I wake up early in the morning. Fabio is still asleep. We're in the same position as we were in last night. It gives me a few minutes to wake up completely and sort my thoughts. How do I feel?
I feel good like this. I know I love Fabio. I am just a little scared. What will happen? Will it be better than last time? Are we gonna last this time?
I slowly unwrap Fabio's arms from around me and get out of bed.
I take some lingerie and walk to the bathroom, taking a quick shower.
I dry my hair and walk back out in only the lingerie.
"Hm.. this is a good way to wake up", Fabio says, his voice husky from sleeping. He barely has his eyes open, probably just woke up.
I smile at his comment.
"I can get used to this view as well", I say, looking him up and down. The sheets only cover his legs. This feels like nothing changed between us. It feels good.
"Why don't you join me for a few minutes? It's still early", Fabio suggests.
He's right about that, so I get back in next to him. He's quick in pulling me on top of him, pulling me as close as possible.
"Bonjour, Ma Chérie", he whispers.
"Good morning, handsome", I whisper back.
"How did you sleep?", He asks. His hands travel up and down my back.
"Good. What about you?", my hand goes through his soft hair.
"Best sleep I've had in weeks", he tells me.
"Did you get a haircut?", Fabio carefully wraps a curl around his finger.
"I cut it myself yesterday. I got irritated by those long locks", I blush a little. I hope it atleast looks okay. I didn't want to wait to go to the hairdresser, so I just did it myself. It's way more curly now.
"Well, maybe I ask you for my next haircut", Fabio laughs.
"Isn't your mum a professional? I don't think I want to face her right now. To her it must look horrible", I bury my face in his neck embarrassed.
"I like it, you look beautiful", Fabio tells me, kissing my head. I blush and bury my face deeper in his neck.
We lay like this for a while longer, till Fabio's phone starts ringing. He gently rolls me off of him, grabbing the phone off the nightstand.
"Yeah?", He sits up on the edge of the bed.
"Just give us 30 minutes to get ready", he pulls a hand through his hair.
"No.."
"Yeah. You do that, we'll meet you at the beach"
"Okay, thanks Tom", he ends the call.
"We're meeting Tom at the beach. He wanted us to have breakfast together. But he's gonna pick up something instead", Fabio turns to me, filling me in.
I instantly feel nervous about meeting him. I nod at Fabio and try to smile, but fail at that. I should get dressed.. what do I wear? It's really hot, too hot. And a day at the beach? I don't feel really comfortable for a bikini in public.. what if people see us and take pictures.
Fabio grabs my hand, turning me to him. "It will be okay. Please stop worrying"
I sigh, nodding. "I'm just nervous. And I don't know what to wear"
"You want to wear one of my shirts?", Fabio grins a little, grabbing his bag. He takes multiple shirts out of it.
"How many shirts did you bring?", I ask, looking surprised.
"Enough. You can pick one if you want. I'm gonna take a quick shower", he kisses my cheek walking into the bathroom.
I see a short-sleeved vest with zipper and decide on that one. I put on a pair of jeans shorts with a crop top and Fabio's vest over it. It's a little big, but it fits me.
The shower stops and Fabio steps out a few minutes later. He's wearing jeans shorts as well and I've never seen him wear those, but it looks good on him.
He picks out a shirt to wear and looks at me.
"My clothes look better on you", he cheesy tells me. I laugh softly.
"You know that's the most cliché line used in every romantic book and movie, right?"
"Maybe, but it's the truth though", Fabio smiles. "Shall we go?"
We walk to the beach together and I get more nervous every step.
I see Tom already sitting there on a big towel.
"I.. um.. I can't", I stand still, not walking any further. I can't face him. I can't handle it.
"Of course you can", Fabio says, standing in front of me. He holds out his hand for me to hold.
I shake my head, trying to control my breathing.
