Broken Speed | Verstappen & Leclerc

03 | red shirt

-|- Bahrain -|-

As I turned around I saw the familiar face of the RedBull team chef coming over to us.

"Hey mate, how are you?" Christian said and gave me a handshake.

"Yeah, all good." I quickly returned before the older one luckily bend down to the kids.

"And hello you two." he said and took Lio's little hand before he leaned to Luka, "I'm Christian, the boss of RedBull."

"I'm Luka." the boy said before he looked towards the garage, "Can we go and see the cars?"

Christian laughed and then took Luka's hand before they walked into the garage, me and Lio close behind. Sometimes I was really glad that they were so adorable as other people then tended to talk to them instead of me.

And I didn't really wanna talk, neither about how I was nor about my new life or anything. I was just here to do the job as RedBull and Christian were still important to me. Inside the garage I then sat Lio down from my arms as there weren't too many people.

Christian quickly gave the kids some headphones so they won't hear the loud noises that were still there. He then lead them over to Daniel's car while I just stood there, looking at the place I once called home.

RedBull was still my family somehow, my home, but not as it had been before, nothing was like before.

"Good to see you back." suddenly someone said behind me and I could recognize the voice of my former engineer, GP.

"Hey GP." was all I returned, not sure what else I should say.

I still was a bit too overwhelmed by everything as over the last few weeks all I had been seeing was my apartment, my street and the supermarket at the end of it.

"Bringing our new rookies I see." the man laughed and patted my shoulder, gesturing over to Christian and the kids before he lowered his voice again, "How are you?"

It was a question I was sick off hearing by now. Every person's first sentence was asking about me and how I was holding up. I hated it, even though I loved all these people, it simply was too much and I couldn't hear it anymore.

Especially not because I didn't wanna answer it, not wanting to lie to them, like I always did when answering this question. There was nothing else in this situation.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"That's good to hear." GP returned before he gestured over to the media people that were in front of the garage, taking some pictures, "Excited for the challenges and marketing stuff?"

He laughed a little, knowing how much I used to hate these appointments. And nothing really has changed, only that I hated it even more. But I hated it all, being here, speaking to all these people.

I would have loved to just stay at home, lay in bed or anything like that. Not even playing with Luka and Lio, which I did a lot still, but it always made me more sad and gave me a bad feeling, knowing that I wasn't doing enough for them. That I would never be good enough for them.

"Okay mate, maybe we can talk later, but I have a meeting now." GP then said and patted my shoulder again, "Was good to see you and have fun today."

He then grabbed some papers from his desk before he walked out of the garage again. Luka than strolled over, taking my hand and pulling me over to Christian, Lio and the car.

"It's so cool." the kid beamed, showing me the car, "Did you also had such a car?"

"I had, it was pretty similar to this one actually." I returned and even forced myself to smile.