back on track

40. the one remembering the angel

Rest of the summer break had flown by and I found myself in a plane once again. Half excited, but also little sad leaving. I had been able to do everything important though. I had visited my grandpa a lot, caught up with my friends and family and just relaxed, so I was good to go. Also the fact that I missed everyone I had gotten close past almost seven months had been a pretty good motivator to get me to the plane and towards Italy.

I landed to Bologna late at night and once again I was arriving at the same time then a certain Spaniard.

"Hey" I shouted and people turned around to see what was going on as I waved like a lunatic to the guy on the other end the hall. Carlos shook his head but I could tell he was smiling. I sprinted towards him not caring about anyone else as Carlos was still dying in embarrassment. Not too much I guess cause he still caught me as I launched myself at him wrapping my legs around his torso like I was used to.

"Is good to see you again" I said as I hugged the guy.

"Yeah, I could tell that from all that" he told me gesturing to the show I had put up some moments ago.

"What? I was just happy to see a familiar face" I shrugged making the guy laugh.

"Oh I missed you and your crazy ideas" he sighed throwing a hand over my shoulders as we exited the airport.

.

It was only a week before the first Grand Prix so everyone had been pretty busy for past to days before we had had to head to Spa. It was already Thursday meaning press conferences and Carlos had been paired with Danny which to me seemed to have all the ingredients to be total chaos or just fine but you never knew in these things when you put Daniel with one of those drivers he dared to mess around a bit.

The press thing went fine and for me it was more just getting know the paddock and track then anything else so I spent most of my evening just walking around the paddock but also proceed to cycle around the track once.

As I passed the corner I once again remembered how emotional this race was for everyone. In our garage especially for Charles. Anthoine had really left his mark in all of us and while we always raced for him, in here it was the thing in everyone's mind even more then anywhere else. Thinking back to Charles' first win on the same weekend made me always emotional and for me that was the one performance from Charles that stood out the most.

I kept going and for my surprise there was barely anyone on the track with me so I could just listen to music and look around in silence but getting back to pitlane things changed as the full fuss was on. Everyone was back to work and trying to set up everything needed as they had been probably for all day already.

I left the bike to our garage where I had gotten it in the first place and continued my journey by foot. I said hello to some people but hadn't found any of my friends yet. I walked little further of the track and spotted one guy who for sure was going through a lot of emotions being back here.

"Hey, how you holding up?" I asked as I walked to Pierre who was sitting alone away from all the action.

"Hi, I'm doing okay actually" he gave me a smile and nodded me to sit down and I did.

"That's good" I smiled to the guy. "So how was your break?"

"We went to Spain, which was nice and then I just spent my days in France surfing and all that stuff" he told me and I got him to told me even more about his trip knowing it would give him something else to think about even for a moment.

"I know what you're doing" he smiled at me.

"Sorry" I looked down with a small smile.

"Don't be, it's nice that someone cares" he nodded thankful. "I mean it's always hard to get back here, my emotions are all over the place" he admitted finally even though I kind of knew it already.

"Yeah, I think it's only healthy" I told him. "You've gone through a lot" I pointed out.

"I guess yeah" he sighed. It was not a frustrated or mad sigh it just sounded tired.

"Come on, let's go" I told him getting up. Pierre gave me a confused look but I nodded him to get up.

"Where are we going?" he asked as I lead him back towards the paddock.

"To do something we should" I told him walking towards the media center. I got inside and found my package. Opening it up I picked up two candles and two different bouquets of flowers. I turned to Pierre who stared at me in awe.

"You have no idea how much this means to me" he whispered as I gave him one candle and flowers. Picking up the matches I was ready to go. I gave him a warm smile and then we walked towards the track. We didn't talk and we didn't need to. We both were in deep thought thinking about the angel watching over us.

As we got there we stopped and just stared the barrier. There were already some flowers placed next to the barrier and I was first one to walk there. I lighted up the candle and placed it next to the flowers. Then I put my flowers next to the barrier so the little note hang out. I stayed there for a while after stepping back making room for Pierre as he did the same and said hi to his friend.

Walking back to the paddock it was still quiet until Pierre broke the silence. "How did you know him?" he asked quietly and I raised my brows at him. "I saw the note on your flowers" he told little embarrassed.

"Oh" I said thinking how I could explain it to him. "I first met him when I was around ten" I started feeling little anxious. "And all the way up til I was fourteen, which would make him nineteen or something, he was kinda helping me out with everything if you could say that" I tried to make sense without making any sense to now very confused Pierre. "Anyways after that we parted ways but kept in touch all the way until.." I went silent.

"Oh wow, I had no idea" Pierre seemed to be pretty struck by the info he had just gained.

"Yeah well, I don't think he would've talked too much about me" I let out a small laugh. "At least at first I was more like a professional burden to him than anything else" I smiled to the memories. "I mean we ended up becoming friends eventually" I added.

"So you must've been 'S' he was talking about" Pierre nodded seeming to get hang of it which made him smile wide and I smiled to the nickname.

"Yes very much" I laughed, it was kind of a relief that Pierre knew now.

"Wait, but that means you've been racing, like for real?" he stopped on his track.

"Well, I wouldn't say for real, just for fun" I tried realizing I had gave up the one thing I had been keeping myself so far. Only Mick really knew the truth of me.

"Yeah no, you were really good, weren't you?" he looked at me with his eyes glowing.

"Can we just drop it?" I asked the guy.

"No"

"Fine, I was okay I guess, but it didn't really work out" I told him getting little frustrated.

"I knew it," he said victorious and even though I wasn't too happy about this I was glad to see him smiling on a weekend like this. "I knew from the start that there was something weirdly familiar about you and some of the facts that you told me or us, but now it makes so much sense" 

"Just please don't say anything, no one knows, and I would like to keep it that way" I pleaded him.

"Yeah sure, your secret is safe with me" he said more seriously before getting back to asking questions and telling me stories that Anthoine had told him about me.

Anthoine had been pretty much only friend I had from this world after I had quit doing driving related things. We had still kept in touch and he had been like a brother figure to me. It had been a hard day watching it all go down from TV, they didn't tell us anything and it had taken a long time before we had actually gotten the information what had broke me completely. I mean he had been one of the good ones for sure and there was nothing I would love to see more than him racing the track right now. He loved it and I know that he would tell me that it was okay and he had died doing what he loved but it just wasn't fair 

Rest in peace 

Anthoine Hubert 

1996-2019