbed by Max’s movement in some way shape or form.
He wanted to comfort whichever cat it was, but he was feeling unmoored and bereaved, and Charles was… Charles was…
Not in his arms.
Max’s whole body was sweating but suddenly, even in the humidity, he was sluiced in ice.
He was no longer fully present in the apartment. Instead, he was stranded on a lonely street, trudging in the biting wind to make his way back to a hotel he barely remembered, the invectives his father had spit at him still ringing in his ears.
Hands numb around the steering wheel as he was screamed at to go another lap without fucking it up. Other kids were playing. Max couldn’t afford to play. He had to practice.
Charles would bring a ball to the track and a few of the others and him would play football while Max…
The savage screams of Jos and Max’s mother. The fear that that thunk sound wasn’t the suitcase being thrown to the floor but instead his mother’s body being pummeled. Vicious insults about Max and at him. Devastating. Disheartening.
The cruel sting of his cheek where he’d been slapped. The subtle increase in his heart rate anytime there was anything in Jos’ hand that could be used as a weapon. A fork, a wrench, a book. Anything.
The debilitating guilt at the disappointment of not winning and the hopeless, directionless guilt and shame of winning and still not being enough. Vilified regardless of action and outcome.
God, it seemed like everyone knew how to make babies but no one knows how to make dads. What determined whether one dad would be admirable and loving versus hate-able and reviled? Was it something inherited? Was Max doomed to be the same villain Jos was to any of his own children or his lover?
No. A resolute voice. You are not your father, and you are not just your upbringing. The voice was accented suspiciously like Charles’.
At his worst though, Max would imagine going the wrong way on track, weathering the vitriol and threats, despondent with the promise of some sort of revenge, punishment, or “lesson” delivered physically, and instead of clamming up in fear he’d stare straight down a pair of headlights racing towards him and he’d not care.
All his life, he’d bottled it all up, blamed himself for his inadequacy. The fire of passion had begun to smolder into embers even as a child. When he was thrust into the spotlight at 17 the cinders were rekindled, gasoline poured over them and the flame fanned until it was an all-consuming rage that fueled him to fight. Max let it burn through all his trauma. That would destroy it.
He loved it. He hated it.
In the midst of the haze of his emotions, he wondered, dad, where are you? Not so much that he was asking for his actual father, for Jos, but for an actually good father to respond, with love, with care, with gentleness and support.
They hardly spoke anymore, Max and Jos. His mother and sister had been the supportive ones who loved Max unconditionally and who tried to get him to discard the poison Jos had fed him in his youth.
Max tried to rationalize that maybe the scars Jos had given him would make him stronger in the future. He was still waiting to verify that hypothesis, as flawed as it was.
Overall, Max knew he was happier now than he’d ever been with his dad. The fact that he hardly had a relationship with his father was no longer a source of dismay. He’d had to find the “good” in saying goodbye to that relationship, but he still mourned what he’d never had: that emotionally stable, reciprocally respectful parental bond.
The cold sweat had stagnated, his shallow breathing trembling before expanding and evening out, suddenly aware of a gentle caress on his cheek, the swipe of a thumb on his cheekbone, the delicate murmur of a voice telling him he’s safe.
“Charles.”
“I’m here.” Charles responded fervently.
Together, they breathed. With the presence of one another, they drew on their experience as athletes to settle anxiety and regulate their breathing and emotions.
Once he’d settled, Max looked into Charles’ eyes. Their sparkling jade color seemed both profoundly sad and intensely satisfied. Suddenly, it didn’t matter what his past had been colored with, all that mattered was the here and now and where they’d go in the future, together.
(Don’t get him wrong, the past still affected him. But Charles was right; he was more than just his past.)
“Okay?” Charles asked when they’d both been quiet for a few moments.
Max didn’t respond verbally, he leaned forward and pressed his lips against Charles’. Those pouty soft lips of his were succulently moistened. Charles immediately hummed and deepened the kiss, opening his mouth to facilitate the mingling of their tongues whilst climbing onto Max, his lean frame exerting wonderful deep pressure all throughout Max.
Although they could’ve let it go further, Charles seemed to sense the fragility of the situation and slowed the kiss, banking the flames of passion before they could fully erupt into a forest fire.
Charles laid his body weight fully on Max and listened to his heartbeat. Max felt more settled than he thought possible. Maybe he’d found silver lines. Idly, he twirled strands of Charles’ hair. It wasn’t long until the cats hopped up on the couch and began to climb on Charles, snuggling into the crook of his spine, their purring radiating through them both. They both chuckled at the antics.
There was an easiness to them both in each other’s presence and Max let the comfortable silence settle with contentment and acceptance.
Relief. Max didn’t have to keep wishing for love and affection (and Charles didn’t have to suffer alone in longing for what was lost). They had love. They had time.
Maybe their future together, maybe existence itself, was the “good” in goodbye. Maybe the good that happens defines goodbye.