dear hazel, | lewis hamilton

17

3rd of December, 2022

Dear Hazel,

When I said that the 2016 season was one of the toughest years of our marriage, the 2021 season was the toughest year of our marriage.

It's almost been an entire year since then, and I'm still struggling to get over it. The past 12 months felt like a haze, and I can hardly recall much of what happened. It's like I've been living life from a distance, not in control of myself or my body.

The memories still haunt me. Every moment of that year inhabits my nightmares, my days and nights. If I could erase it from my memory I'd do it in a heartbeat.

the 2021 season was a fire made of sticks and wood. with the sticks being mercedes and the wood being redbull.

as each race passed by, the stakes grew higher and higher, where even a simple breath could jeopardize everything.

it was currently the silverstone race, hazel narrowed her brows as she absorbed the data that constantly changed, laid out on the multiple monitors in front of her.

her heart thumped in anticipation, feeling the immense adrenaline as she saw lewis' mercedes defending for his life against max's redbull.

the way lewis was driving recklessly didn't go unnoticed by her, she knew he was fueled by a lot of anger. mostly due to the fact that he was nearly 10 points behind the lead and thanks to their argument not long before the race.

besides, it's all they ever seemed to do for the first half of that season.

despite not being on the best terms, she could still feel her heart momentarily stop when the two cars got too close to each other.

that was until a car flew off the track, straight into the barriers at one of the highest speed corners in the whole circuit.

she could feel her heart in her throat as they tried to distinguish whose car it was, before quickly realizing it was max who was launched into that barrier.

that did little to ease the knot in her stomach, having grown very fond of max during her years at redbull. after all, she was the main engineer who worked on his car.

the entire garage let out a sigh of relief once the voice of max echoed through the radio, with a bunch of groaning- yes, but the priority was that he was fine.

when she watched a replay of the crash, she was fuming.

if lewis wanted to be aggressive, then fine, so be it. but to cause another driver to crash out because of it? that was something hazel wouldn't let slide.

finally, the race ended, with lewis being the obvious winner.

she couldn't believe how wide the smile on his face was when this win was his most undeserved win. once the podium celebrations were over, hazel made her towards the champagne drenched mercedes driver.

he had a sly smirk on his face as he saw her approaching him, initially thinking she was going to congratulate him for winning- but that thought was quickly proven wrong when he saw the angry look on her face. angela, who was walking with lewis, took it as a sign to leave the couple be.

"no congratulations?" he raised a brow.

that only fueled her anger even more, and it was a rare sight to see hazel foster hot-headed.

"congratulations? for what? for nearly killing a driver for a 'win'?" she scoffed in disbelief.

just by hearing her tone, the previous smirk on his face was now replaced by a frown. "are you seriously blaming me for that crash? the guy squeezed himself when he knew there wasn't any space for him."