Woman in a man's world

Thursday - Silverstone

"Hi David, could I maybe talk to you for a second?" Mick asked carefully, not feeling at home in the red bull garage.

"Well yes of course, you don't want to see Norah?"

"No but I need to talk about her." The two men went somewhere a bit more private to talk.

"I'm worried for her, she is not the same Norah that I know. She is happy when we spend time but something about the way she acts is wrong, do you have any clue?"

"Yes I do, Adam, her trainer got a document of her size chart over the season and she is getting thinner and thinner. We believe it is that new boyfriend of hers that has in some way manipulated her into this. You know Norah, she is strong, she doesn't just fall for anything. We are still trying to figure out why this happened but she most likely has an eating disorder."

"An eating disorder? I guess it makes sense, I don't like her boyfriend too. He always has something to say about her, what she does, how she looks and her training. Will she be able to continue racing?"

"We're getting that sorted this weekend, we have a few doctors who have worked with eating disorders before so they will watch her today and talk to her and hopefully we can come to a conclusion where she doesn't have to. But nothing is certain right now."

"Okay, thank you for being so attentive about this. I can't believe I didn't do anything. I knew something was wrong but I thought it would be better if she got the distance she needed but I was totally wrong. Let me help as much as possible, please."

"Don't blame yourself for this, the most important thing now is that we fix it, together. I'll let you know what the doctors say after today and maybe you could tell a few of Norah's closest friends here? Lando and Pierre maybe? Sometimes you have to do things for Norah when she can't bring herself to do it."

Mick went back to his garage, a million thoughts in his head. How could he be so stupid not being there for his best friend, she was always there. The second anything happened she was there, why didn't he repay that? Bringing some more thought to it Mick realised that something was actually stopping him from being there for Norah. That stupid boyfriend of hers. It was like a puzzle that was almost done, but the last piece was gone, stolen by Josh. He was the one who encouraged Norah into all of this madness. Now Mick knew why, she lost her brother and a little time after she almost lost her life and her world of racing. She needed someone to fill in the spot of her brothers and everybody else were so caught up with themselves that Josh was the only one there for her. Everybody failed Norah, not just Mick. Everybody.

"But what does all of this mean?" Norah asked confused, a few papers in her hand.

"From what we have gathered from today and the papers from before, your body is slowly shutting down. From the minimal amounts of food you've eaten over the let's say last six months you've been losing weight, wich we can see and -"

"She's just been training to get back into shape." Josh Interrupted the doctor. Adam gave him a look of seriousness, he took a step back.

"Like I said, you have lost weight. The reason you haven't felt any other consequences except tiredness is because of all of these different Vitamins you've been taking, and thankfully so, otherwise you would not feel as good as you feel right now. But Norah this is getting really serious, replacing food with pills is not a healthy way to live and considering how much you train every day you need to eat."

"We've made a plan with an anorexic clinic here in London where you'll take a break from racing for a few months so that you can get back. If your progress is good you could race after the summer break. How does that sound?" Adam asked, Norah was still. Frozen.