Full Throttle

Austria

Author's Note: This chapter features some heavy emotions, so just a trigger warning.

"No, nuh-uh, I'm not eating that. It's disgusting." I pushed the plate away from me.
"Oh, come on, Jessie, don't be such a child," Max laughed.
"It's gross! I don't like it."
"I'll eat it," Pierre said, pulling my plate towards him and stabbing the schnitzel. I pulled a face.
"What are you going to eat now? That was the only main meal they prepared for us," Christian Horner chucked.
"I'll have the strudel."
"You can't just have strudel, Jessie," Alex said, his mouth full of food.
"You really shouldn't talk whilst you're eating, Alex," I retorted. We were in Austria, at the Red Bull Ring, and of course, with it being our home race, Red Bull and Toro Rosso were getting into the celebrations for our YouTube and Instagram. The boys were dressed up in traditional Austrian clothing, shorts and all, and I was in a traditional dress. It was very pretty and very comfortable; I liked the green. I enjoyed the time that both of the teams spent together, it was fun, and I liked al of the things we did. We weren't even staying in a hotel this weekend because it was our home race; we were staying in an actual house. Well, I say 'we', I mean us four drivers. Last night, Pierre got dared to jump into the lake that was out the back, apparently it was a tradition. He did, and he screeched when his head popped back out of the water because it was so cold. The video was posted all over our Instagram, with it even being posted on the officially Red Bull Racing Instagram, and the official Toro Rosso Instagram. Media Day had been a bit shit this week, but it was just one of those things. Today's practices had been decent, but I still felt like I could push the car more. The team was going to tweak a few things with it tonight and see how it ran tomorrow in FP3 and ultimately, Qualis. We spent the rest of the evening drinking beer, dancing badly, and laughing a lot. I had 2 helpings of Strudel, much to Nick's disapproval, but he allowed it just this once. We ended the night at 11.30pm, getting back to the house 15 minutes later before going to our rooms to bed.

FP3 was not going well. The car had no grip, and it had gotten slower since yesterday. I didn't know what the fuck the engineers had done, but whatever they'd tried to do, they didn't do it right. I went round Turn 4 and span off the track.
"Guys, the car is horrendous, it changes from understeer to oversteer mid turn. This is dangerous to drive," I said into my radio, carefully coming back onto the asphalt.
"Okay, Jessie. Box at the end of this lap."
"We need to get this shit sorted out or else Qualis are going to be awful." I nursed the car around the track and back into the pit lane, the crew wheeling the car back into the garage, where I climbed out and took off my helmet and balaclava. Katie handed me my drink and I took in gulps before turning to talk to the engineers. I don't know how the car had gotten this bad over the space of a single night.
"Is there any way to undo whatever was changed when you tweaked stuff yesterday?"
"We'll try, but I don't know whether we'll be able to get everything right in time for Qualis. We'll try our best, though, Jessie. Don't you worry."
"Right, thanks." I walked away, Katie talking to me about media interviews and what not.
"Any more news about Beth?" she asked. I'd told her after I got stressed out about not having anyone back home to talk to anymore. I think that was the first time that I'd seen Katie get angry. She said that they knew what I did and that it was important, and that if they weren't going to be patient then they weren't worth caring about. She felt for me when I told her about Michael, my Godson, and how I'd never properly see him again. It was a cruel life, she told me.
"No. I try not to think about it too much, if I'm honest. I just want to put it out of my mind for this weekend and focus on racing. I need to do well."
"You'll be fine, you always are," she reassured me.
"I don't know, I haven't finished 2 races now, and this is our home race. I'll be really disappointed in myself if I don't perform well this weekend.
"Look, maybe you will have a disappointing Quali today, but the points are won tomorrow. I've seen how capable you are when it comes to overtaking people. Everything will be fine come tomorrow.

