malicious | max verstappen

twenty three.

ELYSE's POV

My neck was screaming at me. After spending the night on a hospital chair, my neck was very unhappy with me. I made it back to Brazil first thing in the morning after the party. I wanted to waste no more time than needed away from my mom.

Carlos tagged along with me, Lewis would've came but after his long-awaited win his PR manager set him up for hundreds of interviews so he couldn't make it. I tried to seem as normal as possible, joking here and there, going for a morning run, etc. But I didn't feel normal.

Just looking at how fragile my mother suddenly got. She was so thin, thinner than I'd ever seen. Were the meds not making her eat? I kept pressing her to eat but she just couldn't, claiming she was to nauseous. I played her favorite show but she told me to close it since it was causing her a headache. Everything she so dearly loved to do seemed like it pained her, both mentally and physically. And I had to sit there and watch it happen.

I was telling her about last race, as I usually ranted, with the beeps of the monitor filling the occasional bits of silence. I could notice how she was trying not to fall asleep while listening to me, ultimately, I decided to leave her get the rest she needed, not wanting to be the reason she was tired.

Eventually, it was time to race in the Netherlands. My motivation had dropped more than last race, I hadn't even been training like I was supposed to. But thankfully, there weren't any crashes in qualifying though I ended up in P8. Pretty rough.

I kept my eye on Max's car in pole and as soon as the lights were out, I sped past Kimi, Esteban and Pierre. I remained in P5 until I entered the pits.

The team decided to double-stack both Mercedes' so I lost a lot of time when I boxed and found them still screwing on Lewis' tyres.

"Poor thinking, guys. I just lost 10 seconds." I complained into the radio. I usually kept to myself. But I was on my last nerves, this was the fifth time to fuck up a race of mine in the 13 races we've attended so far. And if they were going to prioritize anyone, it should be me, considering I was leading the championship by 15 points, which was definitely bound to decrease after this race.

I crossed the line.

"P4, El. Good job, we'll get them next time." My engineer tried to be supportive but I could hear the loud cheers coming from the garage through the radio.

"Did Lewis win?" I asked.

"Yeah. P1."

"Well done for him." I meant it, though I couldn't shake off the pang of jealousy and frustration.

I parked the car, found Lewis and congratulated him and Max since he was in second, and also Charles who was in P3. I sulked as I weighed myself, got to my drivers room and took off my suit angrily and jumped into a quick ice bath. Then I changed into casual team wear along with some sweatpants and waited at the podium ceremony to begin.

After all that was done, I did my interviews and despite people trying to stir some drama, I shut it all down. Hailey reminded me of debriefing with the team and as much as I didn't want to go, I wanted to make sure nothing like this will happen again.

"El, we're so sorry for today. Seriously." Was the first thing Toto told me once he saw me. I briefly smiled, telling him it was okay but this can't happen again. We can't turn into Ferrari, can we?

I returned to my hotel room, being dragged into another one of Lewis' celebratory parties. I put on some parachute pants and a Diesel top. I didn't go all out this time, deciding to stick to a more basic look. Knowing me, I'd eventually leave the party once I got overwhelmed— which happens way faster than usual nowadays.