Recipe for Love

Chapter 12

Charles 

"How can you not be a fan when your uncle is Lewis Hamilton?"
"I'm just not."
I searched her big brown eyes. She was not telling the truth. If there's one thing I can do besides drive fast, it's reading people. I can tell when someone is lying to me or hiding something, and Anna was definitely not telling the whole truth. Something drew me to her, and it wasn't just how damn pretty she was.
"What exactly brings you to Italy?" I asked.
She winced for a moment but then sighed softly. "I screwed up a bit in London. I needed to start somewhere else with a clean slate and Lewis offered me to live with him."
"That's nice of him. It's nice that you have such a close relationship and he lets you live with him."
She grimaced and then nodded. "Yeah, we're very close." She looked away and I knew she was lying again. I opened my mouth again to ask her if she ever wanted to go out when the door opened and Lewis burst in. He stopped in the doorway and stared at us in silence for a moment. He glared at me almost imperceptibly as if I had done something wrong and then turned to Anna. "We can leave now. If you don't want to stay here," he told her. Anna jumped to her feet and shook her head. I looked at them and noticed the similar gestures they made, the similar smile, and the exact same twinkle in their eyes. Strange. "Well, bye, it was nice to talk to you," Anna said in a low voice and waved at me slightly, Lewis just nodded frowning and then they both left for the corridor.

When I finally got back to my apartment, it was already dark outside, and the fact that the apartment was empty put me in a bad mood again. I took an open bottle of wine out of the fridge and poured myself a full glass, with which I returned to the couch. I drank mindlessly until I reached the bottom and went for more. It flashed through my mind what Joris would think if he saw me now drinking stale wine, staring at the turned-off TV, and thinking of him of all people.

I was awakened by the sharp rays of the sun hitting my face. My mouth felt like a desert and my head was pounding. I opened my eyes and noticed two empty wine bottles on the table. Two? When did that happen? I rubbed my hands over my eyes and sat up with a moan. Maybe Joris was right. Maybe I have a bit of a problem. Having one drink after a long day is probably fine. Having a bottle and a half after a long day is probably not. I sighed and snuck into the bathroom to take a long, cold shower and try to put myself together.

Today I only had afternoon training with Andrea, nothing else. I hadn't been in a good mood for a long time, so I gradually canceled all meetings that weren't necessary. Although I had more free time than was otherwise common at this time of the year, I also had much more time to think about my somewhat useless existence at the moment.

At 3 p.m. there was a knock on the door. I looked around the apartment to make sure I had wiped away all traces of my escapades yesterday and then let Andrea inside. One look at me was enough for him to wrinkle his nose and shake his head in disappointment. "What happened?" he asked, his blue eyes cutting into me like two knives. "Nothing happened," I grumbled and shrugged. "Should I call your mom to talk to you? Or worse...Joris?" His voice was calm, but I could see in his expression that he was getting a little upset. "Joris doesn't talk to me," I admitted.
"Why isn't he talking to you?"
"Because he got offended when I told him he was bothering me. He still feels like he has to babysit me, but I'm an adult. I can take care of myself."
"Don't be mad at me, but I agree with Joris on this. How much did you drink yesterday?"
I looked at him scared. I was so sure no one could tell. "Nothing," I lied.
"I can smell it a hundred miles away. If you want to push away people who care about you and if you want to throw away your career, I don't want to see it. We all know that life hasn't been easy for you, and we all know that you haven't had it easy lately either, but you have to do something about it before it's too late. And now I'm not speaking as someone who wants to lecture you. I'm speaking as your friend who cares that you don't fall into total shit, okay?"
I swallowed the lump in my throat and nodded. "What do you think will happen if you do this before race weekend?" Andrea went into the kitchen and opened the fridge. When he didn't find what he was looking for, he moved to the lockers, and he went through all of them one by one, finally clapping his hands in satisfaction. "Have a session with a therapist, call Joris, and settle it with him. Go for a walk and clear your head. I'll be here this time tomorrow, and even though I'm not your parent, I swear to god if I smell alcohol from you again, I'll take you to the psych ward myself."

I did what he said. After almost two hours of therapy session, I felt as if I had let the whole world down in addition to myself. My eyes were burning from the constant crying, but the therapist kept reassuring me that I just needed to surround myself with the right people and not take so much on myself. I was beginning to feel that her advice might not be what I needed to hear, and I wasn't sure if I should feel any worse after talking to her than I did before. One sentence kept repeating in my head: "What do you think will happen if you do this before the race weekend?"