Work For It (Daniel Ricciardo)

Killing Me Slowly

"Is there any reason you moved to the couch half way through the night?" Dan spoke suddenly. We were currently on the way to the track after our very early morning run.

"Oh um..."

Fuck.

How did he know that I'd moved? I'd made sure that I was awake before he even was up so he didn't notice that I'd left him in bed in the late hours of the night.

I knew I had to tell him that I didn't want this, us, as a relationship. Friendship I could do. I was great at those. Relationships on the other hand, are a massive no go area. But, my plan was to tell him after the Grand Prix was over, and to try not to lead him on before I had the chance to explain.

And that started by stopping the spooning. Luckily for me, he was going to be busy over the next few days with the racing. And he was off out to dinner with his family tonight, so that should be easier, well, one could hope.

Maybe I could talk to Jade about this. No. That always ended in her telling me I was an idiot and then proceeding to tell me how I needed to do the exact opposite of what I wanted to do.

As much as I loved her, I had to deal with this my own way.

"I just couldn't sleep." I lied. "It's too hot," I kept my eyes down on my feet as we walked.

"..Okay." I took a shaky breath, feeling him staring at me.

"I've got to finish some stuff off today, so I'll be in the back room, but I'll see you afterwards, unless you need something?" I told him, looking up at him, meeting his eyes before I looked away quickly.

"No, I'll be fine, I'm gonna talk to my engineers, think about strategies for Quali, and how the car is but I'll come in before to grab my helmet. What about you? Do you need anything?"

"No, no, I'll be fine. Meet me afterwards, I probably won't leave their, not many friends and all that."

"There's a canteen sort of thing, you can go mingle. No one's stopping you," I watched from the corner of my eye as his shoulders shrugged.

"I'll have a look." I gave him a small smile.

-

I ran my hands through my hair with a heavy sigh. I'd been sat here for a few hours now, Quali was about to get underway, and I hadn't left the room since I got here. I just wanted to be alone. I knew Daniel had figured out that there was something wrong, and I knew he wanted to find out what it was, but I didn't know how to tell him exactly.

Where would I even start? Sorry Dan, I can't be with you no matter how much I want to hold you and never let go because I'm too broken for a functional relationship. Yeah, that wasn't going to work. Maybe I should just wait until he forces an answer out of me. Maybe that would work.

And it wasn't just my feelings, or Daniel's for that matter (not that I wasn't thinking about his feelings, trust me, I was), but trying to do what should effectively be rather simple, was turning out to be a lot more stressful than I thought.

Not only did I have to fit the minimum of forty-five hours of training in a month, mixing them between strength, cardio and reactions, but I also had to fit it around the plans Christian had with him for meetings, stimulator sessions, general debriefs, and recovery time from the races and there was the PR schedule for Daniel that had to be fitted in as well.

My life was turning into a living hell of stress.

I angrily rubbed out the section I had pencilled in, before throwing my pencil across the room, breaking down into tears. Great, a week into the job and I can't even do this.