10 Years Later Ago - Lando Norris

01

"You never really told me about him" Kasey, my best friend of 6 years, comments as she slumps down onto the bed next to me.

As 27 year old women, we still behave like 14 year old girls when we are outside the office with regular sleepovers and gossip sessions. Tonight, is no different. It's a Tuesday night, which means strategy meeting night, which means sleepover night.

Kasey and I met at business conference launch in London about six and a half years ago, I was only developing my marketing firm and Kasey was head of social media development at her existing firm and we hit it off instantly.

It didn't take long for Kasey to move over and join my firm and history has written itself.

I roll my eyes and scoff at her, "Come on" I groan, taking a much needed delaying sip of my Pinot Noir. "He was like, a high school romance, it doesn't matter" I play it off.

She glares at me knowingly, "Now you come on" she plays, "he's literally the reason you've shut down every single date for as long as I've known you"

Downing another huge mouthful of courage, "I've dated" I don't even believe my tone.

"Three date fate" she mocks. A phrase I know from her all too well.

Needing something else to fidget with, I pull the elastic from the plait hanging down my back and begin to loosen it. "That's ridiculous" I chuckle.

"No one makes it past three dates and you know that. You find something to give you an out and you always compare it to him".

And now I know we've crossed into serious territory, "I dunno, I just don't see a relationship in my plans right now. We've been so focused on getting this company off the ground, I don't need or want distractions"

She accepts my reasoning for now; but this conversation has been ongoing for about 5 years. And it always just goes in circles.

Glancing at the clock, it's just past 1am and I know it's time for bed. I snuggle in next to her, giving her a quick kiss on the back of her head before facing the other way, praying my dreams don't take me to him tonight.

Lando Norris was everything you could have imagined in your first love. He held up all the ideals of what that love looks like, but he broke me in every way your first love can, and then some.

It was the kind of heartbreak that doesn't even leave you feeling numb, it was like he broke all forms of feeling all together. When you give someone so much of you, so much of your history, so much of your trust, your fears and your dreams and they tarnish every inch of it, it's impossible to come back from.

I felt at times I was overreacting, I felt like I was just caught up in a teenage romance drama, but it wasn't. It was so much more. Lando knew my deepest and darkest secrets, he knew every raw emotion and every detail of how to destroy me. And he took that knowledge, and used it to rip me to pieces.

I hear as Kasey drifts off into her sleep as I toss and turn at the resurfaced memories of my greatest love and greatest fall. I often wonder at times, does he ever think of me? Does what happened to us play on his mind as much as it does mine? Is he scarred in the same ways I am.

Part of me hopes he hasn't, part of me hopes that if I'm ever brought up in conversation, he smiles simply at my name and agrees that we used to know each other, but then the conversation moves on and that's all I became to be. A simple memory. But another part of me hopes he's hurting just as much, that I was the one who got away, I only hope for this not out of malicious or spite; but only as confirmation that what we had held weight. It was as beautiful as I thought. That he loved me as much as I loved him.

Finally, I'm granted some peace, and I drift off into slumber, only to be met face to face with him in my dreams.