Title from: Sorry by 6LACK
Carla
George is fidgety.
It's off putting and slowly irritating me every single time his hand stutters in place and he clears his throat. He's been constantly shifting in his spot all through our dinner and the hours before.
We spent the morning walking his mums dog around the grounds of a local country house, walking boots strapped on our feet as I danced around puddles from the damp weather. Each time I skirted around the mud George laughed at me, trying to grasp my hand and keep him by his side just so I'd squeak at him. When we returned we ate lunch and spent the early hours of the afternoon lazing around until George nuzzled his head into mine and began lacing playful kisses to my skin. I was informed we were having a 'date night at home', instructed to dress up for a dinner to celebrate our anniversary. The fifth anniversary of him asking me to be his girlfriend isn't for another week, but the race in Singapore means we won't be at home - or even together. "I want to celebrate at home, don't you?" George had asked in a soft way which made my heart flutter before I agreed.
Somewhere mixed in with the excited fluttering was guilt. Hot, thick guilt which only grew when his lips grazed against mine and a brief flickered reminder of Lando flashed into my mind. Then the confused and outraged look from Amber that was sent my direction not long after.
The whole situation is getting out of hand. I don't know what possessed me to kiss him in that stupid lift, or maybe he kissed me - I can't remember it now. I was past it. I was over it, over Lando. But Lando had just looked so helpless and I didn't miss the way he winced at the small movements as I made my way towards him in the hotel lobby. The fact we both arrived there at the same time seemed like a sick joke from the universe, or maybe it was a gift - I'm not sure. I'd spent most of the afternoon chewing myself up over Lando's safety, too afraid to go and check up on him incase anything was too obvious or suspicious. I needed to know he was ok.
Then Lando looked at me with so much care and concern, he saw through the brave exterior I had shouldered on since leaving George's driver room and it almost broke me. The relief that I felt when his lips touched mine... it wasn't good. Or rather, it was good and that's entirely the problem. It's why I had been quietly chewing over George and I for the last two weeks, tearfully admitting over a phone call with Megan that 'I just don't know anymore'. Because I don't, I don't know anything. I know I love George, I do. But if I love him so much why do I keep falling into Lando? Why is it so easy with him?
I thought that things with George were better, for the most part they had been - have been. But after the messy end to his race in Zandvoort for the first time in a long time he shut me out, demanding that I leave his room when I questioned why he did that to Lando. George didn't have an answer, that much was proven when he told me I didn't know what I was talking about and yelled at me to leave. It was all because he didn't have the words to explain. I abandoned him happily despite the tears in my eyes.
"You're so beautiful." George croons his fingers tying with mine over the edge of our dinner table. "Have I told you that today?" He asks and I smile leaning into his warmth a little before nodding.
"Twice actually." I explain and George smiles at me softly. He told me when I woke up, with my hair tied into a messy bun balanced on the top of my head and sleep around my eyes. The second time was when I arrived in the kitchen in the Dior dress which was left on the bed for me by George. He really thought of everything today, including drinks.
I reach for the bottle of champagne and George almost gasps at the action. A small tut leaves him as he grasps my hand. I stay in my spot, frozen and feeling like I've been burned, my mind flashes straight back to that humiliating night in Monaco. The night where Lando first shared his understanding with me.
Lando.
"Let's just...hold off on that." He hums and I feel the suddenly present frown on my face deepen. Is it happening again?
"G..." The gasp of his initial is grumbled disapprovingly. He must sense my disapproval because his finger skims against the back of my hand softly. The gentle action makes my heart flutter once more and my expression soften - if only a little. He wants it to be comforting, I don't know if it is.
"Just for one minute Carls," he's grinning almost cheekily at my frown. I'm not sure I fully enjoy the reaction. "I'm not being a dick I promise I-" George attempts to explain before cutting himself off. The self awareness pulls the frown from my face, at least a little. For a moment there's a frown on his own face as his fingers twitch and skim over the neck of the champagne bottle, leaving my own to fumble back in my lap. Another huff blows out from George's lips before he shifts in his spot, the expensive sage green coloured chair squeaks against the wood floor of our dining room as I keep my eyes fixed on him with complete intrigue.
"You ruin all of my plans Carla, do you know that?" George asks so softly that my heart flutters with the shy smile that graces his face. If I look at him, really look, I'd swear that a dusting of pink is covering his cheeks. It's a rare sight, especially these days, and I relish in it completely. "I love it so much, love you so much, but sometimes you just have to...wait." The volume of his words drop off as he speaks and I now I feel my cheeks warm. Patience has never been my strong point. "Babe..." George says the nickname softly. Shifting in his spot for the millionth time.
