Rêveries

Chapter 87

1,5 years later

I'm an IDO-world champion. Alexander and I went to Poland in December 2021 after a long year of constantly practicing with one of the best coaches there is, who's trained four, now five championship winning duos. Every day we made sure to practice for the championship winning competition. We worked on other choreographies for other competitions in the US as well. We won competition after competition, and I had never been so confident in my ability to dance ever. I was the best I had ever been, and I was doing exactly what I wanted to do and I was exactly where I wanted to be in my career. I was very content with signing a contract to continue dancing with Alex for 2022 as well. Charles wasn't upset about it either.

Charles had grown to love Alex, and whenever Charles came to visit he spent nearly as much time with Alex as he did with me. He knew I was safe there, and he knew I was happy there. He knew I was achieving my dream, and he knew I was getting more and more confident. He saw it all happen in front of him. The way I'd grow with every gold medal I took home, and the way I'd never shy away from a camera anymore, or the way I didn't care about what people said about me, because somewhere in the confidence I was gaining, I realized that people were telling me how bad of a dancer I was, but I was still bringing the gold medals home so there had to be some other reason they wanted to tell me how bad I was, and it was most likely within themselves.

It was noticeable to everyone that I wasn't hiding away anymore. I was a championship winning dancer, and dating Charles. The two things people would always have something to say about, but became the two things I wasn't scared of showing off. I was proud of my championship and every achievement I got, and I was damn sure proud of dating Charles.

He came to visit as soon as he had a few days off, I came home a lot too, as Alex was very understanding that I had my home and my entire life in Monaco, and I had left it to work with him. He understood that I wanted to go home to visit occasionally. So I had the whole month of August off to spend Charles' summer vacation with him. Alex and I parted after celebrating the championship. He went to LA and I went home to Monaco to spend Christmas and New Year there.

We went to Abu Dhabi for the last race. Charles wasn't in the fight for a championship, but Max sure as hell was. Evie and I had been to as many races as possible. I went home for the Monaco race, I was there in Canada, in France, USA and the final race in Abu Dhabi where Lewis and Max were both fighting for the championship.

Evie was nervous, I was nervous, Max wanted to pretend like he wasn't nervous, but he was. He was still focused and he was still confident, but being nervous doesn't mean you're not able to fight it out. I wished him good luck and I made sure to do the same for Lewis. I'd be happy for any of them, but it was still Max and he'd get his first championship. Evie is my best friend, and she had to miss her brother just like I had as a kid. When Max was away fighting for this, she had to miss him the way I had to Jules. I would have done anything for Jules to win a championship so that all the time away from us would be worth it. Max winning a championship would be a deep breath out for the entire family. I would give everything for that, so I wanted it for her.

Isa and I were in the garage watching, and for the first time ever, I wasn't really watching Charles even though I still wanted him to do good. And even though it was controversial, and even though I thought it was a bit unfair to Lewis, but at least Evie's family got to take a deep breath and let it out with all the sacrifices they had made through the years. He became a world champion, and all the time and all the sacrifice became worth it.

When I met him after the podium, he hugged me and he shook me around like crazy.

"Two championships in one week!" He said, as he had been there to see me win my championship a week earlier.