Perfect Disaster-Charles Leclerc

three

CHARLES POV

I am hating every moment of this staircase, this drive, this evening. The brick-colored suit was recommended by Andrea because I couldn't wear the Ferrari one even though I would have felt more comfortable, less conspicuous

As soon as I walk in I drop her hand from mine, I remembered last year's hall much smaller, much less high, they could fit 10 single-seaters vertically but the beauty is priceless: the chandeliers are hanging but they look heavy, heavier than my mood and yet they don't fall.

My gaze remains there, on those beautiful luminous objects over our heads that could fall at any moment, it is so like love as a concept. The usual large windows still bring a lot of light into the room and it seems to me that the gardens have grown even larger: I just want to get lost in them like all those children in the Minotaur's labyrinth until my Ariadne comes to rescue me from my bewilderment

"Charles! Carlos is here!"

wakes me up Charlotte from that fantasy

"Hello mate!"

my eyes however have spotted someone behind him, or rather, someone. I look at her and it is like representing Donatello's most beautiful painting. Her hair perfectly wavy and impeccably coiffed but looks out of place, which hinted, to the most attentive, that she was happy as she got ready, her earrings perfectly matched like the pendant that rests delicately in the hollow of her neck, and her lilac dress that looks divinely good on her: it is tighter in the first part and then opens up into a voluminous skirt just right surely so as not to draw everyone's attention but she doesn't know that in fact everyone in this room has noticed her, everyone in this room is thinking the same thing as I am-that she is as beautiful as Botticelli's Daisy.

I feel my eyes burning, I am no longer sure if my cufflinks are attached properly, I am no longer sure if the suit fits me. I try not to point it out, I keep my hands along my hips and keep looking at her while I don't hear a word of the conversation between Carlos and Charlotte. It's as it a thunderbolt is passing through our eyes, I can't take my eyes off: she was digging into my memory and I into hers, and I wonder if she didn't realize that something like this had never happened to me before. "Excuse me Charlotte"

I pull away soon after Carlos finally manages to position himself in front of her.

feel shortness of breath as if I had been holding my breath until now, those gardens are as big and intriguing as I thought, they seem as complicated to understand as my head right now. I wanted to say something, a joke, encouragement, anything but nothing, nothing came out. It seemed like one of them wanted to talk but neither of them did anything. My eyes were still set in his clear ones.

"Charles, are you okay?"

Charlotte's voice brings me back to reality for the second time

"yes, I needed some air"

I lie, I wanted some cold on my face so I could focus on something else and not on the fact that all the boys in this room have noticed the same girl I noticed and will be pawing to know even the name that Carlos will hide like a treasure

"Pierre is looking for you, we'll meet him dancing, after the award ceremony" "time to go then".

"CHARLES LECLERC!" "PIERRE GASLY!"

I hug as hard as I can my best friend who I know is aware of what happened this morning.

" guys the awards ceremony"

we are taken back by his escort whom I quickly greet as I feel my friend's gaze on me reassuring that I am really okay.

"the winners of the winter ball are Carlos Sainz and his friend April Heller "