It's my birthday!!! 🍾💃
The following day Jane woke up in her own bed. The family and Jane flew back after the last race on Sunday. The F1 race was terrific to see. The fan's favourite Max Verstappen got a DNF, Lewis Hamilton got a 5-second penalty, giving Lando Norris his first ever podium in F1. Valtteri Bottas won the race, and Charles Leclerc finished second. It was a good start to the season.
Jane grabbed her phone and checked if she received messages, which wasn't much. Just some news notifications and a screentime announcement. She stepped out of bed and made her way to the bathroom. It was ten o'clock, not every late, but she slept in. Jane made a bun in her hair and walked to the living area.
"Hello," Luna said, who just woke up as well. She was making some coffee. "Cappuccino?"
"Yes, please," Jane breathed and sat down at the dining table. A yawn escaped her mouth. "I'm going to do absolutely nothing today."
Luna smirked. "You're right."
"I can literally still hear those engines in my ears. F3 and F2 are so fucking loud, and when they switch gears...ridiculous." Jane cleared her throat; she had already shared her experience with Luna last night. "Do you have plans today?"
"Nope," Luna sighed. "Don't have much energy today, not feeling it. By the way, shall we go to the beach tomorrow?"
"Sounds good."
"Cool. Oh, have you spoken to Marcus yet?"
"No." Jane grabbed her phone and unlocked it. "I texted him last night. He hasn't seen it yet. I don't know, Lun. He wanted to be alone, so I will give him time." She checked WhatsApp, there were barely any messages. Only in her family group chat, but that had to do with a lost key. "I will call him tonight. I hate it when people keep texting me when I asked to leave me alone, so I'm not doing it myself."
Luna gave Jane the cappuccino and sat across from her at the table. "Hmm, yeah."
"Thanks." Jane went to Instagram, but only found out the app shut down the second she logged in. "Is Instagram down again?" She looked at Luna and raised her eyebrows.
"No?" Luna showed her Instagram; it was working.
"Oh." Jane opened the app again, this time it worked. Her eyes rounded when it showed she had more than one hundred new followers, over one hundred new likes and comments and over one hundred tags. She turned off the notifications a couple of weeks ago, it was an attempt to use social media less - a failed attempt. "What the fuck," she mumbled and went to her profile. 80.000 followers. She went from 300 to 80.000 followers in a day. "What is this? I have 80.000 followers." Jane squeezed her eyebrows together. "What the fuck."
Luna chocked in her coffee. "80.000 followers? Are you joking?" She snatched Jane's phone out of her hands and coughed. "80.000 fucking followers. How? What did you do?"
"I don't know."
Suddenly Luna's face changed. Her lips parted, and she looked sorry, but also worried. She scrolled through the tagged photos, reading all the captions. "Oh, my gosh," she whispered, defeated. "This is bad, Jane."
"What?" Jane snatched her phone back and looked at the photo. It was a photo of her and that driver from McLaren. "'Is this Lando's girlfriend? She is gorgeous.' Are you shitting my dick? 'This might be Lando's girlfriend!'" Her eyes filled with tears. "'This is Jane, she went to Lando's race! They look cute together. Very generous of her to be at his race.'" She looked at Luna, she was lost. "What is this, Luna? What the fuck does this mean?!" She got up and ran both of her hands through her hair.
"I...I don't know," Luna stuttered and grabbed her laptop, opening Twitter. Her face only straightened. "Fucking hell," she breathed and covered her mouth with her hand. "It's bad."
"What is it?"
"People think you are Lando Norris' girlfriend."
"What? Why?" Jane walked over to Luna and sat down next to her. Her homepage was filled with the photo of Jane and Lando, the moment they had that awkward conversation right after the Feature race when Jane was waiting for Marcus. "What does this mean?" Her heart started to beat faster. "Why do they think that?"
Luna read some tweets. "A famous photographer posted a photo dump on his Instagram, including this photo," she tried to explain in peace and showed the original photo. It was a shot of Jane, Giuseppe, Lando Norris and Zak Brown, they all were laughing, and Jane happened to look at Lando. "Some dickhead cropped this photo to this shot of only you and Lando." She swallowed hard and continued scrolling. "There are more photos of you and Lando..."
