Lilly & Leclerc ~ [CL 16]

35. Carter

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"It's two days." Charles explains awkwardly through the phone, he sounds tired but I can't find it in me to care.

"I know that." My reply is dry and short and gives him entirely nothing to go off but this whole thing is old. I'm tired of it, you could even go as far as bored. How many times is he going to push me away before something clicks?

"I'll be there for Friday." Charles explains. He was meant to arrive here from Maranello on Wednesday, now the trip has been pushed a whole two days back. He's already spent five days at Ferrari following another disastrous race in Australia resulting in yet another DNF.

"Friday is Cara's hen do." My words are flat, just like half of my words since this conversation compiled of Charles' various excuses began. The car charm tied to my wrist feels like it's taunting me.

"What's a he-oh, yeah." Charles cuts himself off. I think in any other situation I'd find him adorable. The confusion over the Americanised bachelorette and British hen do has already been explained to him over a half distracted FaceTime call - no wonder he doesn't remember. Today, when Charles is cancelling (or rather 'postponing') him visiting by another two days, I don't find anything about him adorable. Infact I only find myself groaning in frustration that work of annoyance and maybe even anger back. "There's no races for three weeks. We can make plans on Saturday for some fun things to do." Charles cheers quietly, thankful for the existence of the 'spring break' as some of the teams had called it. I'm not sure I see any benefits to it yet.

His words make me tick. "You just said you would be here on Friday."

"It will probably be late by the time I squeeze in a few more hours there Fleur. And you're out, no?" Charles explains carefully, his words slow as if I'm stupid. I'm not. So really this means he won't arrive until the early hours of Saturday morning. That leaves us barely 48 hours to spend together. We were supposed to have double that (plus more). I'm bristling at the thought.

"And you're going to Paris on Monday, then back to Maranello on the third week - so this break really makes no difference to me." My thoughts spoken aloud make me realise that we truly have no time before the next Azerbaijani race at the end of this month. There truly are no benefits to this break for me.

"Lilly," Charles is slow to say my name. It leaves his lips at half speed and pleading, I don't know what to do with it. Maddie is sending me sympathetic glances from the floor where she's wrapping her hair around my curling wand listening to the whole thing - she's almost finished.

I'm almost finished too.

"You know I-" I stutter over my words, the frustration that's bouncing through my veins desperate to come out. Desperate to show him how exhausted I am of this, does he not realise?! Instead I just splutter quietly, working out what to say, how this could possibly be made better by words? It can't.

Charles is so determined to be a leader in his team. If he's a leader, if he can push, encourage and guide in all of the right ways he's convinced he can make it happen. With just the right amount of all his efforts Charles believes that he can be world champion this year despite his slow start to the season. He has to believe he can make it happen because if not then what's the point? If Charles can't make it happen then his fear that he's missed his one chance for world champion is real and I know nothing terrifies him more than that. It would be the worst thing in the world for him. Charles has to focus and give his all to Ferrari because as much as they need him, he needs them that little bit more.