A Night To Remember - Lando Norris

two

She felt the door smash closed behind her; she wasn't looking back. Was this time the final straw? She felt free in the cold winter air, the dark night made the roads hard to see but it just felt right. She left Nate standing there helpless on the doorstep, beginning for her not to go he could sense this time had gone too far. She was upset, broken but the air felt free, as if her strings had been cut off and that she could finally breathe. It was euphoric to Jas this feeling she had craved for so long, no responsibility no life she was being forced to live. It was all under her control. The look of the town lit up her face, the streets, and all of them it felt comforting more than how her own home felt in this very moment. She knew she couldn't go anywhere else and would need to go home but she liked this escape from her reality, leaving.

It was late, early hours of the morning, she felt venerable she was making her way home. She knew she had to make her way home; she had no choice where would she go? The false reality of 'leaving' gave her some boost of serotonin but it couldn't last forever. Jas knew deep down she did it for attention, for her parents to notice her. She slowly found herself walking home as if she had just come back from a night out, it made her smile she felt so stupid to even dream of another reality that could never be her own. Her head shot back down the road, she heard the sound of tyres screeching, recklessly this car storms past. Her senses felt heightened in the night, she could feel it was about to happen. Further down the road not even a few seconds later, she hears a crash and silence fell in the night once again feeling almost as if the world was at peace again. She ran; the wind was streaming through her hair and there, there it was, there she saw a familiar car and a lifeless face, surely it wasn't...

Jas woke up, her heart beating out of her chest, gasping for air. Scrambling for her light switch or something to help her to stop reliving what she had seen, there was sweat dripping of her face. Her lungs felt as if they had collapsed, they wouldn't let her breathe. She swung her arm and grabbed her water, trying to bring herself back to her reality.

Once she had caught her breath, she made her way to the kitchen she needed to distract herself, she had thought moving to a new house would help, a new life would help her forget her past, but the nightmares won't stop. Jas felt stupid for fooling herself into this. She brewed herself a tea as it always gave her so much comfort in some of her darkest nights. She flicked on the tv to some old 'Come Dine With Me' episodes, which was random yet good at distracting from her looming thoughts, the tv was so quiet she didn't want to disturb Jack, he was training so hard and she couldn't burden him with her nightmares. After a single episode, she was ready to go back to bed, her eyes barely staying open falling back asleep in seconds.

*

"How was your first night, did you sleep well?" Questioned Jack as he was getting ready to go on a 'light' 5K to start the morning.

"Yeah good, slept like a baby!" Jas said in a slight sarcastic tone, Jack could see through this and knew she was still struggling.

"Jas are you sure..." Jack asked again, he'd thought by now she would be getting better; stopped feeling so guilty about everything. He knew she had never fully opened up to anyone, she had briefly visited therapy but she never settled or felt fully comfortable, refusing to let anyone truly in. Although she had spoken to Jack occasionally- never seriously and even Jack felt he didn't ever truly know the full extent of everything that had happened, her dreams, nightmares.

"Jack, I'm fine don't worry," Jas said with a slight chuckle in her voice, as she grabbed herself some toast. "I'm going to do a food shop today let me know if you need anything."

"I think I'm all good, I'll be back in 20 though." Said Jack.

This felt odd for Jas the first time she was fully alone in their new place, she didn't really know the area but as much as she would've liked to explore, she knew she had stacks of Uni work to be getting on with although to procrastinate, she left soon after to do a food shop. 

She soon came back to her new home- Jack had finished his run by now. Jas reluctantly started cracking on with her work,  a benefit to this would be a distract her from the night before, that was if she actually could manage to focus. Although, she didn't have to go to the camps until Thursday, providing a moment of relief as if a weight had been slightly lifted.

She had so much work to catch up on, the list just never ends (or at least that's how it felt). Essays upon essays that Jas just didn't want to face, but she got at it. After a few hours, she decided she needed a break, in response Jas went into the living room and put on the tv, and to Jas's delight some F1 highlights were being shown from last year's race. Her face started glowing, she could hardly remember the last time she actually saw a race, let alone the highlights. This one specifically being Singapore where Hamilton won, Ricciardo second, and Bottas third, she could remember the race quite distinctly. Since it had been so long since she last saw a race, it was comforting to her she'd grown up by the track and absolutely loved it but knowing Nate would never get the opportunity hurt Jas inside. Jas knew she had to get back to her work, but it could wait for now. She had promised herself she would get on top of her work... eventually.