prompt:
Carlos moved out in November.
Carlos moved out in November.
Well. Moved out wasnât the right word for it, exactly. Not when Carlos had never officially moved in, and not when all the relics of his living were still scattered around Oscarâs flat: the coffee grounds only Carlos used going stale in Oscarâs cupboard, a second toothbrush sitting vigil on Oscarâs bathroom counter like a dog waiting faithfully for its owner at the train station. But Oscar didnât have a better word for whatever caused the sharp pang in his chest every time he unearthed a sock from between the couch cushions that didnât belong to him, knowing its owner wouldnât be coming back for it any time soon. So thatâs what heâd been calling it in his head: Carlos moving out.
When Oscar had first told Carlos he thought they ought to stop seeing each other, part of him had expected Carlos to put up a fight. Carlos loved to argue with him about anything, after all: the orientation of Oscarâs bed relative to his bedroom door (it directed all the negative energyâwhatever the hell that meantâtoward Oscarâs head, and therefore should be rotated), the merits of cricket compared to golf (there were none), the appropriate time to wake up each morning (most days, at the ass crack of dawn, and never any later than 10:30, even on the Mondays after a race).
But when Oscar had said, Listen itâs not that I donât want to beâ I mean, you just have no idea the kind of pressure Iâm under right now, with the WDC andâ Carlosâ expression had cracked open ever so slightly before he nodded sharply and said, yes, yes, you are right. I donât know what it is like, so probably, we shouldâ
And then Carlos had made his way to Oscarâs front door, stopping only long enough to pick up his cap from the floorâOscar had knocked it there the night before in his effort to bury his hands in Carlosâ hair as quickly as possible, after Carlos had pinned him against the doorframe and swallowed him down in one smooth motion that made Oscarâs eyes roll to the back of his headâbefore he slipped out without another word like a reverse Orpheus, never once pausing to look back.
In the initial days after Oscar had broken things off, he jumped every time his phone buzzed in his pocket, wondering whether heâd unlock his phone to find Carlos yelling at him, berating him and demanding Oscar return his things. After a week had passed and Oscar had received only radio silence, the dread that Carlos would text was replaced slowly but surely with the dread that he would not. The slow, sinking realization that Oscar would have to decide what to do with all the extra lighting cables he couldnât use and the LâOrĂ©al PR bottles labeled in a language he didnât speak. It would be up to him alone, Oscar began slowly to understand, whether to throw away all these things that werenât his, or to keep them as some insane reminder that he hadnât somehow hallucinated the past six months; that at some point, for some reason, Carlos had become a regular in Oscarâs flat. And now he wasnât anymore.
Carlos was gone, and it was all Oscarâs doing. Because even though Oscar still wanted him there,âhad never stopped wanting him thereâhe also wanted to win. And this thing he had going with Carlos had nothing to do with winning, except for how the thought of coming home to Carlos after a bad race was slowly becoming a reason not to hate losing as much as he should have. And this year, Oscar couldnât afford to loveâ couldnât afford to like anything more than he hated to lose.
So maybe Oscar didnât believe Carlosâ shit luck this season was a disease of the communicable variety. And maybe he couldnât control how fast the car was, or how loosely Andrea and Zak decided to interpret papaya rules from week to week, or the things that being with Carlos made him want. But he could control, at least, whether he let himself have them.
Oscar could kick Carlos out, even though heâd never really even kicked him in. He could sabotage the one shockingly and uncomplicatedly good thing heâd had going all season; could watch Carlosâ dark eyes shine with hurt in the split second before he schooled his face back to neutral and walked out of Oscarâs flat without protest. He could do all this and have none of it fucking matter because the gap between him and Lando had only gotten wider since; could learn for the second time this season just how good he was at letting the things he wanted slip through his grasp, and how absolutely hopeless he was at trying to get them back.
For not the first time, Oscar scrolls up through his old WhatsApp thread with Carlos. The messages near the top are sparseâmostly room numbers and times. But as Oscar scrolls down, their exchanges get lengthier and closer together: a photo of a Monaco sunrise, a link to an article on Aussie rules football. The most recent text is from a couple weeks ago, right before Oscar had ended things: a blurry selfie of Carlos on the bike, hair dark with sweat, mouth open in a tired grin. Oscar had reacted to it a with a 100 emoji.
In his weaker moments, Oscar allows his thumbs to hover over the keyboard, wondering what might happen if he were to be mathematically eliminated from the championship. Maybe then, he could allow himself toâ maybe Carlos would forgive him ifâ
A notification flashes at the top of Oscarâs screen. When he sees Carlosâ name attached, his heart starts, traitorously, to pound, until he realizes itâs a message in the grid-wide group chat. Some open-ended padel invite for later in the week.
Oscar locks his phone, placing it facedown on the kitchen counter. He goes to the cupboard and measures out careful spoonfuls of Carlosâ coffee grounds, lets it brew for long enough that the smell of it turns acrid and dark, leaving only the bitterness behind.
