The air in Belgium was humid and thick, smelling of rotten leaves, wet asphalt, and distant, acrid smoke from exhaust pipes. The sky, covered in solid gray cotton wool, hung over the city, squeezing fine, annoying rain onto the roofs and streets. He walked for weeks, numbing with his monotonous thud, turning the world into a blurred watercolor. For Max, this autumn gloom was more familiar than any sun — he saw it through the visor of his helmet, in the reflections of the wet highway, in the window of the school bus.

It was quiet and empty inside. The school is a necessary obstacle, like a chicane on the track, which must be passed in order to finish. He didn't whine or rebel. He was just waiting for it to end so he could switch to the next gear: garage, simulator, data analysis with his father. His world consisted of precise numbers, strict rules, and the whistling of the wind. Feelings were a ballast that hindered speed.

Until she showed up. The new geography teacher. He never called her by name, not even in his thoughts. Maybe Miss last name. But for him, she was almost always just Her — a phenomenon as incomprehensible and complex as a map of ocean currents. She didn't scream like the other teachers. Her voice was low, and the class paused to hear her. She was not talking about capitals, but about volcanoes that give birth to new islands, about deserts that were once the bottom of ancient seas.

The turning point came on one of those chilly evenings. Max stayed too long at a friend's place, playing a game console. He returned late. The lights were on in the house, and he heard muffled voices from his father's bedroom. The male baritone of Jos and... the quiet, affectionate female voice that made his heart beat faster. With the hope of an idiot, he crept up to the half-open door.

And he saw it. He saw his father's bare back, his powerful hands gripping the sheets. And underneath it, hers. Her face, thrown back on the pillow, her eyes closed with pleasure, and that very quiet moan, which now cut the ear like the rasp of metal. He saw everything. He heard everything. It was not a swift, like a blow, the click of betrayal. It was a slow, agonizing torture, stretched over several seconds, each of which hammered a monstrous picture into his mind.

A couple of days later, Jos, frowning over the engine in the van, said this as he noted the weather. "By the way, that woman... since last time. She'll be here a lot now. We're dating." Max was silent, pressing his head into his shoulders. "It suits me fine," Jos added, hitting the jammed nut with a wrench. "And you could use some female influence. I'm a grown man, I need a woman. And for you... well, at least some kind of mother, it's too late, of course, but at least something."

It wasn't a discussion. It was a verdict. Max realized that his quiet feeling, his confusion and hope — all this was just a hindrance that was eliminated without even noticing.