DEEP BREATHS | lando norris

CHAPTER 9

LANDO

I push the doors to my apartment, hoping it won't make a lot of noise. It's the middle of the night and I'm almost sure that my parents should be sleeping right now. I feel like a teenager again, sneeking in and out, but this time it's my place. It shouldn't feel like it.

I see that the lights are turned off and I hear my dad's snoring from the guest room they've occupied. I would smile if I weren't scared that the plasters I have on my lips could fall off. I sigh out as I take off my shoes and silently walk over to my bedroom. I close the doors and lock them just in case if my mother would wake up and decide to come over. She couldn't see me like that because she'd be worrying about me the whole night, probably wouldn't go to sleep and would consider rather to give me a deadline hours to get back home before them or not. I'm a fully grown up man so technically she couldn't do that. On the other hand she still sees me as her little boy Lando.

I take my jacket off and then also the hoodie, staying only in the black compression shirt. I shiver at the cold that has touched me immidiately but I try to ignore it as I walk over to the bathroom connected with my room. I turn the lights on and for a moment I'm to ashamed to look at myself after what I've seen before. In another mirror. My face looked terribly and had a look that it has never had before. But I look up and face myself.

I see that a few cuts are slightly deeper ones than the rest but the plasters there are bigger and securing the place of the cut more than the others. I touch the one on my lips and hiss because it still hurts like hell.

The thing is that I still feel her touch. I still feel her fingers on my face that touched me just slightly. If I didn't see her in front of me I would thought that it was a feather touching me. It felt like she didn't wanted to touch me at all. Or not to make me feel more pain. I guess I will never know.

I still see her silhouette sitting on the counter in her bathroom in front of me because she was to short to do the banding correctly if we were both standing. I remember how her lips looked when she was talking. I have never seen them from such a close angle. And for God's sake I hated what my body did when I looked at them. I didn't even wanted to feel like that. I wanted to protest to my own body but it didn't heard me at all.

I look at my hands that are completly undesinfected and bleeding even more than it was when I was at Ilma's apartment. I suddenly get flashbacks from the whole fight and I smirk under my nose as I put my hands under cold water, trying to wash off the blood from them.

After some minutes I'm done with it and as I dry them I hear my phone ringing. In the middle of the fucking night. Who could it be?

I slowly walk to the phone and see Oscar's photo light up on my phone. I have no idea if I'm in a mood for talking with him but I know that if I won't pick up now, he'll call me multiple times more until he hears my voice on the other side of the line.

"Muppet, do you know what time is it?" I ask him, putting my phone on my shoulder and squeezing it to my ear because I'm still not done with drying my hands. I go back to the bathroom as Oscar finally responds.

"Oh, just, you know, I decided to call you after I've seen some pictures of yours. On Twitter."

"Goddamn Twitter." I clench my jaw just a bit already knowing that whatever information he's going to pass me it won't be good and easy to fix up my PR. I'm just hoping it's not anyone who has seen me leaving Ilma's place. I won't be able to do anything then.

"Yeah, the photos of you bleeding after a fight on the streets in Monaco is flying all over the internet." Oscar says with his voice chill as always. I have no idea how he does that.

I breathe out with relief. It's better than I thought. It always could be worse.

"I'll fix it." I say and finally throw the towel away. "Thanks for informing me though."

"No problem, mate. See you tomorrow?"

"If we're gonna stay at my place only than sure. I don't wanna go out anywhere while I'm looking like this." I reply and come up to the doors of my bedroom. I'm ready to leave to get some water to drink but I still have to hang up with Oscar to do it. I can't make any noise.

"Sure. I'll be there at 10." Oscar says and with this sentence he hangs up. Casually. Typical Oscar.

I hide my phone into my backpocket and without too much noise I make it to the kitchen. As I fill up my glass with water, the light in the room is turned on. God.

"Lando?" I hear my mother's voice.

It can't get any worse.

"Yes, mom?" I ask back without turning around to face her. I don't want her to see my face. Really. I don't want her to feel guilty somehow or dissapointed with me.

"Look at me, son." she says and now I know I can't run away. I look down at my hands, handling the glass of water before I turn around and place my gaze on my mom.

I suddenly feel like a little child. Like I did something wrong even though I didn't have any intention of it. I see my mom's eyes become sad, not even angry, while she looks at me and scans my face. She slowly comes up to me and places her hands on my cheeks, making me even weaker.

"I'm sorry, mom." I manage to whisper but she shushes me, watching the cuts on my face.

"Who helped you? With your wounds?" she asks me, looking me straight in the eyes so she knows I'm not lying.

"I didn't wanted to make you mad... Or to wake you up at this hour so I went... To the last person on Earth I expected to see today."

"Ilma." as she guesses it I just nod because there's no business in hiding this fact. "Why her?"

"She's the only person in Monaco who could help me without asking me too many questions. And her opinion about what I've done wouldn't hurt me in any way since we hate each other anyways." when I say it out loud it sounds stupid but that's exactly how my thoughts were after the fight, when I was driving, filled with anger.

My mom nods and then takes my hands in hers to see what happened to them. She sits me on the kitchen seat and walks over to the counters. She fills a bowl with water, takes a gase and alcohol for disinfecting and a few bandages. She sits beside me, takes my right hand and starts to do something with it so I could feel less pain.

"Why did you get into that fight?" my mom asks me just to break the silence between us. I sigh and look at the ceiling because seeing her almost stiching me up when I'm an aduly just hurts my soul. What an idiot I am.

"For a good reason." I answer her with this because I don't want to say the real one.

"And?"

"To protect somebody's good name."

"Who is the 'somebody'?"

I don't answer her that. I already know she knows but she just wants me to admit it. And I definitelly won't admitt it. I won't let myself say any of that out loud. So I remain silent and my mom just smirks.