The Surrogate

Missing

Sunday June 19th, London.

The room is completely silent, the only sound to be heard is a faint ringing in her ears. She's sitting on her white leather sofa, legs crossed, eyes unblinking as she stares at the black screen of her tv. The Canadian Grand Prix is well underway but she hasn't had the tv on once while she's been here. In fact she hasn't seen or spoken to single person besides Seb and a food delivery guy while she's been back in her London apartment, not even Esther knows shes here.

Unsurprisingly she's had issues with her blood pressure that resulted in a quick trip to a private hospital but it's also meant that she wasn't able to fly to Canada and so the decision was made (mainly by Seb) that they travel to London on Tuesday morning where he got onto a flight to Montréal that night. Her time accompanying him to races is over - for now.

She's missing him terribly, their earlier than planned enforced separation has hit her hard, so hard that she'd been really close to begging him to stay. If it wasn't his last season in F1 then she'd have probably done so.

During the week there's been a major development with the hit and run case that killed Matthew. The driver of the blue Subaru had been to the local police station in Scarborough and handed himself in, the damage to his car was too difficult to hide.

Matthew's funeral is scheduled to take place this coming Thursday, the twenty-third, at Woodlands Crematorium on the outskirts of Scarborough. Holly really wants to attend while Seb doesn't because he fears it would be too stressful for her and that he'd get recognised which would lead to more unwanted press attention. Plus she'd be thirty-six weeks pregnant and if her blood pressure continues to remain high then there's a chance she wouldn't be able to fly back to Switzerland and she'd have to give birth here. It's left her torn, she wants to go to the funeral to see if she can find out why Matthew wanted to see her but shes also aware that Seb really wants his child to be born in Switzerland and she knows how important that it is to him. It's a situation that's already caused an argument during a phone call with him. He'd insisted that going to the funeral wouldn't do her any good, he'd pointed out how she doesn't owe Matthew anything, how her ex had blackmailed her into coming to the UK and that she should just forget about it all and focus on getting her blood pressure down so they could fly back to Switzerland together on Tuesday evening. She knew he was right in a way, she didn't owe Matthew anything and attending the funeral would also mean coming face to face with his family, people she hadn't seen since she'd lost Imogen and if she got into a situation that meant she couldn't fly back to Seb's home for the birth then she didn't think she'd be able to forgive herself.

She rubs her face, sighs heavily and then flops back on the sofa, uncurling her legs from beneath her. Tonight will be yet another sleepless night, her mind is constantly churning over the same stuff again and again; images of Matthew's broken body laying on the road haunting her whenever she tries to close her eyes. The sooner Seb returns from Canada, the better.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Holly's eyes pop wide open and she takes in a sharp lungful of air as if she's just regained consciousness and the ability to breathe.

On the table in front of her, her phone is ringing loudly; it's a sound that feels like it's brought her back from the dead, back from the nightmare she'd been having.

She sits herself more upright and reaches out a hand to grab the phone, only to realise that she's shaking like a leaf. Seb's name is displayed on the screen and it feels like he's her guardian Angel, stopping her from falling into a black void. "Seb," she answers the phone, her voice shaking along with her body.

"Holly, has something happened? You don't sound right," he instantly sounds worried. Just the sound of his voice has her crumbling and dissolving into tears and while she can't speak for a moment, she hears him issuing instructions to someone, probably Britta, "check that everything is packed and make sure the car's ready and waiting so we can get out of here as soon as the debrief is over, I can't afford to miss this flight." A door can be heard closing and then he's speaking to her again, full of concern, "sweetheart, talk to me, I'm worried about you and it's killing me that I'm so far away and can't be there to hold you."