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Congratulations. I should have never let you go.
Sebastian’s finger hovers over the ‘send’ button as he watches Jenson smiling from his laptop screen, trophy in hand and his teammate Naoki at his side, eyes bleary from beer and lack of sleep. “Must be nice for all your hard work to pay off after so long.”
He’s not normally one to feel jealous of the success of others having had so much of his own but tonight he lets it creep in, its tendrils wrapping around his heart and choking out his self-worth until optimism is replaced with bitterness. “It’s my fault. I made too many mistakes and cracked under pressure but he didn’t. Of course he didn’t, he’s Jenson. Not even driving a bigger shitbox than what mine could be got to him. Maybe I’ve peaked and it’s all downhill from here. Maybe I should have taken Toto up on his offer after all.”
He picks the glass up from the nightstand and downs the rest of it, his thumb pressing just hard enough to send his drunken confession. “Maybe I should retire with what little dignity I have left after this season.”
In a cruel twist of fate, the story had been much the same as that of the previous year with early successes giving away to failures not long after the end of summer break. Lewis and Mercedes once again had achieved both driver’s and constructor’s championships with annoying ease weeks before Abu Dhabi, leaving him with both a bruised body and ego from a few too many collisions. He hadn’t been immune to the curse that seemed to befall every driver at their home race, his voice cracking as he apologized to the team for hitting the wall. Mother Nature had ruined their already risky tire choices on more than one occasion with barely wet tracks forcing him into recovery mode after a spin. Bad luck, it seemed, was determined to follow him through every last paddock.
He knows he’s not alone, needing only to ask for help with his mentality to have access to the best trainers in the business, but he still feels it’s his battle to fight on his own before anyone gets too nosy about it. If the media finds out they’ll have a field day and ask me about my sense of self more than a therapist would. I can’t let that happen. Chin up, pull yourself together, and wait until you’re sober then ask Jenson what he thinks. “But first, sleep.”
He closes his laptop and puts it on the opposite nightstand, brushes his teeth, then sinks into bed with his phone to do some online window shopping for a summer home in which to live out the rest of his days. Finland sounds nice. Or the Netherlands.
While debating the merits of a galley versus eat-in kitchen minutes later, he hears the sound of a bell chiming twice and a notification appears on the screen: You’re right. You shouldn’t have.
A racing driver’s worst enemy aside from himself, he’s come to find, is distance and it had been the distance between the home he couldn’t bear to sell in Switzerland and Jenson’s in California that had ultimately torn them apart for the last time after Jenson had retired from Formula 1. The time they’d spent together had been reduced from twenty weekends a year to one—two counting the Race of Champions—and at the airport after two years of meeting up for dates and sex according to when their schedules synchronized Jenson had proposed he move Stateside to be with him. Sebastian had countered with an offer to live together in his sprawling farmhouse in the Swiss countryside, not wanting to leave behind the first thing he’d bought after winning his first championship.
Jenson, his voice trembling, had refused. “We can’t keep this up, Seb. I have my life and you have yours. I don’t know how much clearer I can make it to you that we’re over. If a house is more important to you than our relationship then we need to end this before you hurt me more. You’re like a bad habit I’ve got to break.”
“In that case I’ll leave you to it.” With that Sebastian had turned away, barely able to see the number of his appointed gate through his tears, and walked toward a life he’d assumed would go on as planned without Jenson.
It, for reasons speculated on by motorsport journalists far and wide, hadn’t.
The bell chimes again as if to remind him of the box of framed photographs of them buried in the depths of his closet that he can’t bring himself to get rid of. Do you think one message is going to get you a second chance? It won’t. You were the one who had to be selfish that day.
I was an idiot. I’m always going to be an idiot. He opens the message and his fingers fly across the screen. The difference is now you’re far from the only one who thinks so. I assume you haven’t watched this season much.
I have. You and Fernando are more similar than you’ll ever admit.
The words leave a foul taste in his mouth knowing that shared upcoming WEC events invite the possibility of Jenson spending time with his rival in both racing and romance. Never.
I figured that would still set you off. For the record, I never went out with him the entire time we were trying to make things work and now that he has Mark he’s off the market so you can stop treating him like your sworn enemy. I wouldn’t have done that to you.
He sighs. It’s not that. It’s that so far like him all the pieces aren’t coming together well enough for me to have a dominant car and at this point I’m starting to doubt I will. So drunk I thought of giving up.
I’m calling you right now.
The phone rings and he lies on his side with it between his ear and the pillow. “Yes?”
“Sebastian Vettel, if you retire before you win a championship in that ridiculous red car I’m flying to Switzerland for the express purpose of hitting you until you see sense.”
“I could have gone easy on myself and signed with Mercedes. Toto wanted me to join.”
“Easier wouldn’t have been better and you know it. What the hell happened to you? You used to be so competitive and now you talk like you care even less than Kimi. Sometimes I see glimpses of the Sebastian I knew then I look in your eyes and wonder if he’s gone forever.”
“It’s my fault. The team tried everything to get me in front and I let them down.” His lip wobbles with barely contained sobs. “The media blames me and they’re right. I...I can’t handle the pressure like this anymore.”
“Seb, please don’t cry.” His voice is more gentle. “You had a lot of bad luck and you took it personally. You’ve been hard on yourself since we met.”
“You make it look so easy and now you have a championship while I don’t. What choice do I have but to be hard on myself?”
“I have two to your four, one of which was Ross Brawn plus sheer luck. Don’t compare yourself to me. Or anyone else, for that matter. You’re more than enough.”
“Thank you.”
“Besides, if you cry I’ll start crying and then I’ll have too much sympathy for you despite what you did to me.”
Sebastian pulls a second blanket over himself and shivers. “It’s freezing here. We’re supposed to have a really cold winter.”
“If you hadn’t been more of an idiot than usual you could have been freezing next to me here in Japan before going home to California. If you wanted to still live in the country all you would’ve had to do is say something and we’d have looked at whether or not moving north was a good idea. Honestly.”
“That’s my word.”
“Not anymore it isn’t. I’m stealing it until you get your head out of your ass about that house, grovel profusely, and then take me up on my new offer.”
“Which is?”
“If I agree to move and live into old age with you and a bunch of chickens on some farm in the middle of nowhere in the States then you agree to stay with Ferrari until you win it all.”
He starts to cry then, tears of relief and gratitude spilling onto the pillow. “You’re giving me a second chance anyway?”
Jenson sniffles. “I told you, if you cry I’ll cry too. This isn’t forgiveness. This is me refusing to let you throw away what you’ve worked too hard for and if I have to let you in enough to make you see the light, so be it. You owe me.”
“How many dates? Bouquets? Dinners?”
“We can negotiate terms when you see me. Even though you gave up on us I’ll be damned if you’re going to give up on yourself.”
“Did you give up on me?”
“I tried, but no. Still can’t make myself change my lockscreen to something that isn’t a picture of us. How pitiful is that?”
“Why?”
“Because if there’s anything that winning my first title in nine years has taught me it’s that nothing is impossible. You might want to remember that the next time you want to throw yourself a pity party and invite me.” Jenson yawns. “Get some sleep and we’ll talk more tomorrow. Goodnight.”
“One last thing.”
“Yes?”
“I lied when I said I shouldn’t have let you go. The truth is no matter how hard I tried I never did.”
Jenson chuckles. “I guess not all bad habits are worth breaking.”