CHATTAHOOCHIECOOCHIE

He’s already reached for the phone once tonight, wondering if it might be worth it to call down for an extra pillow or two, maybe a blanket to scrunch up until the extra space disappears. Reaching for it a second time would be pathetic. He lets his hand fall, pulling his arm slowly beneath the mountain of blankets he’s already made.

He’s had a good few months, almost eight. Longer than he’s made it before. Tonight shouldn’t be any different. An empty hotel room, an emptier bed. But it is different, Lewis can feel it. His hands are restless beneath the blankets, and his legs are worse. He’s kicked himself into a cage, caught in a mess of satiny sheets and a thick cotton duvet.

It’s pitch black, which is his own fault. Leaving the curtains open wouldn’t have let him sleep easy, but it might have kept out that lonely feeling that the darkness seemed to let in. Moreover, it’s so, so cold. And he can remember a time when it wasn’t.

Lewis writhes for a moment, fighting off the chill that’s run down his spin. It runs back up until it sits on his shoulders, tail like a lit firecracker, whipping across his skin until the hair on his neck stands up. He rolls to the left, body searching for warmth that isn’t there. Still frustrated, he tries the right side. There never was anything over there, he always slept on the left, and Lewis on the right.

Twisting onto his back again, his fists curl in the sheets. He’s angry that he thought to roll over at all. Lewis kicks his legs, wrestling the pile of fabric he’s trapped himself in as if it might suddenly put up a fight.

It washes over him without warning, and before he can kick the duvet again, he’s laying limp beneath it, helpless as the latch on the memory is undone.

It’s pitch black when Nico wakes him up, elbowing him in the ribs. Nico’s all bones still, pointy and angular in the way only a teenage boy can be. Heavy eyes half open, he looks over at his friend, trying to brace himself for another assault.

“You took all the blankets.” Nico’s voice is soft, cracking on the syllables from a mix of exhaustion and puberty. His fingers prod Lewis beneath the covers, full of accusation.

“Did not.” Lewis laughs, rolling over to put his head on Nico’s pillow.

“Did—get off my pillow!”

Lewis laughs again, rolling across the bed until he’s nearly on top of the other boy. “It’s my bed. So my blankets, my pillows.”

“Yes but it’s a sleepover so you have to share. Give me the fuzzy one.” Nico stretches a hand through the dark. Lewis pulls the fuzzy blanket towards himself, regretting the theft when he suddenly becomes claustrophobic.

“Nope.” He grins over the pile of blankets. “Get your own.”

“Fine. Be that way.” Warmth spreads across Lewis as his friend draws closer, arms out as he tries to wrench the blankets from his grasp. Before long they are wrestling each other, the fuzzy red blanket an innocent bystander as they pull and kick at one another, trying to hide their laughter.

A knock at the door interrupts the fight, Anthony Hamilton’s tired voice can be heard through the wood and as carefully as they can, the two boys separate from one another. Clamoring off of Lewis’s waist, Nico slips back down into the twin size bed.

Satisfied by the resulting silence, Anthony’s loud steps back down the hall. “Goodnight boys.”

“I almost had you.” Nico whispers, turning his head so it rests beside Lewis’s shoulder. Their noses touch when Lewis turns to deny it. “Did not.”

The temperature seems to drop around him as tears begin to prick his eyes. Eight months is a long time to hold a memory at bay, and it would seem—not long enough to forget one.

It’s always this way. He gets his time without them, finds a way to live without them—without him—and then, when it’s too cold or too dark or too quiet, they come back. Every memory, every thought, every word caught on his tongue.

He lets his fist curl for a moment, relishing in the pain as his fingernails pierce the skin of his palms. Squeezing his eyes shut, he holds his hands steady, wondering if he might draw blood if he strains too hard.

It doesn’t matter, he can’t hold out long enough anyway. The tension breaks moments later as his body goes slack, his mouth open as a dry, wracked cry echoes through the room. “Nico, please.”

His voice sounds so shallow, so distant. Please, Nico. Lewis bites his tongue, bracing against the ache that's begun to well up inside his chest. It’s deep, he can feel it in his ribs, the sinking raw weight of regret. “I—I…”

I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I’d give them all back if you’d come back to me. All of them. Every last one down to the ribbons. I. I. I. I know I won’t but I wish that I could.

I know I won’t but I wish that I could.

All that fighting and the counting and the constant comparing. I’m sorry, he cries. And he is. He means it. He beats down on the mattress with his fists balled. They fought like dogs until the very end. There was a time when they didn’t, a time before the numbers mattered, before the differences were everything, but he can’t remember it.

“I’m gonna win one, one day.” Nico says it a lot, always with a toothy grin on his face.

“We both will.” Lewis says back. “I’m gonna win a bunch.”

“I think one is enough. Just to know I did it.” Nico is looking at the trophy shelf in his room. It’s fancier than Lewis’s, but Lewis has more, not that anyone's counting. They are, but not like that, Lewis thinks.

“Nah, like Fangio with five. Or Ayrton with three. You think anyone could get more than five?”

“We can.” This answer is never enough for Lewis, its offered anyways.

“Not combined though. I want to win more than five. I want to be—”

“Boys! Let’s go!” Nicos dad is yelling from the bottom of the stairs, they’ll be late to the tournament unless they get on the road soon.

“I call front!” Lewis is grinning, quicker off the bed and to the door than Nico. The last thing Lewis sees before he hits the hall is the glint in Nico’s eyes as the blond boy sets off after him.

For as far back as his mind can stretch they had been that way. And for what? For this? Alain lost his rival in death, in the bitter end. Nico had gone on a Sunday in November.

Lewis rolls onto his side, pulling his knees to his chest as the ache sinks deeper. It’s a silly comparison, one that makes his mouth taste sour. They weren’t rivals. They had been friends. They’d been boys.

They had been boys. And god if he wouldn’t give anything to go back. To see a scrawny kid staring back at him in the mirror, to feel in all the places he couldn’t now. To get back to any of it, all the bad, and all the good.

His mind wanders through the fantasy, plucking it apart like a crow to a corpse. It's raw, picked apart. He’s been through this one a thousand times, torturing himself with every fine detail.

“Alright boys, what do you want?”

“Vanilla.” Looking over from where he’s laid in Lewis’s lap, he catches Lewis as he nods in agreement. “Both vanilla, dad.”

Nico turns back to his homework, its math, the workbook is faded from frequent travel. He’s only half been paying attention, but Keke will get mad at them both if they don’t at least pretend to focus on it. Good grades are the price they pay to race, that's what he says.

Putting a hand on Nico’s head, he busies himself with his own workbook, history. Left hand holding it at the centerfold, his right hand toys with Nico’s hair, winding a strand of fine blond hair through his fingers.

The drive thru line is long, and when they finally pull up to the window, he is mid sentence on paragraph three. Nico moves in his lap, kicking his feet out across the back row as he draws upwards to take the ice cream cone from his father in the front seat. His hair slips from Lewis’s hands.

He tosses the book aside, looking for something to prop himself up with so he can lay back at an angle. His book bag will do. He puts in on Lewis’s lap and then leans down again, grinning as vanilla ice cream smears on his upper lip.

“Don’t stop on my account.” Lewis grins back at him, reaching for the second ice cream cone before abandoning his own workbook—sentence forgotten. With a delicate hand, he winds his fingers back through Nico’s hair, smirking as he finds a waft caked with dried champagne.

The tears have stopped coming and his breath has evened. He lies still on the mattress, clinging to the sheets. It’s been a long time since then. Peaking through red eyes, he sees his phone on the nightstand, and for a moment, he wonders if it's been long enough.