razorblade | sebastian vettel ✓

chapter 19 | look before you leap

«A hopeless, a violence. I named it: love.»

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England, 2012

Her phone buzzed. Cassandra puffed some air, removing the annoying strand of hair that sat in the middle of her face, and tried to balance the grocery bag with one arm. She pulled out the phone with her free hand and checked who was texting her. Not that she had a lot of options now. It was Sebastian.

Sebastian: I know you hate the weather in England so I'm pretty sure you might like the weather here in Brazil

Sebastian: Can't wait for you to get here!

Brazil. That was the last race of the season. Basically, the championship decider. Things leading to that race had been a bit moved. There was the article, then the making-up between them, then the fact that everybody at Red Bull Racing, or the ones who cared about it, were iffy about her after the article — Sebastian didn't mention anything but she was pretty sure his team principal put her name on a hit list, and Mark probably disliked her now. It had been a proper PR disaster. Cassandra did apologise to Britta, who seemed hesitant at first but apparently trusted Sebastian's judgement enough to accept her apology. Starting off on the wrong foot, as people said.

They spent a lot of time together — rekindling, or whatever — before he left for the States for the race there, he would be off to Brazil after that so technically they had to recover pace in the little time they had. The idea to invite her to the last race had come after the race in the United States when they were on a call with Cassandra congratulating him for making the podium. Lewis had won the race so she congratulated him as well when he interrupted in the middle of the call. Sebastian said: you should come to Brazil, it'd be great to have you there. I might win the title. And Cassandra, knowing she wouldn't be too welcome, just answered by saying it could be complicated to get there. The thing was, that was Sebastian, he was insane and she already had caused him enough pain in a couple of days so, in the end, she couldn't say no. So she was supposed to be there, for the final race. That was.

She typed a quick I'm always down for anything that's not English weather and sent the phone back to her pocket. Everything was fine.

And then she continued walking to her flat complex, and things stopped being fine when she approached the main entrance because in front of the building was her literal mother. The same woman she'd seen at the art gallery a little less than a month ago. Cassandra thought of turning around, and waiting somewhere until she was gone, but before she could react, Mila caught her eye and it was too late to flee. She was carrying a box, a shoebox-sized one, Cassandra noticed as she walked closer to where she was standing. The woman smiled awkwardly, but she kept a blank expression.

"What are you doing here?" She asked, holding the grocery bag closer to her chest.

"Hi, Cassandra." Mila had a little accent. It was a mix of a Greek accent with the British one. She assumed from all the years she'd spent in England.

Her brows furrowed. "What are you doing here and how do you know this is where I live?"

Her mother smiled. An actual smile. "It's actually not that hard to find the daughter of a known writer. Not if you have the right contacts, and my assistant does." Right, her father wrote under a pseudonym but he was still Robert Ritter for business. "I'm here because I want to talk to you. Properly." She slightly shook the box she was holding in her hands. Cassandra glanced at it and then back at her.

There was hesitation at first, but eventually, she accepted. "I don't have a lot of time so it has to be quick." Mila nodded.

Cassandra gestured at a little concrete bench outside the building and they made their way over there, sitting at a considerable distance from one another. She put the grocery bag down in between her legs and her mother put her box in the space between them. Silence lingered for the first minute or two until Mila sighed.