When George settles back in his seat there's something in his hands. He toys with it for a second, passing it from the left to the right and back before I catch a glimpse of it. It's a black box, velvet and fits into the palm of his hand.
A ring box.
The moment I see it I sweat time stops. I stop breathing, George is frozen as the seconds tick by feeling like hours. I can do nothing but stare at the fabric covered box. A feeling has shot around me but I don't recognise it - it's certainly not what I thought I'd feel in this moment, the moment that I've been waiting for since George nervously asked me to be his girlfriend after a picnic in his parents garden. This feeling is white and hot and hits all of me at once, it's rough and makes a feeling of sickness ride up in me. The nausea doesn't come from nerves or excitement it's something else, the same nausea I felt in Mauritius.
Guilt.
I can't do this. I can't do this to George. I've done so much to him that he didn't ever deserve and the realisation of that is hitting me like a bus. It's painful and takes over my whole body only I can't react because George is in front of me with the most warm and hopeful look in his eyes I've ever seen and...I don't deserve it. I can't ruin him but I'm worried that I won't have a choice. George shouldn't be looking at me like that with a ring in his hand. If he knew, he wouldn't want to look at me at all. My fingers tremble in my lap as I heave in unsteady breath after unsteady breath until George's lips fall open once more.
"We've been together for five years now and those five years have been the best years of my life. Every time I think I can't possibly get more mad about you, you somehow make it happen!" George enthuses with a wide grin that makes tears gather in my eyes. I don't want to ruin him. "I love our home, I love our life together & I love you. If the last few months have shown me that I don't want to-I can't lose this." His words are enough to shatter my heart. He loves me so much.
How could I ever do this to him?
"George..." his name leaves me as a gasped whisper that he just shakes off. There's a cloud in his own eyes but it doesn't match the tears that are streaming from mine. I'm selfishly internally begging him to stop now before it's too late. I'm silently praying to a god I've never prayed to before that the man in front of me has a last minute change of heart, that he's faced with startling cold feet, anything! Anything that could stop this car crash happening before my eyes. Because the white hot guilt is too much when George is so clearly laying out his feelings like this - I think it might kill me if I have to wear a ring on my finger.
"I always thought there'd be some elaborate way I'd have to say this, but I think it comes down to this really; you make me so happy and I just can't imagine my life without you." George says clearly shifting from his spot for a final time and moving to my side. He sinks onto one knee and I feverishly paw away the tears streaming down my cheeks. My hands tremble with the movement and George just grins. I think he suspects the clear nerves are out of excitement or anticipation of what we now both know is coming. They're not.
I wish I could be excited. I wish that this moment was as joyful as it should be and the tears that are falling were filled with excitement and disbelief. They should be. If I didn't do what I did with Lando they would be. If I didn't feel how I realised I feel towards another person, this would be the happiest moment of my life. This would be exactly how I wanted and imagined this moment to be.
George on one knee, grinning at me with shining clouded eyes which swim with love and admiration. I don't know what to do. He takes my hand with his right hand, the ring box flipped open carefully in his left hand. It's ridiculous and gorgeous, the radiant cut ring certainly costs more than my entire office rent for the year and leaves me open mouthed. The stone is huge and I'm worried that if I wear it it'll weigh my whole hand down (not only from guilt). Of course it is. It's George.
"You're going to make me cry before I've even asked Carls." George mumbles through tight emotion. His hand drifts from mine to wipe at the tears on my cheeks. As soon as he's caught them all his hand returns to mine, holding me tight as I tremble infront of him. I lean into the touch, needing more of it to calm me. I don't deserve it. I don't deserve any of this. I can't do it. I can't do this.
"Carla DePeart, will you please make me just as happy for the rest of my life by marrying me?" George asks, hope shining in his eyes as his chest heaves in anticipation. Anticipation of my squealed excited and emotional 'yes' because that's the only answer. It should be the only answer. Because I love George so much and I can't imagine my life without him either, but this doesn't feel right. My lip wobbles as George just beams at me, still in one knee his hand squeezing mine softly in prompt of a response. "Carls?" He asks my name softly as my lips part, heart thudding in my chest as the tears resume. I should say yes. Me from before would say yes without any of this hesitation. I'd be thrilled, overjoyed, perhaps speechless for other reasons - this has all come from nowhere.
"I slept with someone." Instead the admission in falls from me. I don't mean for it to happen, I didn't ever want George to know, he didn't need to know. Nobody had to know. And yet, the way his hand slackens on mine I know he heard me. I know that George knows my deepest, darkest and ugliest secret and that with four words I've tore his whole world apart. I've tore his whole life down. Our life together is destroyed from the four words.
