Me & Pierre [ one shot ]

Me & Pierre

The sea air entered my lungs filling them and giving them a breath of fresh and clean air. The sand crawled between my toes as I moved them carelessly, letting them creep through the cracks. With my hands I picked up some golden grains, turned them in my palm and then I let them slide slowly between my fingers, returning to their place. Silence reigned over us. I knew that the reason I was there meant only two things: the end or the beginning. Based on the right words and decisions. I turned my eyes and a light, soft blow of wind moved my hair on my face that I immediately moved away with a dry and involuntary gesture. He was already looking at me. Two blue eyes, like the sea in front of us, were trying somehow to read me inside. As if he could. The reality was that I could barely read myself, let alone someone on the outside. The beard was divinely on him, as always, but this time it was slightly longer than usual, I thought it was a little less care given the thoughts to which he had to give weight. The races, the interviews, the rehearsals and me. Probably I was the heaviest thought to go around and I was sorry, I never meant to be something that annoyed or messed up.

«What are you thinking about?» he asked me slightly, above the sound of the waves that made the background. How do I tell you, Pierre? How do I tell you what I'm thinking about? It was difficult. Enough to put me in a very uncomfortable position. I shook my head and looked back at the sun drowning in the sea in front of us. The beach was almost deserted, a few couples dotted the know but they were distant and silent. We were not a couple. What we were, at that point, I don't know. Pierre Gasly, the Alpha Tauri driver in Formula 1, and I had been friends for years now. We met when I was about nineteen and he was twenty-one when he had recently made his debut in the Toro Rosso team. I had gone to France on a school trip, I didn't think that extended trip would change my life completely. Just the group home I was staying in was next door to Pierre.

5 years ago...

I don't like France. Aesthetically it is beautiful, the food is pretty good but people are obnoxious and if you can't speak the language then you can't be a part of it. I spent the first few weeks in the house, only going to school in the morning. I should have stayed in this state for two months and already I was asking about my home. The family home is quite cosy but absent. They have a 25-year-old daughter who now comes home only to sleep and they instead work often, so they have become predisposed to do this thing. To have someone in the house who was not always absent but the problem is their absence.

It's a hot June day, I'm in the garden of the cottage of my family home. I read a book, one of the few I brought with me. I am not often in the garden, I started recently because initially, I did not feel comfortable being there. The grass fillets caress my half-naked legs and bare arms from the short-sleeved t-shirt. The sun rests gently on my bare skin and I like the feeling. When I look up to look around I feel the villa next to my movers. Someone went out into the garden and my head tried to get up, even more, to see who it was but the fence of walls is too high to be able to see from the same-

«Sooner or later I take someone head over head.» Someone curses in French and what little I know, I understood what he was saying. My curiosity rises to extreme levels and I jump to my feet, hiding behind the barbecue to prevent anyone from seeing me. A guy about my age is staring at the void with a furious look and fists clenched along his dry body. He has a hat that I think is blue, I'm not close enough to understand, but I can say it's dark. Whatever rattled this kid must have been pretty serious. I feel a gust of wind creeping into my hair and furiously hitting his hat that flies in the direction of my house and when he goes to grab it, he stumbles and falls. I can't laugh but I realise too late that I did not do it quietly.

«Hey you!» he raises his voice to be heard well but I am not moving from my hiding place. I'm holding my hands so tight around the barbecue iron, I'm starting to feel them sweating. Damn curiosity, I'm telling myself as I hope he gives up and leaves me alone.