Hopelessly Devoted ☆ Pierre Gasly

XXXI

Pierre pressed his lips into a thin line and slowly nodded. "I still can't believe it happened..." He took a deep breath. "It's Anthoine... One of the safest drivers I knew."

"This world is so cruel... Life can be over within a second," Juliette added and took a sip from her drink.

"How did you stay focussed during the weekend? I had a hard time focusing, it was more difficult than Spa..."

"I didn't work this weekend. I have so much respect for you how you still raced, and the others," she shared her thoughts.

He raised his eyebrows. "You didn't work? But you were in Monza..."

"Yup, I was until Friday," Juliette said. "I had a panic attack on Friday morning and a mental breakdown after that. Toto sent me home. Who won in Monza?"

Pierre was perplexed. "You didn't watch? Charles won, by the way."

"Ah," she smiled, satisfied. "Amazing, he deserves it." She looked back at him. "I was at my granddad's in Paris, he doesn't watch tv on Sundays, and we just worked in the garden, drank some wine, baked a cake. He tried to distract me from the funeral later that week... He even drove me to the church. I haven't watched the race or the updates yet. I shut down everything that had to do with racing, or the news. How did you do it?"

An impressed look came on his face. "You did it well then, it was all over the news. I got P11. Bottas was the runner-up and Hamilton third." She nodded. "Were you at the father of your mothers or..?"

"You did good," Juliette comfortingly smiled. "You can be proud of yourself. And yes, on my mother's side."

"Do you still speak to him?" Pierre carefully looked at her. "Because you don't have contact with your mother anymore..."

"He doesn't have contact with my mother as well..." Juliette looked uncomfortable. "We always remained to have contact. It seems like my mother hates every single person with a good heart."

It started to make sense to Pierre. "I sometimes bump into her in Rouen, and she looks at me like I did it all," he mentioned and squeezed his eyebrows together. "I mean, she isn't wrong, but still."

"What do you mean?" Juliette raised her eyebrows and cleared her throat.

"After the fight we had six years ago, I..." Pierre looked away and chewed on the inside of her cheek. He wasn't sure if Juliette was aware of the situation. "I called your dad. I told him I was worried about you, and the next thing I knew, Ansel said you were gone."

Juliette's face relaxed, and goosebumps spread over her body. "You called my dad," she whispered, and tears formed in her eyes.

"I was so worried about you, Jules," Pierre whispered and tears formed in his eyes as well. He grabbed Juliette's hand and softly squeezed in it. "I didn't know what to do." It was silence; Pierre didn't know if it was a good thing or not. "But I sometimes wished I didn't make that call," he said, and his voice cracked.

A lonely tear rolled over Juliette's cheek, and she shook her head. She squeezed in his hand and turned her head away. "No."

"I lost you that day, and..." The pain was still there. "When I called your dad, I didn't realise I would lose you. I wanted to help you, and I am so glad everything worked out, but I lost you." He looked down, fighting against the tears. "I didn't think you would move to England. And it sounds so selfish, because I wanted the absolute best for you, but I didn't want you to go," he pressed the words over his lips.

It all started to make sense. "You saved my life, Pierre."

They looked at each other, both trying not to cry. It failed. Juliette was the first to burst into tears, followed by Pierre, who couldn't keep it together anymore. He leaned in and took Juliette in his arms.

"You saved my life," Juliette said. "I didn't know it was you who called. I'm so sorry." She gasped for air. "And my dad didn't know it was you. We tried to find out who called, but we couldn't find your number anymore, and he didn't remember your name."

"It's okay," he mouthed and stroked her back.

Juliette pulled back; she had to look at him while she was saying this. "If you didn't make that call, I probably wouldn't be here now."

Pierre was shaking his head in disbelieve. "Juliette, no."

"You saved my life..." She dried her cheeks.

"What happened?" Something happened back then, Pierre knew it, he could see it.

She took a deep breath, blinking some tears away. "I wasn't happy, Pierre. I hated myself." She saw how Pierre tightened his jaw and had a hard time keeping it together. "I hated my career, and since my career was my life... That fight with Sara was about why I wasn't happy with my results, but I couldn't bring it up to be happy because I never wanted to win. I wanted to fail. I tried everything I could to fail, but I won. And when I saw how happy you all were for me..." She swallowed hard. "It was so hard for me. I had no idea what to do. I couldn't fake my own happiness while I was deeply unhappy about it." Juliette took a deep breath, it was shaky. "My mother forced me to speed skating. She abused me," she whispered quietly. "She always hit me on spots no one could see it."

Pierre burst in tears again. "Why didn't you say anything about it?"

"I don't know," Juliette cried and wrapped her arms around Pierre. "I didn't want to lose you." It was getting tough. "She hit me every day, she yelled at me all the time..."

"I'm so sorry," Pierre apologised and held her tightly in his arms. "I am so sorry."

"You are the best thing that happened to me, the best thing. I guess I have to thank my mother for that, because if she didn't force me to go to that school, I wouldn't have met you. Or Sara, or Anthoine. And apart from the fact I hated speed skating and everything around it, I loved spending time with you or go to school because it was nothing like speed skating. School and you were my two way outs from home. It was a place I didn't get to hear how useless I was, I didn't got hit, I..."

"I could see you were unhappy. You always had weird pains or weird bruises that were not sports accidents. I didn't do anything about it."

Juliette gasped for air, it was a challenge to breath now she remembered something that hurt her deeply. "I told Anthoine to fuck off when he found out and tried to find help for me, I got so angry at you when you tried to help me, and I went nuts on Sara when she tried to show me the reality," she sobbed. "I am a coward."