[ Final Chapter ]
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Abu Dhabi, 2022
«We could call it even, even though I'm leaving.»
Valentina rested her head on Aurora's shoulder, and the latter smiled. Truth be told her friend had been acting like she passed away during the entire weekend, but she understood where she was coming from.
Everything was a bit nostalgic, she never thought she would be able to work for a Formula One team, much less one like Ferrari, and the idea of leaving all that behind was unsettling, but Aurora also knew that in order to get better with herself, to forgive herself, she would have to make those kinds of sacrifices. She was at peace with herself and that was all that mattered.
With the high of the end of another season slowly dying down, Charles looked around as soon as he was free from everything to try and find her, it wasn't hard to do anyways. His lips tugged into a smile as he caught the scene of Valentina wrapping an arm around her and nuzzling Aurora like she was a cat. Charles stopped in his tracks, trying to think what even he could tell her, a couple of minutes later he felt Carlos crashing against his back.
"You always do that." His teammate complained with a huff, Charles was far too distracted to care about those shenanigans. Carlos stood next to him. "Just go and talk to her, Charlie." He suggested and Charles looked at him.
After she ended things with him, they made sure to keep a considerable distance between one another in the remaining races of the season, Silvia seemed quite pleased about the situation, but neither Charles nor Aurora could deny the whole thing still made them feel like they were being watched of supervised the whole time. Their contact had been almost minimum, just work-related things, and Charles found himself staring at her from the distance on more than one occasion — his teammate had pointed out how pathetic that looked, but Charles just opted to shrug it off every time Carlos mentioned it.
"This might be the last time you ever see her." Carlos pushed, although his tone sounded like he didn't even believe that one.
Charles sighed and nodded. He ran a hand through his hair as he made his way over to where Aurora and Valentina were standing, slightly grimacing at the damp feeling of sweat and just cleaning it on his race suit. Valentina took her arm off Aurora when she spotted Charles getting closer to them, he just noticed how she whispered something to Aurora before walking away to join another group of Ferrari staff. Aurora waved at him, it was a bit shy but she managed to even give him a smile.
"Hi." His lips tugged into a smile, genuine happiness to be so close to Aurora again.
She returned it. "Hey there, Charles." Aurora looked behind him, she was so used to Silvia being around that she did it out of pure reflex. "Another end of the season, congratulations."
"Yeah, well. Thank you." It was hard for him not to summarize his season as a complete disaster. Not because of the lack of podiums, or champagne, he went through two breakups and lost the championship; it was technically a disaster. "How are you? I mean, how are you feeling?"
Aurora looked up, the last remaining fireworks disappearing from the night sky. "It's so weird." She smiled. "But it's fine? I don't know, it just feels alright."
Alright, Charles wanted to protest, because there was no way things felt alright for him. But it wasn't about him, it was about Aurora and he had to deal with it. The one that got away or something like that.
