Eyes Don't Lie | Charles Leclerc

Part 7 | Black Out Days

June 2022

*Flashback*

It's been two months since Emma and I broke up, and I still can't believe it. I still replay that night over and over in my head, trying to understand where it all went wrong. She looked at me with those eyes, so full of poison, and said all those horrible things to me. Said I was too emotional, too invested in my racing, not performing well enough.. She wasn't wrong, but that didn't make it any easier to hear.

I tried to focus on racing, thinking it could drown out the noise in my head, but instead, it only made things worse. My home race in Monaco, my chance to prove something, to myself and to everyone, ended in disaster. Another DNF, another failure in front of everyone I grew up with, int he streets I grew up on. It felt like the world was caving in on me, and I didn't know how to stop it.

After that race, something in me snapped. I couldn't face the reality of it all, the emptiness I felt, the pressure to perform, and the constant reminders of what I'd lost. So I turned to the temptation of the bottle. At first, it was just a couple of drinks after a race to take the edge off. But it didn't stop there. The drinks turned into nights of binge drinking, stumbling out of bars in cities I didn't even recognize, my mind hazy and numb.

The parties became a routine...a way to forget, even if just for a few hours. I'd find myself surrounded by people I barely knew, their laughter loud, their faces blurred by the alcohol. Women would come up to me, their intentions clear, and I'd go along with it. It was easier that way, easier to lose myself in their attention, easier to avoid the thoughts that haunted me when I was alone. I'd wake up in unfamiliar beds, the weight of regret heavy on my chest, but I'd push it aside, convincing myself that this was better than feeling nothing.

I know this isn't me, but I can't stop. I can't face the reality of what I've become, the way I've let the pain control me. Every time I look in the mirror, I see a stranger staring back at me, a man who's lost his way, who's running from everything he once valued. The guy who wanted to be a champion under the Italian flag, who wanted to make his family proud, seems so far away now. Instead, all I see is someone who's spiraling out of control, someone who's trying so hard to escape that he's forgotten what he's even running from.

I know I can't keep going like this. I can't keep pretending that this is the answer, that drowning my pain in alcohol and meaningless encounters will somehow make it all go away. But every time I try to stop, to pull myself out of this hole I've dug, I find myself falling right back in, deeper each time. The truth is, I'm scared. Scared of facing the loneliness, scared of confronting the guilt, and most of all, scared that I'll never be the person I once was.

But something has to change. I can't keep letting this darkness consume me. I have to find a way to fight back, to climb out of this mess I've made, before it's too late. I just don't know how to start. 

I tried to remain hopeful with Ferrari promising me everything I wanted to succeed this season, but sometimes the devil is in disguise and promises that cannot be fulfilled create a chokehold around your mind. 

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞

Authors Note: Next chapter will show Charles getting back on his feet and maybe we'll see our fave girly, pop up again 😉