The Darkness Between Us || [C.L.]

// t w e l v e

Aside from work, the next few days were full of trying to write the love poem for Terry's book. Rosie had returned to her mother's house in Bristol for the rest of the week after officially ending things with Marco, and Charles was now well underway with his race weekend, making him more unreachable than he had been for the first two days of their separation. Nina missed his face a lot, even though he still did try to text throughout the day. She found the longing and loneliness had helped her get in the right headspace for poetry, so all wasn't lost.

When Saturday afternoon rolled around, she moved her laptop and notebook over to the sofa to watch the qualifying. It was her first time ever tuning in live. In her chest, she could feel her heart pounding as Q1 began and Charles' car left the garage for an out-lap. It was scary to watch, knowing how fast they were driving, but Nina was happy to see him doing something he loved. Even if she couldn't see his face, she could imagine his smile under his helmet as the first two sectors went purple.

She kept her work document open, once in a while checking back and updating it. An hour or so away wasn't going to set her back too much.

In her hand, she held a pen, resting a cheap pad of paper on her lap. Despite being part way through the work day, she had also decided to treat herself to a glass of wine, hoping to open her head up a little more to make the words flow easier.

After Charles pitted his car for a tyre change, her eyes fell back down to the paper. She absent-mindedly tapped the end of the pen against her leg, trying to will a thought.

Nothing would come. No thoughts. At all.

She stared for a while longer, only looking up when David Croft announced the end of Q1. Her eyes flashed to the left side of the screen. Charles Leclerc, P5. He was through to Q2.

He breezed through Q2 fine. His first lap, on medium tyres, resulted in P7. Not feeling satisfied, they switched him over to the soft compound. The lap was one of the fastest of the session, especially considering the car when compared to the Mercedes and Red Bull, which had completely dominated the track, yet alone the season as a whole. P4, behind Max, Alex and Hamilton. Pretty impressive.

Nina stared at the paper once more. There was something offensive about the plain white of the sheet, taunting her and the chained ink of her pen. She scribbled some words, hoping they created something. They didn't, so she kept scribbling, waiting for some metaphor or simile or general gist of an idea to spark inspiration.

By the time Nina looked at the screen once more, Q3 had been going on for five or so minutes. As it stood, Hamilton was on provisional pole, followed by Max, Lando and Carlos in P2, P3 and P4 respectively. Charles was on his first out-lap, which began with a purple sector, but was disturbed by a yellow flag caused by Alex colliding with the wall just a few car lengths ahead of him, sending a few pieces of his front wing out onto the track.

Charles stopped his lap and trundled back to the pit so they could check for any damage. By the time they gave him the all clear, he only had a few minutes to do an out-lap, get back to the chequered flag and set a time. He made it with less than thirty seconds to spare, meaning this was the final lap as everybody else had already started their own final push.

With a deep breath, Nina set down her pen and pad and leaned forward in her seat, eager to see the entire thing play out.

"Okay, that's a purple first sector for Charles Leclerc." Crofty announced.

"I don't know what's going on, but Charles seems to be absolutely rapid today." Brundle declared. "His raw pace alone is looking pretty unbeatable in this Q3 session, it just depends on whether that Ferrari is going to be able to give him what he needs, or if the Mercedes' and the Red Bulls are going to have him in that respect."