thinking 'bout you | lando norris

FIFTEEN

[ i'm just thinking 'bout you, i'm
thinking 'bout you, i'm thinking 'bout you ]

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AVIA

It was early Monday morning and me, Drew and Lando decided to take a walk on the beach seeming as it was our last day in Australia. Bahrain was up next and boy I was excited, especially as I hadn't been before.

I watched as Drew took out his phone to catch the sea and its waves. Meanwhile, I walked alongside the shore my hand in Lando's.

The past couple of weeks we've been getting to know one another more and gradually we became closer. I wasn't looking for a relationship at the moment as I just wanted to enjoy what me and Lando had for the time being.

"Are you not gonna get any pictures of the sea?" Lando asked me.

I turned to face him, the wind blowing my hair in my face. "Oh that's a good idea." I freed my hand from Lando's grip and took out my phone.

My screen turned on as it tried to recognise my face and that's when I suddenly noticed Caleb. He was standing behind me and it looked like he was watching me and Lando. I whipped my head around and saw nothing. My breathing was getting faster and tears were starting to build up in my eyes.

I dropped my phone and walked quickly to the bank of grass that wasn't that far ahead. "Avia? Av?" Lando's voice called out.

"Just, give me a minute." I called back. I sat and pulled my knees up to my chest, rocking myself back and forth to calm down. He isn't there anymore Avia. He's gone and he isn't coming back. I told myself that over and over again. It's like he wouldn't leave me alone.

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I wrapped the sleeves of my grey jumper around my hands as I finished writing on my post-it note. My mum thought it was a nice day to spend on the beach and so here I was. With Caleb and my sister Jules.

"Are we done writing regrets?" She asked.

The rest of us nodded our heads before taking the post-it note and crumpling it up, dropping it into a hole that we made in the sand. It was then lit on fire, the fumes overpowering the smell of the beach and its waves.

We sat in silence for a while, listening to the cheerful sounds of the seagulls before we picked up some sand and ran to the sea.

"Cast out the past!" Mum shouted as we all threw our handful of sand into the crashing cerulean waves.

We made it back to our spot, Jules picking up my rock. "Read a book a week, learn to sew. Have advice column go viral. Run a marathon?" She read, facing me. "You're gonna do all that this year?"

"Well I am going to try." I remarked. "What'd you do?" I say, grabbing Caleb's rock.

"Av, don't read that. Come on."He said, grabbing after me.

"What? You're just gonna throw it in a drawer." I laughed. "I see rocks every-time I'm looking for a gas bill."

"Sweetie please." He pleaded.

"Be a good husband, brother, son, friend, racing driver." I read aloud.

"I'm gonna cry. That's so nice." Jules said.

"It is nice but you already are all those things. You have to think of actual aspirations for your vision rock or else the solstice magic will not work."

Jules, Caleb and I erupted into a fit of giggles when my mum piped up, "The solstice magic definitely will not work if you insist of making fun of it."

"Okay, pick a country that you want to go to, write it on the rock and then go there. If you can't think of a country, do Iceland." Jules suggested.

"You know, I believe that we are all the ages that we've ever been. So whenever I have a question that I don't know the answer to, I ask my inner child-- Don't, What? Stop laughing." My mother said looking over at me and Jules as we started laughing again.

"I'm not, it's just, you always say inner child with this dealt serious face." My sister explained.

"That is because some of the profoundest truths of my life have come from asking the eight-year-old inside of me what she really wants. So if I were to ask eight-year-old Caleb what he really wanted, what would he say?"

I watched as Matt hesitated. "No. No. Say what you were gonna say." My mum insisted.

"I wanted to drive for McLaren when I was that age. I used to make a cardboard McLaren F1 car when watching the races with my parents. But I know it'll never happen."

"That's what you should do." I said. "Make that your aspiration, aim to drive for the McLaren F1 team someday."

"Well I will when you give me my vision rock back first." Caleb laughed.

I handed the rock back to my husband as he wrote his aspiration on it.

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