"No, I can't. He's mad at me. And that won't change, when I tell him everything", I take a step back slowly, "I can't tell him I wanted to die and I can't tell him I thought he doesn't care about me", tears form in my eyes.
"Julie, you two are like brother and sister. Of course he will be hurt when he hears everything. But that doesn't mean that he will mad. You need to tell him, you need to fix this", Fabio tries to talk some sense in me.
"We aren't brother and sister though. We never will be", I sigh, but step forward again. Fabio also sigh before following me. I slowly approach Tom, I know he's looking at me, but I look at the sand. My sunglasses on my nose.
"Uh hi", I softly say when I'm close enough. I stand there with a gap between us. Fabio hugs Tom shortly, whispering something in his ear.
"Hi Juul", Tom says, sitting back down on the towel. Fabio does the same and motions for me to also sit down. I sit on my knees, in the other end of the towel. Ready to flight if I have to.
"How have you been?", Tom slowly asks. He looks me up and down a few times, probably thinking about the fact that I lost some weight.
"I could've been better, but I'm okay now", I say looking down. I can't find the courage to start talking. I know I was the one, who wanted to meet. And I know I need to tell him a lot. I'm just nervous and scared. I don't want to completely lose him. I mean, I don't really consider him my brother anymore and I don't think I ever really will. But I hope he will stay my best friend.
"Okay, um. Do you want me to leave you two or do you want me to stay?", Fabio breaks our silence. I can see that he doesn't want to stay and listen to everything again. But at the same time, he looks protective. He even has his hand on my arm.
"If you want to leave, you can..", I whisper. "Um.. I just need to tell you some things", I slowly look up to Tom.
"Are you sure you are okay?", Tom asks.
I nod, "Yes. Just nervous"
Am I really going to do this? This isn't going to be pretty..
I take a deep breath, "Okay. Erm.. After my stay in the hospital and even before I wasn't in the best headspace. I had a lot of negative thought. And eventually Fabio helped me with getting therapy. We tried that a few days, but my thoughts and my headspace were too much and we split. I admitted myself at a psychiatric ward and stayed there and still have therapy there", I summed up, rather shortly. I didn't give any details and I know I need to. I just can't do that until he asks.
"A psychiatric ward?", Tom asks a little shocked.
I nod, "yeah.. I went there for therapy and they admitted me. I'm not really proud of it", I softly say. My voice is just above a whisper and I look down with a blush on my cheeks.
"Well.. I am proud that you admitted that you needed help", Fabio tells me, he lays his hand on my arm.
"Therapy because of what Alex did?", Tom asks. He looks surprised and confused.
"Yeah. But the therapy sessions in Andorra with Fabio mostly helped for that. It was more my negative thoughts and feelings"
I'm quiet for a moment and Fabio squeezes my arm. "Just tell him, or do you want me to?"
I shake my head. "I um.. I basicly thought nobody really cared for me and I was better off dead. So yeah, I basicly wanted to die and I signed some things in the hospital to stop treatment at a certain time, but they didn't listen. And that made it all worse". A single tear rolls down when I tell Tom this.
"You wanted to die? After everything we've been through, you wanted to die?", Tom asks, his voice shocked and a little angry.
"That was basicly Fabio's reaction too", I expected this. Well I expected worse, but I'm sure he's more shocked than mad right now.
"Yeah. Well we went through hell that weekend and even after. We thought we lost you, we were very scared. And now to only know you wanted to die.. Is it so weird for us to get mad?!", his voice getting louder. Fabio just looks down. His face shows how hurt he is, but he doesn't speak up.
"You think nobody cares for you? Well it doesn't seem like you care for us. If you did, you didn't want to die. Do you think I send all those messages because I didn't care?", Tom says, before turning to Fabio.
"Why didn't you tell me? This is why you suddenly were in Greece right?", his expression is puzzled.
