Rêveries

Chapter 6.

August 18th we packed up our entire lives and moved to Sweden. A country in the north where everyone spoke a language that I didn't. I hated it... at first.

Mum and Dad told me on August 1st and I hated them. I told them that. They were just packing up and leaving. I had 18 days to just pack up the life I'd had for almost fifteen years and move. The worst thing was that they made me leave Arthur and Charles behind. I had been depending on their support for so long and now they were ripping me from them and taking me to another country just because they're not strong enough to fight.

Arthur and Charles were with me the whole time. They helped me carry the boxes with things from my room out to a big truck. They stood behind me when I watched my tiny hands printed on a canvas next to Jules' bed get thrown into a box. They sat next to me on the flight to Sweden and they stayed with me for the whole first week there.

I started school with the kids born in 1999 and they started the first year of gymnasium, so luckily it wasn't only my first day there. It didn't really matter though, because everyone else had someone they knew from before. I started with the kids a year older because of the school system being different from Monaco.

I had a translator with me and it brought more attention than I wanted it to. They were all staring at me in the classroom. They could talk about me openly without me realizing so I don't know if they did.

But I understand them. One day there's this girl from another country crying on TV and on the internet over her dead brother and the next she's sitting in your classroom. I get that it's weird.

When I came back from school that day I was so relieved to find Arthur and Charles waiting in my bed with a show on. They asked me all about the new school but I just shrugged. How am I supposed to know if I like it when I don't understand anyone there?

Eventually they had to go back to Monaco. Arthur went to start his last year and Charles was in the middle of a season in Formula 3. I was alone in a brand new country. I hated my parents and I hated my new home and my new school and my new life. I wanted Jules and only Jules. The hardest part was not being able to even visit his grave. I didn't talk to my parents at all for weeks. They made me go see a therapist, telling her I wouldn't talk to them. They said it was because of Jules's death but it was all because of them. They made me miserable. I was trying to put out the fire while they kept pouring more fuel.

As time went on, I made some friends. They would talk to me and each other in English so that I could understand. They helped me learn Swedish and after a year in Sweden I could communicate in their language to about 80%. I hung out with these girls a lot and whenever some of the boys at school would ask about Jules they would run them off. I liked that about them.

They showed me IKEA, ABBA music, we went to Gröna Lund and during my first year they took me to see everything. We celebrated Midsommar in June and they let me stay inside and cry for most of July. I was the closest with Svea, she was this gorgeous, tall, blonde and blue eyed girl who had the boys swooning after her. During July and beginning of August she came knocking on my window with cookies and popcorn and drinks and she'd climb in and we'd watch movies. Sometimes my neighbor, Silje, would join us. If you looked fast enough, you wouldn't be able to see the difference between them.

For my 16th birthday, we went to Monaco. I had to take some time off school but we really wanted to keep the tradition going. We had our joint party like always and we spent five days there before we had to go back to Sweden. I showed Arthur and Charles pictures and told them stories. Arthur told me about his graduation and it hurt to think that I should've been there with him, we should've graduated together.

We went back for Christmas and we stayed until I started school on January 9th. Charles was doing really good in racing. Arthur did too, but Charles was going really fast forward in his career. It made me happy for him but I was stuck constantly worrying. I saw so much of Jules in him and their careers were so similar. They had always been and our dads constantly joked about it. When Jules had a bad race weekend, Charles would too.

Nicolas, Jules' manager, had signed Charles too and had gotten him a seat with Sauber F1 team. Charles also started working with Jules' performance coach, because he knew them, it was easy. For them it was like working with another version of Jules.

After Jules's crash they prepared to install what they call 'the halo' on the cars to help prevent another crash like Jules'. Charles told me all about it, why it would be installed and how it would prevent another fatal crash.

Arthur came to visit me in Sweden during the summer break and we showed him Midsummer. We all had a lot of fun and snuck a bottle of some alcohol from my parents and downed the whole thing. We walked around Stockholm in our flower crowns and drunk off our asses. When we ran into David from my school, I even forgot to speak in Swedish and tried to communicate with him in French which was hilarious to Arthur.

When Arthur got back to Monaco, their dad passed. He had been sick for a while and was holding on just enough for Arthur to say his final goodbye. We went there for the funeral and my mum stayed there for a while to comfort Pascale. She needed her, but they still insisted on me going back to Sweden even though I knew Arthur and Charles needed me too. They had done so much for me when Jules passed and I wasn't even allowed to repay the favor. My parents argued that it was too soon for me to deal with another death. I went a few weeks without talking to them again, cursing them from keeping me from my friends who needed me. It was like losing a family member, losing him, and they lost their dad. I should've been there for them and they kept me from it.

The next time I went to Monaco was for our 17th birthdays. Charles told us he signed into Formula 1 for the 2018 season and my parents went silent for a moment before congratulating him. I hugged him and congratulated him with an honest smile that my parents couldn't give him. They hated the FIA for blaming Jules for the crash. They hated racing over all. But I knew that not everything can go on halt because he is gone, this had been their dream and at least one of them should get to do it. I knew Charles would do everything to make Jules proud of him. Jules put so much time into Charles and his racing career, he would hate for him to quit now.

We didn't go back for Christmas. They thought we should experience a real Swedish Christmas. I didn't understand why. It seemed so stupid. Christmas is supposed to be spent around the people you care about and the people I cared about were in Monaco. They just lost their dad. Christmas should be with people you love and they were going to spend it just the four of them without one of their loved ones. It was unfair.

During my years in Sweden, I still talked to Arthur everyday. I told him everything. I met a few boys and dated a little and I always told Arthur. He told me everything too, every race he won or girl he met. He told me some things about Charles too, but he seldom was on the call. He was either away somewhere or he just popped in to say 'hi' and to see how I was doing. I missed him, but two deaths are hard to deal with and I realized we were grieving differently and were slowly drifting apart. We were still close friends, but we didn't depend on each other the way Arthur and I continued to do.

Talking to Arthur made it so much harder for me to keep quiet when my mum told me that we were going to Monaco in May for Charles's first home race in Formula 1. Pascale had asked us to come to support him, she also wanted the support. Going back to that paddock all alone would be too hard, so we decided to make it a surprise for Charles. I wanted to surprise Arthur as well, so I had to keep quiet during all of our calls. It was harder than ever.

We talked on May 25th and he told me about Charles finally being home. They had two practice sessions already and qualifying was the day after. I pretended to be busy and hung up early to not accidentally say something.

Early morning on May 26th, we sat on the plane.