The Bull Prince | Max Verstappen

Chapter 40

Short Note at the end and now let's go

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Closing the door behind her as soon as she had reached the safety of her own hotel room, Joanna slid down the door, her back firmly against it, while she pressed her hand over her over mouth to stop herself from making any noise. 

The thoughts in her head circulated, getting darker and deeper. Really, what had she thought? That a teenager would fall in love with her, be the knight in shining armor, Joanna always denied she needed, who would scup her up, before they would ride into the sunset? How the hell was she kidding? 

They were never meant to be but still, they tried. They tried, crashed, and burned. But the worst thing, Joanna couldn't even put any blame on Max. It was all her doing. 

She wondered if they would have worked out if she would have grown up like a normal person. If she wouldn't be so broken, dark, and wisted. Maybe, but it wasn't likely. If Joanna were normal, if the baggage she carries were smaller and the trauma milder, she would have found someone a long time ago. 

For a moment she thought that maybe she would have married Mark years ago, but that was also just one of her dark and wicked fantasies. If she had been normal, she would never have got involved with Mark and might now have a devoted husband who understood her and children who loved her more than anything. She wouldn't have neven noticed Max and he would never have flirted with a married woman either. Maybe they would have become friends, another of her grid children.

But Joanna wasn't normal. The Austrian always tried to show herself that her past didn't matter, but the past did matter. It made Joanna the person she was today. Her past caused her pain, and sorrow and sadness, and loneliness, but it also gave her a voice. She was loved by millions of people. She was a champion, a role model and kids around the world looked up to her. She repressed this fact, did not want to have to live with the responsibility. But it was there, always and forever. It might dull over time, but her name was a legacy. People will always remember her. 

Looking down at her shaking hands, Joanna laughed in despair and helplessness while tears wetted her cheeks. She was such a mess. Sitting on the floor in her hotel room in the middle of the night pleading with herself to hold on just a moment longer. To get it together again. 

The right man could do horrible things to a woman and sometimes he did that by loving her a little bit too much. 

But she had expected so much. It wasn't a big deal, she tried to calm herself down, but nothing worked. 

A breakup was never easy but it was so much worse when you were still madly in love. When you still wanted to look at the other person to see if they laughed about your bad jokes when you still wanted to lean on their shoulder when things got tough. 

Pulling her knees to her chest, Joanna realized that she had never been in this situation. It was always her, who kicked them out, who broke things off. In all these years she had never been affected enough to care. For her, it was just a breakup. Something she would get over after a night out with her friends. Nothing which would bother her for long, but this time was different. Max was different. 

But in the end, Joanna knew that this was coming. Sooner or later he would have realized that she's not the one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with and he would have left her, but Joanna thought she would be able to take it. She thought she would smile at him, wave him goodbye like an old friend, and wish him good fortune on the adventures yet to come. Well, it didn't come as she had expected it. But when did that ever happen?

Hearing from Max that he didn't trust her had stung. It had hurt to hear that but she couldn't even get angry at him for saying such a thing, because he was right. Joanna was having secrets, she was hiding things, she never deserved his trust, which she had told him a long time ago. Joanna had warned him, but he didn't want to listen back then, and now he got hurt and Joanna felt so guilty about it. He had been warned but he didn't understand back then, now he did, and maybe that was what made Joanna feel so guilty.