Everything was not fine. In fact, if I had a worst expectation for that day, I'm pretty sure that what happened would have been that. Qualis, as predicted, had not gone too great, and I didn't even make it into Q2, finishing 18th. The media had a field day, and to put the icing on the cake, I found out that Beth had gone public with us two not being friends anymore. How did I find out? I was asked about it in the post-qualifying interviews. She'd gone to the press and said that, with the promotion into Formula One, my true colours had been revealed to her. She'd said that I was a spiteful, self-centred person who had no time for anyone but myself. I refused to comment on the situation, despite the objections by the reporters. Beth going to the press had sparked online outrage, but not towards her, but towards me. I was getting hate comments on every single post that I'd made recently, and even the Team's YouTube was getting hate comments directed towards me. People were DM-ing me hurtful things on every platform that I was on, shaming me about my repetitive fuckups and poor behaviour and attitude. I was allowed to leave the Paddock early that day, and I locked myself in my room at the house, only coming out to go to the bathroom and get my food and drinks. I understood what Lando said about not being able to help but look at the messages even though I knew that they were hostile. At around 11pm there was a knock at my bedroom door.
"Jessie," Max whispered from behind it.
"What?"
"Can you let me in?"
"No."
"I've made you hot chocolate."
I stayed where I was for a few seconds, contemplating whether or not to let him in. I decided to get up and open the door. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him, carefully handing me the steaming mug of hot chocolate. I thanked him quietly, taking a sip. It was really good. I returned to my spot on the windowsill, and he sat at the other end, opposite me.
"I get the messages too. Makes you feel like shit, doesn't it?"
I didn't answer.
"Was she your best friend, this Beth?"
I nodded. "Her son is my Godson."
"How long have you known her for?"
"Since nursery."
"That's a long time."
"Yeah," I said, taking another sip of my drink.
"I'm not going to preach to you about the bad things about being a racing driver because you already know. Just don't give up, okay? You'll do great things. You're in your rookie season, it's okay to not be perfect, not even Lewis is perfect. Goodnight, Jessie," Max said, getting up and walking out of the door, shutting it again behind him.

I ignored the journalists that flocked around me when I arrived at the Paddock at 8.30am the next day. I wasn't interested. I would have loved to say that the talk with Max had put me in a good mindset, but I would be lying if I did. I had the impending sense of dread sitting at the bottom of my stomach again, and I didn't feel like talking to anybody, not even Lando, Carlos, or Daniel, who tried to cheer me up a bit. I faked him a smile just so he would stop trying and carried on towards the motorhome. Breakfast with Nick and Katie was uninteresting. I zoned out of the conversation that they were having, preferring to eat my granola, yogurt and fruit in silence. I had no motivation to enjoy my warmup and climbing into my car to drive out to the grid felt unremarkable. No music that travelled through my headphones felt satisfying, no conversation that I tried to engage in felt inspiring, no moment that I tried to capture felt important. Driving the car during the race felt dull and characterless, and as hard as I tried, I couldn't get the overtake on anyone that I tried to. The only reason that I came P17 was because Magnussen's pit stop got fucked up and he dropped back to P19. Crossing the line, I didn't even feel the competitive disappointment of not getting points or even coming close to scoring points. I felt nothing, like I was on autopilot or just drifting through everything instead of actually experiencing it. It felt like I was watching everything through a screen. There was this nagging voice in the back of my mind, telling me that I needed to race and that I needed to try harder and snap out of it because I was being pathetic and useless just like I normally was.
I just want to feel again.
I just want to fucking feel something again.
The shower I took that night was burning hot and yet I still didn't care. I worked out until I collapsed, and I still couldn't feel the pain. I read through the new messages and comments, and they all just got put into the box with the other ones.
I don't care if it's anger that I feel, just let me feel it.
I decided to go for a swim in the lake out back, and although the cold water was unpleasant, I still didn't care as much as I normally would. I swam until my arms ached, and then I swam some more. I went back inside and took another burning hot shower, my skin turning bright red at the sudden dramatic temperature change. I didn't care. I turned the shower off and sat there.
Please just let me feel again.