Hopelessly Devoted ☆ Pierre Gasly

XLIV

Everything around Pierre became blurry; it felt like his life was rolling in slow motion. His shoulders were hanging low, he was looking down at the floor, at his feet what moved. This somehow was expected, this was the worst-case scenario, but it wouldn't happen, it wouldn't happen. Yet it did.

Pierre was moving through the hallways, towards the lobby. Nothing around him made sense anymore. What is the point of this decision? What are they trying to do? His eyes welled up with tears. How could they do this? I lost Juliette. Again. He swallowed hard, trying to keep it all together. He didn't want to have a breakdown in front of everyone.

When he entered the lobby, making his way to the lift, Pierre's eyes fell on a woman who was pacing across the area. The woman was panicking, somewhat losing her shit.

Sara looked up, finding Pierre in the lobby. "Pierre!" Her lips parted, what else did she have to say? Sara had been playing the words that she wanted to say over and over again in her head, but it didn't make sense anymore.

"Sara," Pierre said when he was standing in front of her. The blur slowly disappeared, he came back to reality. He was standing in front of her, trying to smile, but everything in his body stopped him from doing that. The tone in his voice was emotionless.

"I... erm..." Sara took a deep breath while looking at Pierre, but looked around her once she realised she had to speak up now. "How did the meeting go?" Her voice was soft, fragile.

It made him realise how bad it actually went. He took a deep breath, his breath was shaky. Pierre felt the pressure on his eyes, it wasn't a pleasant feeling when he was fighting against it. "Terrible," he managed to say and placed his hands on his hips.

All the air got sucked out of Sara's lungs, it also broke her heart to see him hurt. Her face straightened, and she placed her hand on his arm. Sara didn't like Juliette, but this was the last thing she wanted to happen for Pierre. "Do you wanna talk about it?" Did I cause this because of our fight?

Pierre shrugged. "How are you feeling..." he scratched his neck. "...after the fight with Jules?" He didn't want to talk about this as well, but that meeting hurt him more. He noticed a glossy layer on Sara's eyes. "Hey..." His voice was soft, it was almost supportive. "It is that bad, huh?"

Sara shrugged, pressing her lips on each other - avoiding an escape of an ugly sob. She covered her mouth with her hand, exposing the photo she was holding. "I just..." Fresh air entered her airways when she breathed in. "I found this photo and I..." The first tear rolled over her cheek, it was a thick, warm tear. "I can't look at while thinking of the past." Sara gave Pierre the photo.

The muscles in Pierre's chin started to tremble, it was one of the best memories he had from high school. He grabbed the photo and looked at it; they all were so happy - or seemed so happy. The photo was taken during a badminton afternoon. Sara was teaching everyone badminton, but it turned into a disaster. Juliette was a complete disaster at playing badminton, but that turned out into the best laughter.

"Did you know that...that year was the best year at high school? Juliette completed us, she was the missing person we needed. We were best friends, inseparable and the best fans. There was always a bit of unbalance with both of you being boys and drivers, I was a girl and a badminton player. Besides, three is always one too many."

"We look so happy," Pierre whispered and loudly sighed, he had to relieve the emotions.

"We did..." Sara took a moment to find the right words. "Until Juliette left us. I watched us fall apart. We never really lost touch, but we weren't the trio we were before Juliette, because she completed us in the right and bad ways." She dried her cheeks. "I watched her break your heart, I saw how Anthoine got hurt because he loved her so much too. Not in the way you did, but we all loved her. I felt my heart break. The constant hurt of not hearing anything from her. Day in and day out, I checked my phone, but there was nothing. For over a year, I kept hoping for a sign of life, but there was nothing."