George shifts in his place, up from his knee so that he's standing. I feel about an inch tall - physically and morally. I feel like I'm watching something from a drama on the television, I'm silently hoping I am. The silence of George's tight breaths give me plenty of time to sob, the quiet cries spilling from me as devastation racks me completely. George's face has flattened, the joy that was on it only a moment ago wiped away cleanly with my spilled words. "Say it again." He demands in a low whisper, theres a hint of begging to the request. He's wishing he's dreamed the words as much as I'm wishing my whole time with Lando was a dream. Not even a dream, a complete other reality, not the one we're both stuck in now. I wipe at my damp cheeks clumsily, ignoring the grey mascara that covers my fingers, the marks will be down my face by now I'm sure, evidence of my heartbreak and guilt.
When I don't respond George clears his throat. His blue eyes are set on me but they no longer hold the softness they did before, I don't know what I expected. They're harsh and cold and clouded with tears but not from love from heartbreak, heartbreak which I'm causing. And that's without George even knowing the half of it.
"I slept...with someone." I repeat the sentence with my broken and weak voice.
"When?" The question is immediate and I find myself shaking my head in denial. I can't bring myself to tell him when, he'll only blame himself. They were my actions. It doesn't matter when, not really, we both know that.
"I'm sorry." The apology falls out of me repeatedly, at different volumes and levels of confidence. The tremble to my hands has halted but it's passed onto the rest of my body. My limbs are weak and when I rise to my feet I almost stumble in my heels. I barely rival George's height.
"Who?" The question is rough and knocks me sick. Never. I'll never tell him. It's enough that I'm ruined for him, I can't take away Lando too. He'll hate him. He already hates me, he hates what I've done to us. I can see it in the cold stare that's set on me, devastation seeping into the edges as I shake my head.
"It doesn't-"
"It matters Carla." George beats me to my defence. Does it? It won't make him feel any better, infact it would only make him feel worse. I know it for a fact. How would knowing it was Lando ever make George feel better?
"I can't- I don't." I stammer trying to find an explanation, a counter to his question. "I love you, I do love you." I speak frantically trying my best to reach for him to show with some of the warmth left in my body that I mean the words that are spilling carelessly from me. I'm desperate and George knows it. It doesn't stop him from backing away from me when I approach.
"Fuck me!" George yells suddenly, his hands are thrown in the air as I stare wide eyed and tense in my spot. The raised volume of his words has my heart pounding harder against my chest. He never raises his voice - never at me. "You can't say that after what you've just said! You don't...you can't..." he's lost his words. I know I don't deserve to be able to say those words. I haven't deserved to say them for months. Not with the feelings for Lando that I've had, not with the things that we've done.
"I'm sorry." I repeat again helplessly
"Sorry that you told me? Or sorry that I know?" The question has me stuck. I'm sorry that I told him only because it's hurting him so much. I'm sorry that George knows because there should have never been anything to know. I'm also scared to what it could lead him to knowing: how it all unfolded, the pregnancy scare, my feelings, the lift in Zandvoort, Lando. When I don't have a response George just sighs. The huff is resigned and heavy as my mouth stutters for an answer that I don't have, at least not one I can verbalise. "I need to get out of here." He mutters and my eyes widen.
"George." I claw at his body, desperation welling up from some place inside of me. The panic at the sight of him turning his back on me is something I didn't expect. I reach for his arm helplessly but he just shrugs off my touch. I race behind him desperately, my heels kicked off somewhere in the process as I stumble on our hard wood floors towards the front door doing whatever I can to salvage this.
I don't know who I'm kidding - it's unsalvageable. I'm powerless.
"I can't fucking...stop!" He growls when I reach for his arm again, my other hand trying to reach for the car key that's sitting on the small table by the front door. The key is snatched out of reach by George before I can get to it. "I can't stay here right now." There's a stress to his words that I usually only here on race weekends. Each syllable is tightly wound when it falls from him and instantly my shoulders are tight as I sniffle, echoing his every move as if my presence could make him stay. "Not with you." George grumbles before opening the front door. The accusation hits me like a knife to the chest, it's nothing I don't deserve.
In an instant the door is slammed shut. The clang of the heavy wood echoes around me, the walls of the house and our life together swaying unsteadily. George had left me behind and I can only sob loudly in the memory of what our relationship was, because with my four words it's over. This is it. It's over.
My body crumples to the floor as I press a disbelieving hand to my mouth my chest feeling as if it could cave in at any moment.
———
A lovely light start to the weekend!
The moment Lando has been praying for 🤪
Have a good weekend!
🫶🏻