I'M YOURS, lewis hamilton

02

Mirabella was pretty sure there were only two things she hated about Formula One. Actually hated was too strong of a word. Disliked was better.

No, wait. She hated the fatal crashes, death on drivers' doorsteps, looming over them until it finally decided to capture their souls and bring them to the other side. Now, what she disliked was Free Practice. It was not fun to watch unless something interesting happened, which rarely happened. She just didn't see the point in watching them.

For the actual drivers, it made sense. But there was no point in it for her, someone viewing the action. She just found it insanely boring.

There were always the more intense fans who needed to watch it. She loved motorsport, but she would never see the same need.

So on Friday Mirabella and Martin spent their time working out at the hotel's gym—not as intensely as they usually would since they didn't have the right equipment, obviously—then they mapped their way through Monza the rest of the day.

They found stores, wasting money they probably shouldn't be wasting on stuff they really didn't need. It wasn't like money was a huge problem. They weren't multi-millionaires or something, but they had enough so they could spend a little without making a dent.

And naturally—since they were so out in the open—lots of selfies were taken and stuff was signed. More so her than Martin, with her being the country's world champion and all.

It was kind of weird being the one most noticed. Last time she was there in Italy she had been with the national team, parading around through their capital. And, yeah, she wasn't the least noticed but there were other players more appreciated. One of them included Alessandro who was Italy's best left-back at the moment.

He had always had a natural talent for it—the Football Prodigy—but so was she. The only difference was that he was more noticed for it.

She wasn't envious of it, she's never felt anything close to it ever in her entire life. She was proud if she was anything, but that didn't mean she didn't notice the difference in treatment.

It was kind of ridiculous when she thought about it. Usually, the fans appreciated the one scoring all the goals, and the stats showed that Mirabella scored the most goals out of every player on the team throughout the World Cup. But yet she hadn't heard as much appreciation for her as what her brother had.

Okay, maybe she felt a little envious, but the feeling was as huge as an atom. Aka it wasn't visible to the naked eye.

And it wasn't like she wasn't appreciated. She was the main reason they won the championship at all. So, of course she was. It came naturally with it, but—as she was so often reminded—she was still just a woman.

Maybe she had made stupid choices, joining the literal male-dominated part of the sport. If she had stayed with women's football she would be the best, always the most appreciated and well-known out of every player in the world. The greatest. It would have been better for her ego maybe.

But being the best was dangerous. It could easily get to your head, make you feel on top of the world. Make you feel like a god. But she didn't want to feel like a god. She wanted to stay down to Earth. Stay humble. That's what she's always read that she was supposed to be and she wanted to be it too.

She wanted to be great, to be known as one of the greatest. She just didn't want to lose herself to it whilst gaining it. That was her true nightmare. Her worst fear.

She didn't want to think too much about that though. So far the weekend had been pretty much perfect. And it was only first now—Saturday midday—that she got to swipe her paddock pass over the sensor, the screen lighting up and showing that it worked whilst the small gate—that had a stripe light up into green on the edge of it—disappeared into the machine letting her through.