Spotlight

11

A/n
There is going to be quite a lot of time skips in this chapter since I want to give you guys some more "outside of racing" interactions (:
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As a child I never had what most people would deem a "normal" childhood. I spent more time in cars and airplanes than playgrounds, more time on the track than in school and more time with coaches and racers than play-mates. This has always led me to be attached to my inner circle in a way that makes it hard for me to function on my own, the contrasts between not getting to even decide what to have for breakfast and suddenly having to live on my own were rocky to say the least.

It took me a year to be able to go to sleep without being on the phone with anyone and having to move away from home was probably the hardest thing I have ever done. It was weird really- the way I now had to make my own decision but at the same time being constantly micro managed by my dad. I never used to enjoy being alone, in fact I absolutely hated it, even just the thought of being left alone with the voice in my head terrified me. This however I did grow out of. I went from one extreme to the other and now I feel suffocated by new people trying to enter my life.

I fight to keep as much of my hard earned freedom and independence as I can.

I am most definitely a family first type of person, although with that in mind I am also very much a blood does not make family person. My heart family spreads beyond the people that created me. A lot of the time I feel more related to Kevin or Kimi than my dad but at the same time I would give my life to save my dad's at any given moment.

Me and my dad never had a great relationship. Growing up I always worshipped the ground he walked on and I always did everything possible to impress him. He on the other hand never shared my affections.
He would often remind me that he did not create losers and so any time that I wasn't perfect I was not his daughter. So me being a child often ended up with me driving for hours on end, crying in my kart from exhaustion but not daring to stop regardless of the tears coating my cheeks or the way my frail hands would shake from wind and rain.

I often remember him yelling at me, vivid images of his enraged face towering over me while showering me with insults. My dad never yelled in public but as soon as people left the room I knew that I was in for it. I can still feel the way the hairs on my arms and neck would stand straight out as that subtle twitch in his jaw would appear.

Not to complain though- he never actually hit me but any time I did anything that displeased him he would yell, once again not to complain though- the yelling was definitely to prefer over his silence.

The first time I competed with the older kids, I had switched up to a more advanced category and therefore I was eight or seven competing with ten to eleven year olds, I finished in p2. I was absolutely gassed, my older brother and his friends having hyped me up, as I went to show my father the big shiny trophy I had received just moments before.

My childish face held a shit eating grin that made the apples of my slightly chubby cheeks stand out matched the joy playing in my innocent eyes.

Let's just say I was confused to say the least when he wouldn't even look at me as I held the trophy up for him to see, my eyes gleaming with pride and my arms struggling with the weight of the trophy. The overbearing sense of joy quickly left my small body as he asked Marcus Ericsson's parents to take "her" home and then went on to rant on the phone to my mother about me bing a disappointment and how he did not pay for me to compete in older age categories for me to loose. Eight year old me could not comprehend why her father wouldn't look nor speak to her but was rather left with the certainty that he hated her.