I KNOW PLACES | George Russell

6. Bahrain GP

Bahrain
March 5th, race day

Ariella's pov

If I thought the nerves yesterday before qualifying were bad, well this is a whole other level of terrible, and I'm not even at the track yet I'm still sitting in my hotel room.

I feel like I am physically shaking from head to toe, which obviously I'm not.

The way I feel currently is almost exactly the way I would feel in grade school before a presentation. Sitting there hoping the person before me would take so long that the class would end and I wouldn't have to present. Contemplating faking fainting so I had an excuse not to stand up in front of the entire class.

A similar idea of not messing up is at the forefront of my thoughts in both situations.

In the class, if I messed up maybe no one would notice or maybe they would but it would only be a few people, maybe 20-30 kids.

Not here. Here millions of eyes are on me at every moment, and the odds of someone noticing a mess up are far from slim.

The buzzing of my phone shakes me from my thoughts.

It's Christian telling me he needs to talk to me when I get to the garage. What about though, I'm not sure.

I take that as my sign to start making my way there.

The short drive to the track didn't really allow me the time to prepare for whatever he wants to talk about. It might be nothing, but a gut feeling tells me it's not.

"Gemma have you seen Christian?" She's the first person I see when I get to the garage.

"Yeah follow me." She sounds upset, probably about my actions yesterday.

"Gemma, I'm sorry about what I did yesterday I wasn't thinking about everything you would have to do."

"Clearly."

Gemma has never been hostile towards me, but the way she said those words I could tell she wanted nothing to do with me right now.

Gemma leads us into a conference room. Christian is sitting at the head of the table next to Toto. Next to Toto is George, sitting with his pr manager on the other side.

Christian gestures to the open seat next to him, signaling for me to sit. I do, and Gemma sits on the other side of me.

Gemma speaks up first. "Because of the way Ariella acted yesterday, we" she gestures to everyone at the table except for me and George. "we have decided to set you two up in a sort of rivalry."

Confusion courses through every fiber of my being, and it's definitely evident on my features.

"Sorry, what exactly do you mean by a rivalry?" George is the one to ask this.

"We want you to act like you hate each other." Christian's words make my eyes go wide.

"What? Why? That seems so illogical. Wouldn't that just ruin both of our images?" I can't think of a legitimate reason why this would be a good idea.

"Not exactly," Gemma starts. "After your outburst yesterday, I was looking for a way to fix it and scrolling through your socials. Turns out it got a lot of attention from a lot of different people."

"okay? and?"

"And it brings publicity which is good for both of you and both of your teams." Gemma says this like it's the most obvious thing in the world.