Life Changes » Marcus Armstrong

Thirtyfour.

Five, four, three, two... Marcus looked at himself in the mirror and took a deep breath. He replaced his hands around the bar; the barbell was resting on his shoulders. ...one. He pushed his upper body up for the last time before putting the barbell back in its rack.

The back squat was the last exercise of this gym session. Marcus took a deep breath and took a huge sip of water. His heart was racing in his chest, meaning it was a good session. He grabbed his stuff and left the gym.

When he was waiting for the lift to go down to his room, more people joined him. Marcus took another sip of water and sighed. He forgot his phone in his room, so he had nothing to fill the time with. Yes, he was too lazy to get back to his room when he realised he didn't have his phone with him at the beginning of his gym session.

"Hey, man," Callum slightly surprisedly said when he bumped into Marcus. Nobody had seen him since Sunday, and it was Wednesday now. "How are you doing?" Marcus was leaving, Callum was going to the gym.

"I'm alright," Marcus only replied. "You?"

"Yeah, fine, fine. Haven't seen you in a couple of days," Callum honestly shared and crossed his arms in front of his chest. "You okay?"

Marcus nodded and ran his hand through his hair. "Yes, I am. I wasn't feeling it for a couple of days, but I'm fine now."

"Good," Callum said, but questionable. Rumours were going around in this world, and just a few people knew the actual truth. Marcus seemed really chill, not worried at all. "Is it something we need to worry about?"

"Nah, it's just a dip. Missing my family and stuff. It was my mums birthday, and I got all these pictures from family. And I'm here, 26 fly hours away. The second race went shit; I pushed Jane away, the situation back in Italy. It all got a bit much. It was just a moment." A weak smile curved on Marcus' face. "No worries." There was silence. "What?" Marcus could see Callum was thinking something, perhaps even hiding something.

"There...uhm...you haven't checked your social media, right?"

"No." Marcus looked questionably at Callum. "Why? Should I?"

Callum swallowed hard. "There...is...err... Those F1 fangirls threw some rumours in the world, and...err...it doesn't look good."

"What? What is going on?" If it hadn't had to deal with Marcus, Callum shouldn't have said this. "Is there something with Jane?" She was the first person that came to his mind. "I don't have my phone with me. What's happened?"

"Someone posted a picture of Norris and Jane on Twitter, saying they're dating."

Marcus' face straightened. "You're kidding, right?"

"I'm sorry..."

"What the fuck, Callum. What did you just say? Jane and Norris? Are you fucking kidding me?" Marcus looked around, he needed to see this. "Jesus fucking Christ. They are dating?"

Callum's eyes rounded. "No, no, no, they're not dating. Someone spread rumours they are dating, which they are not, obviously," he quickly mentioned. "It was a fan who posted it, it went viral, they found out the girl is Jane..."

"Can I see it?"

"Yes, of course." Callum grabbed his phone and opened Twitter. Even after three days, it was the gossip.

Marcus snatched the phone out of Callum's hands when he was about to hand over the phone. It felt like his life had stopped. It were photos from the track, Jane and Lando were looking at each other and laughing. He scrolled through more tweets. "No..."