Formula One - One-Shots Collection - Complete

3(PC) - Charles Leclerc (P1)

'What if this storm ends? And leaves us nothing, except a memory'

I guess I had always known the day would come.

I was only eleven when I found my three best friends, Zellie, Arthur and Charles. We were inseparable, meeting by chance when we all attended a party being thrown by a friend in common. Charles was twelve, I was eleven, Zellie was ten and Arthur were nine. Even though we were all different ages, none of it mattered. Arthur and Charles were brothers and Zellie was another random girl like myself. We found out that we all lived within a mile of each other and after that party, we all ended up spending more and more time together.

Over the next few years, things changed. We all remained close, I found myself and Charles got closer than ever, spending time away from the others until one day Zellie brought some news to our attention. Once she told us, the four of us didn't hang out unless we were together.

"I'm not ready," I said as I stood outside the hospital. "I can't do this."

Jumping, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around with wide eyes as I moved away from the owner of the hand. "Love," Arthur watched me carefully as he took his hand back. "You have to come and say goodbye to her."

"She won't even know that I'm there," I tried to reason with him as I shook my head. "I've done my research. She won't hear me."

"I know you didn't come all this way to not see her," Arthur knew me well. "Just go in there," he said.

My eyes looked up at the hospital sign, taking a deep breath I nodded. "Lead the way."

Arthur walked in first, I followed slowly. The smell hit me quickly, the antibacterial stench. My insides were churning as I walked behind my friend not really knowing what I was letting myself in for.

"I have something important I need to tell you all," Zellie said quietly as the four of us sat in her back garden beside the pool.

Raising my eyebrows, I sat up in my lounger as I looked at her. "What's wrong?"

I noticed Arthur and Charles follow my lead, sitting up and looking at her. Charles put his sunglasses on his head as he watched our blonde friend.

This was one of the rare occasions in the summer when Charles and Arthur were home. Their mother had decided the young boys should follow their dreams and they were training hard to drive cars for a living. With Charles being the eldest at this point, he was the one who had found himself in the eye of a selective few who watched Formula 2.

"I have leukaemia," Zellie didn't wait for any of us to speak as she explained. "My doctor tells me I just have to get chemo, I should be fine."

Even at that moment in time, I remember thinking the worst. Now I was face to face with the door of her hospital room. "What do I even say to her?" I asked Arthur as I put my hands on the door feeling the vibe.

"Anything," he told me. "Everything. You know she'd be happy you have come."

I pushed the door open, taking a step inside as my breath caught in my throat when I looked at the woman in the bed in front of me. She looked different. We last spoke a week ago on facetime, then she looked healthy and full of life. Now she was laid in the hospital, a tube hung out of her mouth and an IV line was in her arm. Her breathing was shallow and her eyes were closed.

"Zellie," I whispered as I walked over to her bed, my hand reaching for hers as I took it in mine.

It had been three years since I had last seen her.