Sparks - Daniel Ricciardo

Sixteen

📍14th July 2021 - London, UK

She left and never looked back.

Weeks had now passed since anyone had seen Amber at the race track but Francesca still remained highly supportive of every decision her best friend had made. Francesca was highly frustrated with her decisions, however, and would often remind her friend that she made a mistake.

But this 'mistake' gave Amber time to reflect on the whirlwind her life had been since the beginning of the year and she needed some alone time for clarity and reflection.

Her writing had taken off again and she had many more projects to focus her time and attention on, instead of focusing on one Australian in particular.

The only form of communication she had with Daniel was viewing his social media posts. She had been supporting the McLaren team from afar, noticing how Lando was doing incredibly well, often gaining third positions.

Daniel was pushing for his new team and remained in the top ten most weeks. Amber remained proud of him and wished him every ounce of luck and success she could.

Francesca visited Amber when she could, especially when she was only working in Woking, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to spend time together as Francesca's workload increased dramatically as Lando was now the rising star of a Formula One team.

She was here, there, and everywhere, in every corner of the world you could imagine, and she was thriving.

Amber had remained fine ever since leaving Monaco, choosing to remain focused on what was important.

During her break, she visited her family back in Brisbane, spending time with her mother as she felt as if she needed some family time to reassure her constant thoughts and even had chance to see Connie for a little while as she based herself in Australia for a week.

Turning her phone off and cutting contact from everyone is what she needed, but she did dread turning her device back on to see the constant texts and missed calls from Francesca.

Funnily enough, Daniel hadn't attempted to reach out this time. He finally turned his back on the situation at hand and left it where Amber had left in Monaco.

It was hard to identify how Daniel was feeling and the job had been a difficult one between Michael and Blake to determine what sort of mood he would be in on a daily basis.

Daniel approached the situation with the same strategy as Amber and placed all of his efforts into driving. This was going well for him, even with the few weekends where he didn't score the points, most drives he remained within the scoreboard and that was pleasing him just fine.

He spent most days relentlessly training when he could, blocking out any thoughts and images of Amber. He couldn't think about her anymore. She was just another person to add to his list of people who either ran a mile because of his busy schedule, those who just wanted him for fame and fortune, or those who didn't want a serious relationship. He felt like a failure in the love department, so he needed to become a champion in the career category.

Amber hadn't given herself a second's chance to think about Daniel, until Francesca revealed to her that they were all going out for his birthday. Never once did she suffer from the fear of missing out, but this time it hit her hard. She noticed Daniel's smile on many Instagram stories and photographs which made her heart full.