national treasures| Charles Leclerc

four

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾𖤓 ⋆⁺₊⋆

A part of me wishes, more than anything, that my mom was here.

She always knew how to make sense of things, how to remind me what mattered when I felt lost.

I can almost picture her standing at the edge of the track, watching me with that warm smile of hers, pride in her eyes.

She'd know what to say about all of this.

About Charles.

About the feelings I thought I'd buried.

Maybe she'd tell me that letting go isn't about forgetting.

Or maybe she'd just hold me, reminding me that no matter how strong I had to be for the world, I didn't always have to be that way with her.

I wish she could see me now, racing in Formula 1, doing the thing I told her I'd do all those years ago.

I know she'd be proud, and I just want to hear it, to hear her say that I'm doing okay, that I'm strong enough to handle this—even if part of me feels like I'm coming undone.

But instead, I'm here, on my own, grappling with memories and wounds I thought were healed.

And all I can do is keep my hands on the wheel and push forward, carrying her love with me, hoping that somewhere, somehow, she knows I'm finally here, doing it as I promised.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾𖤓 ⋆⁺₊⋆

Some days, the weight of it all feels like too much to carry.

I'm out on the track, the world flying by, and I tell myself to focus.

To push harder.

Like my dad and Jules would have wanted.

But then there are days when it's impossible to ignore the emptiness, the quiet spaces they left behind.

Losing my dad and Jules changed everything for me.

My dad was the one who pushed me, the one who taught me that anything worth having was worth fighting for.

And Jules.

He was more than just a mentor.

He was the friend who made me believe I could do this.

Who knew me better than I knew myself at times.

When I lost them, it was like the entire world shifted.

The things that used to seem so clear got blurry, and there was this part of me that was lost along with them.

Racing kept me grounded.

It was the one place where I could channel all that pain, and turn it into something that made sense.

And I think that's part of why I left Camille behind when I did.

She reminded me of a part of myself that felt vulnerable, of a time before everything became about surviving, about pushing past the hurt.

Letting her go was a way of shutting down any part of me that felt fragile or exposed, a way of keeping myself from feeling that loss all over again.

But now she's back, and all those walls I built to protect myself feel like they're starting to crack.

I can't avoid it forever, the way I feel, the pieces of me that I've tried to forget.

Being with her again, even just seeing her out there on the track, reminds me of everything I tried to push away.

The person I was before all this loss.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾𖤓 ⋆⁺₊⋆