"I couldn't really tell you, could I? I couldn't tell you she thought nobody cares for her and she wanted to die. The last time we spoke, I told her to 'just die then'. I thought she would be dead by then. And if she wasn't, I was sure she would be back with Alex. She kept saying she deserved him", Fabio softly says. His voice full of regret. I didn't know he really thought that, his whole summer break. Well he mentioned something like this in Silverstone, but I didn't know this was how he felt the entire time. His break and vacation must've been shitty for him. Would this have affected his Silverstone race?
"I'm really sorry, to put you both through this mess. That wasn't my intension. It just only got worse with time. I just wanted you to know the full story. I am better and I'm still working on staying better. Just know that. But I don't expect anything from you two. I don't expect friendship or a relationship or anything we once had..", I stand to my feet.
"I um.. I'm going for a walk. I'll be back at the hotel later", I say, looking at Fabio. He nods and I walk away.
Fabio's POV
Julie walks in the opposite direction of the hotel. I watch her walk along the shore for a while, before looking at Tom. I didn't really expect this reaction. I mean, he really thinks of her like his little sister, so I expected much more sadness than anger.
"Has she really gone crazy?", He asks, the anger evident in his voice.
"Look, Tom, I was angry as well. But she isn't doing this to hurt us. She was really depressed. It wasn't healthy", I try to explain.
"But she didn't have to share this now. If she isn't feeling like that anymore, she didn't have to share it", he looks away at the sea.
"Are you serious? If you don't want to know how she felt, maybe it isn't so weird she thinks you don't care about her", I can't help but say. I know he cares about her and I know he's just hurt. But he can't say things like that, he needs to snap out of it.
"I care about her. But now that I know this.. how can I stop worrying? Maybe she's committing suicide right now", he sighs.
"You have to trust her. I know she's in a better place now. I mean, she's here, in Nice and she's relaxed. She's doing good", I try to explain.
"She's been here when we had that boat trip. She was fine then", Tom argues.
"She wasn't. We weren't in a good place then either. But she wasn't good. She was really nervous and on edge and had nightmares. She even had nightmares about me, back then", I wince a little telling him this. I think back at the sessions in Andorra. How vulnerable she was. About all the things she told, how open she was. How badly I reacted. I'm sure I made it worse at first.
"How was it?", Tom asks eventually, "the therapy, I mean"
I shake my head, collecting my thoughts. "I dunno man.. it was heavy. The things she told him, the look in her eyes.. and the way she kept talking about how she deserved it and how she should go back to Alex.. and after that first session.. she was so needy and sleepy. But she also seemed so much lighter.. just that second session..", I stop. The second one hurt a lot.
The way she said, nobody listens, nobody hears me, nobody wants to.. that was the saddest part.
"How could she think she deserved it? How could she think so low off herself?", Tom is more surprised than angry now.
"Well.. I don't know, but I know she prioritised everyone above herself. She thought my career was more important than her sickness. And I didn't prioritise her enough, that's for sure. And that boat trip didn't help. We both spent way too little time with her. And my mum only made it worse", I sigh. I'm still disappointed in how my mum could say those things.
"Your mum?"
"Yeah. My mum told her after a few hours on that boat, how she wasn't good enough for me. Mainly because I should be focused on the championship and not on a girl with cancer. She agreed. I didn't know.. Not until that Sunday I was at my parents and my mum told me how glad she was, it was over. And how I would find a better girl. I rushed home and was just in time to stop her. She wrote me a whole letter. Things about how she would never be good enough for me, how I deserved better, how she didn't fit in, wasn't accepted and wasn't the right girl. She was planning on quitting her job and never see me, or us, again", I know the words in that letter by heart. I've kept that journal and kept reading it, countless times. The things in there are all so sad. The things she wrote during the boat trip. It was mostly about all the good things, but it sounds so sad. It's really saying goodbye.
"I don't know.. I need some time", Tom says. His head must be spinning. "But please, think about yourself and your career. You can't only focus on her. How much I care about her and love her"
They don't get it. I can handle it. I love her and I need her.