LEWIS HAMILTON: A CHANCE AT LOVE

Painful Memories

Lewis had tried to move on. He really had. But all he could think about was Nicole. He had dated some of the most beautiful women in the universe. But he still wasn't satisfied.

Lewis thought of Nicole. She seemed happy. Nicole had moved on with her life. She had found a man that loved her as she deserved. She was even expecting a baby with her new boyfriend. Nicole's new boyfriend was everything that Lewis wasn't and everything that Lewis could never be. He was willing to settle down, he had time for Nicole, he was now Nicole's baby daddy and most importantly he was in love with Nicole.

Whenever Lewis would think of Nicole, he would never think of the countless memories they made together. He would never think of the good times they had together. He would never see Nicole's smile. The only thing he could think of was how inadequate Nicole always made him feel. Like he was never good enough. Because he wasn't. He would always think about the fights they would have. About his 'commitment issues'. He could only think about how much he couldn't take care of Nicole. How selfish he was because he wanted to be the best of the best in F1. How little time he had for Nicole.

Lewis concluded that he would never be good enough for any woman, or man for that matter. He was too selfish to spend time on anything else other than his career. He could never satisfy a woman fully. Never. He was too broken. Too bruised and battered from his parents' divorce to keep a woman happy. He had too many issues. Issues that he concluded he would never be able to sort out. He couldn't be able to trust a woman, love a woman and be a man that any woman deserved.

As he was on this trail of thought, he saw the screen of his phone light up. He hoped that it would be one of his friends, inviting him to a party of some sort. He didn't really care which one. He just wanted to stop thinking. His wish was granted. It was his best friend, Miles, who had texted him. He was inviting him to the opening of his nightclub that night in LA. Lewis knew he had to go. Not only to support his best friend, but to drown his own sorrows.

The night was a blur. Lewis didn't normally drink much, but tonight he couldn't hold himself back. He just needed to be happy, for one night. He just had to forget. Forget Nicole, forget his inadequacy, his feelings, forget everything. And he did just that that night.

The next morning, Lewis woke up with the worst headache of his life. Understandable, of course, since he'd been drinking last night as if there was no tomorrow. He went to his kitchen and grabbed two aspirin tablets. He just needed to sleep off the hangover.

Just as he was heading to his couch for a bit of a nap, his phone just lit up. And it didn't stop. He tried to ignore it. The headache needed to go away first. But his phone just kept lighting up. He wasn't expecting messages from anyone. He never was. Except his team boss Toto Wolff, who would text him every night. They were best buddies. Or his best mates Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo, who were also his rivals on the race track. Or his race engineer Peter Bonnington, or Bono in short, who was less of a colleague and more of a brother, especially during low moments such as these.

He knew he just had to check. Everyone seemed to be sending him the same video. This video had gone completely viral. When he checked out the video, the characters were familiar. It was him and Nicole. Damn it. All he wanted to do was to forget her, and now everyone's sending him a video of them together. He was tempted to throw his phone out through the window, but common sense got the better of him. He decided to just watch the video anyway.

The video itself was an after-sex tape. The one that Nicole had taken on their last night together in her London apartment. He saw how passionate they both were. It was their last night together anyway, so they didn't have anything to lose. He saw how passionately he kissed her, with Nicole simply enjoying the experience. Enjoying his body.

Lewis thought that he was hallucinating. He thought he was still a bit drunk. Maybe he was seeing his own things. He turned off his phone and decided to watch a movie on Netflix, which happened to be using one of Nicole's songs as the background music. It seemed like Nicole was following him everywhere. He then decided to go back to bed and sleep.

Lewis ended up sleeping for 12 hours. He woke up early the next morning at 5am. He went downstairs and switched on his phone. He needed to confirm that everything he saw yesterday wasn't true. But it was. The video actually existed. He didn't really care about how the video made its way online. That didn't really matter. The only thing that mattered at that moment was that the video was real. That it actually existed. That that moment between him and Nicole actually happened. That his relationship with Nicole wasn't all doom and gloom. That there were happy times in their relationship.

But as he watched that video, different feelings came to his mind. Feelings that he had never experienced before. Feelings that were bound to change his life forever. Feelings that told him that maybe he never loved Nicole, or Jodia before her, or Rita and Winnie after her. Feelings that told him that he was never in love and was never going to be in love. Feelings that told him that he was meant to be single for the rest of his life. Feelings that told him that he never had a soulmate, and that he would never have one. Feelings that told him that love was never meant to be for him.

Those feelings liberated him. He finally felt free. He felt like he was liberated from the chains that had enslaved him for 4 years since he and Nicole broke up. Those feelings made him decide what he would do. What he had to do so that he would remain happy. What he should have done a long time ago. What he would do from now on. And he did it there and then. Lewis took down the pictures he had of him and Nicole together on his bedroom wall as a sign. As a promise to himself that he swore never to break.

He would give up on love.