Just Drive (Sebastian Vettel)

Chapter 37: Home

Caitlin laid the tray of cereal, juice and fruit salad carefully down on the bedside table.

"I've brought you breakfast Mum." She softly tip-toed around the bed and pulled back the dull grey curtains from across the rickety old window, allowing the early sun to stream into the room.

Caitlin turned and looked back towards the bed. Her mum was stirring, slowly being woken up by the lights and sounds around her. Caitlin hurt inside as she watched her mum struggle to bear her own weight as she sat up in bed, and quickly rushed forwards to help her.

"How are you feeling today?"

"Better, a bit. What's for breakfast?"

"Cereal and fruit."

"Cereal? Honestly Caitlin don't you know how to make anything else?"

Caitlin laughed on the exterior keeping a strong face in front of her mum, but inside she winced as she remembered Seb's same joke from the hotel room in Canada.

It had been two weeks since Caitlin had flown out of Montreal, and she had only spoken to Seb a couple of times in that time. She had sent him a handful of texts whilst she had been away, but had never got a reply any more satisfying than 'A bit tied up with sponsors today, speak to you later?' or 'Just about to get on a plane, I'll be in touch when I land.'

She had been given an extended leave of absence by Ferrari, and so had chosen to stay in England with her mum for as long as she could. Today was Sunday – the Austrian Grand Prix. Caitlin had hoped to be back with the team by now, she had really wanted to be there to support Seb for his home race, but her mum wasn't ready to be left alone yet.

Throughout Friday practise and Saturday, Caitlin had dialled into several team conference calls where they had been discussing tyre degradation and race strategy, some of which Seb had also been present for, but with everyone else also there they'd not had the opportunity to talk.

Much as Caitlin knew Seb was busy over race weekends, she was a little surprised and saddened that he hadn't been in touch at some point, especially as he knew she'd been working some of the time.

"What's up Cait?" asked her mum, interrupting her thoughts. "You've been lost in your own world since you've been back."

"Hm? Oh, nothing. Just thinking about work."

Her mum put down her spoon back into her bowl of cereal and raised her eyebrows suspiciously.

Caitlin sighed. She should have known better than to try and get anything past her.

"Ok so there's this guy at work..." Caitlin began, sitting down gingerly on the edge of the bed. And she told her mum the story of her season so far, covering as much detail as she could, but carefully avoiding telling her mum who 'this guy' was.

"Let me get this straight," concluded her mum after a considerable amount of talking, "you don't currently know whether the two of you are together or not?"

"No, we're barely even talking."

"Are you arguing?"

"Yes. Well no. I don't know. I think we made up."

"And the only reason you disagreed in the first place was because he didn't want the world to know about you."

"Yeh. He's ashamed of me."

Caitlin's mum snapped immediately. "Och don't be ridiculous Caitlin. Who could possibly be ashamed of you?"

"You're my mum, you have to say that!"