barely legal | max verstappen ✓

prologue

Her mom talked. And talked. And kept talking. Sloane just hummed from time to time. She was listening of course, but the same conversation had been too familiar for the past six years. It was very tiring. It got like that after the second year, really. Her eyes were fixed on her nails, the noise of the party outside sounding far away in the secluded bathroom. Her manager was probably looking for her everywhere whilst she was there listening to her mother and her ramblings. She spoke too fast like the air would leave her, Sloane thought as she heard her father's name mentioned in the conversation for what seemed to be the millionth time.

It was when her mom took a breather or got distracted...or whatever that Sloane took advantage to say her opinions on the matter. Not that it was really important. Those calls were generally designed for her to listen, not to spill her thoughts. But she did it anyway. It was getting unbearable.

"Ma, maybe you should divorce him." She casually said, still staring at her nails. The nail polish was chipping off.

Her mom audibly gasped. "Sloane, that's your father we're talking about." She rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, I know. You've been saying his name multiple times." Sloane sighed. She wasn't looking at her mother but she could imagine the expression on her face. The offended one, she always had it. "I don't want to be mean, I love you both, but you've been calling me to complain about him cheating with people at work for the past I-don't-know-how-many years and I think it's time to get a divorce. Maybe. No one will get mad if you do." That was a lie.

Her family had money. Their name wasn't strange or unknown, at least not in their country. So people would talk, of course, they would. They talked when anything remotely scandalous happened. If her parents divorced, people would have a say in it. That was just how things worked. Her father liked to keep his name clean, and intact, and her mother wouldn't be the one to destroy the image people had of their family. Although that was broken a long time ago. Everybody knew her dad cheated on her mom with a lot of girls, disgusting, she thought. But her mother was there, still pretending. It wasn't nice.

Sloane couldn't describe the lecture she got when she broke things off with Charles, of all people. And then the Aurora thing. As if that was on her.

Her mom just cared too much about what others said.

"Sloane, be serious." She sounded irritated. "I shouldn't have called you. You're not being of any help." Sloane furrowed her brows, then unfurrowed them. Her mother's voice telling her she'd get wrinkles was traumatising.

You should seek professional help, she wanted to say but bit her tongue. "Ma, I need to leave. There's this event for work I'm at and Vivianne is probably looking for me." Her manager disliked her mom as much as the next thing. She always said she stressed Sloane out.

She could hear the big sigh from the other side of the line. "Alright, go ahead. We can talk tomorrow. Just one thing before you go," A pause. Sloane waited. "I saw the picture you posted the other day on social media. Your face is looking a bit chubby, better control what you're eating, Sloane."

Her eyes widened. "What?"

"Just a little advice, that's all. Have fun, my love, and take care." Her mother simply said and then cut the communication off. Leaving Sloane with the phone in her hands.

As the phone slowly came down, she fixed her gaze on the bathroom mirror and leaned in to take a good look at her face. Sloane moved her face from left to right, just checking. She looked fine. They didn't even look chubby as her mom had said, but her eyes kept staring. Then it stopped being only about the face because soon enough she was checking her entire body out, there was an anxious feeling settling in her. Like a twist in her stomach. Her mom's comments about her body weren't strange or unusual. It wasn't always like that, but she had started doing that when Sloane was around sixteen or so, when she saw potential, perhaps. They always made her subconscious.