SHAMELESS, lewis hamilton¹

40

It was her second week without racing and she was sure she was going insane.

The only thing that got her through the slow lasting days was the fact that she was allowed to start working out, doing exercises that were assigned to her. And Marya was there to help her with them. The familiarity of her presence was comforting and the fact that they were doing things that belonged to the racing side of her life made her feel somewhat lighter again, feeling a hint of how she felt before the crash happened.

Mirabella had to be careful doing each exercise, to not put her body through too much and injure herself all over again. But if she wanted to get back into racing as soon as possible, she had to maintain the health and physique she had before. And that was exactly what she did.

And as the days passed she figured out that it was healthy for her, not just her body but her mental state. It was a lot better than not doing anything and she was already feeling somewhat lighter because of it. She knew it wasn't going to fix anything. That wasn't how that works, but maybe it was a start.

The exercises she had to were both normal ones, so quads, glutes, calves, hamstrings, biceps, triceps, lats, shoulders and so on. Arms were probably the most difficult ones, as her burns restricting her ability to do them. But she had exercises that she had to for that too, to increase her mobility in her left arm day by day.

She hadn't expected to see a big difference or progress at all. So, when she actually she saw some by Thursday she was surprised to say the least. Happy surprised. She expected to be unlucky, the healing progress taking even longer than the doctor in Belgium informed her of. It was typical that that would happen.

She was healing. Obviously it was going to take a longer time, but seeing progress was motivating, lifting her spirits somewhat. It wasn't a lot but you had to take one step at a time to get to the place you want.

Mirabella had finished her work out for Thursday a couple of hours ago and made herself make a smoothie, adding the usual protein she always used in it. Another familiar thing that helped with getting her back to somewhat her usual self.

She had gotten a few visitors on Monday, Charles and Carlos stopping by for that day before they were going to Hungary the day after. It was a nice surprise, because they literally didn't tell her until they were like five minutes away.

They even had a gift the Ferrari team had made for her. Which included a get well card that had all of their names signed on it.

Receiving it had melted something in her. It also made her want to cry, but that was more of a mental feeling than something she actually needed to do.

Then they might have left but she was called by her friends literally every day. It might be a little late in the day, but they always called, no matter what.

It was a nice comfort to know that even when she wasn't there, they thought about her. That she was remembered even if her presence wasn't there with them. That she wasn't forgotten, like she was scared would happen if she one day left racing. But she wasn't.

The media hadn't forgotten her either, as almost every article about Formula One, and even some of the ones generally about motorsport, were about her.

Mirabella let out a groan as she messed up a line on her drawing, grabbing her kneaded eraser and started rubbing away the graphite lines in frustration. Then she let go of it, back onto the couch she sat on, replacing it with her pencil, twirling it around her fingers as she looked over her reference photo trying to figure out how she could draw it better.

As she did her right hand found her burns, which was open without any bandages covering it. They were finally healed enough to take the bandages off, her doctor telling her she should let it breathe for the next period of the treatment. And it felt really good, for the most part. Sometimes she'd brush against things or her hand would start touching and picking at the wounds, which hurt like a bitch.