"I...I have seen him once. That was when that photo was taken."
"Fuck... People are linking you to Lando."
"What about Marcus? He was there too. We must have a photo together, we were like hugging and..." A hopeless breath rolled over Jane's lips. "What does this mean, Luna?" Her voice was soft.
Luna bit her lip and kept scrolling through her feed. "I'm just surprised how quickly they found out who you are..." She grabbed Jane's phone again and read some comments; most of them were supportive, but some were hateful. "Please, don't read the comments under your posts." She put it away and closed her laptop. "Okay, Jane, the toxic Lando Norris fans are thinking you are together with Lando because of that photo. They have made a whole theory about your presumable relationship. Trust me, those girls are crazy and extremely toxic. Someone posted that photo, saying you two are together. It went viral, and now you are trending."
"But it's not true. I'm with Marcus."
"I know. You are together with Marcus. But those girls believe you are with Lando. They found you on Instagram, they know who you are now, and they will keep you linking to Lando. They believe you are Lando's girlfriend."
"Oh, my god." Jane got up again and shook her head. New tears formed in her eyes. "No, no, no. This can't be happening. How do we undo this?" She sniffed and looked lost at Luna.
Luna swallowed hard. "We can't..." She looked sorry at her best friends. "It's out there. The only way to undo this is to post a picture of you and Marcus."
"He doesn't want to make our relationship publicly." A tear rolled over Jane's cheek. "Fuck." She grabbed her phone and called Marcus. She impatiently walked around in the living room while having her phone against her ear. "Pick up, come on." Marcus declined the call. "Come on," she groaned and called him one more time, but now it wouldn't connect. "I...he...fuck, fuck, fuck." Jane threw her phone on the sofa and burried her face in her hands.
"He must've seen it as well." Luna blinked a couple of times. "I'm so sorry."
Jane put her hands on her head. "What do I do now? None of that is true. I don't even know who Nando Norris is."
"Lando Norris."
"I don't fucking care. Marcus can't be that stupid to believe this, right?" Jane was waiting for an answer, an answer Luna couldn't give. "This is bad, Luna. How did this happen? Why me? There were so many other girls there. This... I'm with Marcus, he's my boyfriend, I really like him, and I would never betray him. Even if I would, I wouldn't be so stupid to do it in front of his eyes, at the same track he's at, in front of so many camera's."
Luna grabbed her phone and called Robert. If it wasn't for herself, it was for Jane, who was freaking out right now. As soon Robert picked up his phone, Luna stopped him from greeting her. "Have you checked Twitter?"
"Ow, err, yes. I was about to call you about it. It looks bad..." A hopeless sigh rolled over his lips. "How's Jane doing?"
"Bad, she is flipping," Luna replied and looked away. "And Marcus?"
"I have no idea, I haven't seen him yet. We can't contact him."
She tried not to show any emotion, but the muscles in her face pulled together to a desperate look. "I will call you back later, it isn't going right here."
"I swear to god, I will murder the person who put this online," Jane sneered and dried her eyes. She was looking at her phone, reading every tweet.
Robert was silent after he heard Jane speak. "You should go. I'm so sorry for Jane."
"The shittiest part is that it isn't even her fault. She barely knows Lando Norris. Lando probably doesn't know who Jane is."
"Lando is freaking out too. Poor people..." He looked up, seeing people from F1 walking around in the lounge. "He asked us if we knew where Jane and Marcus were, he was in total panic."
Luna sighed frustratedly. "It's just insane how badly this escalated, that just one tweet, one speculation, turned into a complete disaster. I hate how F1 is generating more social media audience, it shouldn't have happened. I'm so sorry for Jane, Marcus and Lando." She licked her lips. "I will call you back."
"Okay, baby. Will speak later."
The call ended. She got up and walked over to Jane. "We can't change it, but we can let it go. We all know what the truth is, we all know that what's on Twitter is a lie. Marcus understands that too, this is his way of processing it, he will call you soon, okay?" Luna cupped Jane's face in her hands. "It will be fine. Give him more time." She wasn't sure about it, but Jane needed to hear comfort words.