The other woman

Grief

"It is so good to hear your voice."

Alex felt sick and looked towards her en-suite door, her older sister's emotional and heartfelt words meaning nothing to her but bad memories.

"You got my message then? Someone managed to get hold of you?" Sanne asked, her voice trembling. "I didn't know what else to do, your phone was off and none of us know where you are only that you work for Sebastian Vettel."

There was a pause, she was waiting for Alex to respond.

"Alex, please, say something!" Sanne pleaded.

"How did he die?" She asked abruptly. Getting into small talk wasn't something she was interested in, right now all she wanted to do was to get an answer to Johan's death and then hang up, switch the phone back off and never touch it again.

She heard Sanne choke back a sob and sniff but instead of feeling sad for her sister and sorry that she was having to deal with this without support from herself, she felt nothing. Just a numbness, she'd have probably felt more upset if she'd been talking to a complete stranger.

"He err.... He collapsed outside...." Sanne began, stopping to quietly cry.

Alex just sighed impatiently, scratching her nose and then looking at her watch. Why the fuck didn't I let Seb stay? Why the fuck did I make this phone call?

"They said it was his heart," sobbed Sanne. "I tried so hard....gave him CPR until help arrived....but he'd gone!"

Alex lowered her head to stare at her feet as her vision blurred with tears, the first one rolling down her cheek, her chest suddenly aching with suppressed emotion. What the fuck??

"Please say you'll come to the funeral, please say you'll come to say goodbye!" Sanne cried, sounding desperate.

"No," she replied loudly, her own voice now trembling. Wiping under her eyes with her sleeve, she'd had enough. "I've got go, don't call me again."

"No! Wait! Just give me another minute please! Tell me what you've been up to, what it's like working for Sebastian. Are you still with Soren? The last we heard you'd moved in with him in Amsterdam. Mother would love to speak to you..." Sanne rambled on, oblivious to what Alex had been through with the man who was now her ex.

"Goodbye Sanne." She cut the call and turned off the phone, part of her wanted to throw it across the room or even better, out of the window but instead, she tucked it back into the draw it'd come out of.

She spent the next ten minutes sitting there, silently crying and wishing that she'd let Seb stay instead of making him go home. Maybe this was grief? It didn't feel the same as it did when she'd had her miscarriages but it still hurt and she didn't know what to make of it. Why grieve for someone who'd not been a part of her life for so long, who'd been already thought of as dead?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Austin, Texas, USA.
"You alright?" Britta put a hand on Alex's shoulder, giving her a look that dripped with sympathy.

Alex then looked across the table at Seb, arching a brow, giving him a look that showed her displeasure. She'd already told him that she didn't want or need this, today was just a normal day, a normal media Thursday ahead of a busy weekend in Austin.

"Are you sure you don't want to call....." Britta started to ask if she wanted to phone her family back in the Netherlands but was quickly cut off.

"No." She snapped, causing Seb to step in before an argument broke out.

"Come on," he stood up and gestured to her for her to follow him. "Let's go and wait for the guys in the pit lane, we'll be walking the track soon." Then he turned to Britta, giving her an apologetic smile, "don't worry about her, she's ok, she just doesn't want to be reminded about what today is."