Hot off the Press | Charles Leclerc | F1

t h i r t e e n

Charles was in Fia's fever dreams. Not much made sense in the hours of her illness, but his face was a constant—and so was her nausea. When Claudia tried opening the curtains, light splintered into Fia's eyes, driving into her skull, which pounded like someone was banging a hammer against it from the inside. She laid in the dark, alternating between sweating and shivering, as a fever raged through her body. Claudia and Adam kept her company when they could, but she was barely aware of their presence.

Claudia told her afterwards that she spent a large chunk of time bending over the toilet and laying on the floor, resting her face against the cool bathroom tiles. She couldn't remember, and for that, she was glad.

Somehow, in the haze of her fever, the hotel room had melted away, replaced by a scene conjured by her delirious mind.

In her dream, she and Charles were on a yacht as the sea roiled beneath them like a living, breathing thing. No longer blue, the sky was shrouded by a thick wad of bruise-coloured clouds. Wind howled through the masts of the nearby ships, which clanged and whistled in warning. Fia stood on the deck, feeling the boat pitching beneath her feet. The air smelt tangy like salt, carrying with it the promise of a storm. It was electric.

And there, opposite her, was Charles. Though she couldn't see his face, she knew instinctively that it was him, tangled in the naked limbs of a woman. Her long, dark hair wrapped around them like a cape, drawing them together. Behind the lovers, waves broke over the boat's prow, flooding the deck. Their bodies glistened in the eerie half-light of the storm.

Even as Fia's cheeks burned, she couldn't look away. The boat pitched again, this time knocking her from her feet. Her stomach lurched as she saw, in the distance, a wall of water thundering towards them. When she opened her mouth to scream, no sound came out. The boat was swaying too violently for her to move. The wave would smash it in half, submerge it, drown them.

Fia laid on the deck and closed her eyes, hoping the end would come quickly.

For a short while after that, her nightmares must have ceased. She vaguely remembered Claudia holding a glass of water to her mouth and asking her to sip it. Adam talked briefly about her and Claudia visiting New York during the summer break. Then she remembered vomiting. Again.

It wasn't long until she slipped back into her unfamiliar dreamland. It was like the never-ending loop of an acid trip but without the giggling fit that usually came before it. There was nothing funny about the pain in her head. Nothing interesting or profound about her nausea.

She remembered the rocking of the boat, which tipped this way and that, threatening to toss her into the churning sea.

She remembered a pair of green eyes.

Then, she remembered falling. The boat reared up, and the next thing she knew, she was flying backwards, gasping through useless lungs as she plunged towards the icy water.

She remembered a hand reaching for her.

Too late.

She remembered the shape of his mouth moving around words.

"What?" Fia shouted, falling in slow motion. Charles' answer then seemed like the most important thing in the world. She couldn't explain why; she just had to know what he was saying. "I can't hear you!"

His mouth moved again, but the crashing waves drowned everything else out.

That was when feeling battered and exhausted, Fia had woken up—not just from sleep, but from her fever, which had finally broken. The uncertainty of her dream followed her into reality, and she came to with the distinct sense that there was something she needed to know. Something she had missed.