One Day // Daniel Ricciardo

CHAPTER 4

I woke from a deep sleep in a panic, I sprung off the couch throwing the blanket that was across me in to the corner.

"Hey, hey, what's wrong? What's the panic?" Danny gasped, jumping up and running over to me.

The place was in darkness and he was lying asleep next to me. My head had been resting on his thighs as a pillow.

"How long have I been asleep for?"

Danny squinted looking at his phone, the bright light hurting his eyes. "About ten hours."

The longest I'd slept in a long time, admittedly I felt good and refreshed which was a first.

"Don't worry, Max and Kelly took Hallie back to theirs. They said they'd look after her for the day, you can get some rest or do what you want to without worrying."

My eyes widened, "What? Why did you let them? Why are they doing that? I don't want anyone else to look after her, she's not mine for anyone else to look after."

"She is, you need to let us help you."

"I don't need help; I was perfectly fine until you came and wanted to interfere. I wanted to tell you what happened as a line of respect considering we were working together again but I didn't want you involved."

"But you do." He sighed, "You need me and I need you that's how it's been and that's how it'll always be. I understand that you don't want me near her and I respect that but at some point, it will change and at some point, you'll let me in because that's how you work Jess, you forget that I know you and I've known you for a long time and I'm not like your Mum, I'm not coming in to disappoint."

I took a deep breath, thinking about what he was saying.

"When have I ever disappointed you?"

He was right. He never has, as a couple we barely argued. It was the opposite that he didn't understand though. I was the disappointment in the relationship, I was forever doing little things that let him down and that was never the love he deserved. Even if he said they weren't disappointments they still were.

Explaining that to him though was like explaining to a brick wall.

"What have you not been able to do in a long time that you'd love to do right now?"

I thought about it for a minute. I wasn't able to get away from him today and I knew that.

"Run." I finally said, in the past running was like my medicine it kept me as sane as possible.

He screwed up his face in return, "I don't have any gym stuff with me."

I laughed and started walking away from him, "Who said you were invited?"

I left him standing in the living room, his mouth left slightly opened too stunned to reply.

What he didn't know was that when I moved out of our place here in England, I also took a box of his stuff with me. Looking back, I don't know why, it wasn't a mistake I intentionally found some things belonging to him and put them in a box.

It was tucked at the back of my walk-in wardrobe, a little dusty and worn but it was all there. When I presented it to him, he looked surprised.

"I've been looking for this!"

Admittedly if you're going to take some things belonging to someone you shouldn't really take their favourites.

"I think I wanted to still have a part of you, I don't know really, I have one shirt I slept with for a while but then I realised it was a bit weird so I put it away... I don't really know why I'm telling you that but there's definitely an outfit there for running."