Lone Wolff | Charles Leclerc

010 - you're not alone

The news of that stupid picture had spread fast around the paddock and unfortunately, also online. Olivia had told me that both me and Charles had become a very hot topic on social media in a couple of hours. The story that was circulating the most was some dumb rumor that I was trying to lure him towards Mercedes or Toto put me on the team to distract him from the race so that we'd qualify higher than Ferrari. It had all been dumb accusations. And all was based on one vague picture of us laughing and having coffee at work. Most of it came my way because the women are always the first ones to blame apparently: I was messing with his head, trying to seduce him and using him, stealing information about Ferrari, and distracting him to fail and people were hating on me for it, while I didn't do anything.

It was just mind-blowingly stupid and I could almost laugh at the stupidity of it, but the second the picture actually went viral I got bad. I started receiving some creepy and hurtful messages from people who told me that I didn't belong at Mercedes and I was just using everyone around me to gain fame, but then with a lot more harsh words than that. All again, because of one simple picture. It was the power of the internet. Luckily I had a thick skin built over the years and big wall around me to keep me safe. And I had my friends.

Shit... it's gonna be alright Teddy, let the social media teams handle it and this will blow over in a few days

It always does

Ignore what everyone is saying online

They are all just idiots

You are amazing and wonderful, don't let them tell you otherwise please

I'm sorry that this happens to you...

I'm sorry Teddy, it's my fault, we shouldn't have sat outside like that, I should've known better...

Charles had been texting me all evening after he heard, but I hadn't answered him at all. I didn't answer anyone at this point. He probably was following it all online as well as his messages became more concerned about me personally. It was sweet that he cared. I had also received some messages from other drives to cheer me up as well as messages from my friends who were completely confused about the situation and wanted to know what happened. I didn't know what to say as I was trying to block out whatever was going on. I only person I had tried to text was Willow, my best friend, but she was asleep as she was living in Australia at the moment. Willow always had some dumb but secretly very good advice that would make my day better, even if the was miles away. 

Olivia was also trying to keep my phone away from me after a while so that I wouldn't look at the mean as she had also noticed how it affected me the moment I'd read them. I was only human, of course, hurtful messages would affect me. I stared at them blankly, the fort I had built around me stood tall and protected me, but the words were still printed into my brain. I had been called names before, but these were people that I didn't know and they very vocal about what they thought of me. Before my first F1 outing, I had imagined that something like this would happen over some dumb scandal because I did something really dumb that deserved a scandal, but this wasn't even worth calling a scandal. I almost wished that I actually did something stupid, so that they had something real to talk about. I groaned loudly and fell back onto my bed, with my hands rubbing my face in annoyance.

Olivia had fixed some food and drinks for us and we were drinking a good red wine that Mercedes would be paying for. She had tried to get my mind of the whole ordeal, also saying that it was unfair how they treated me. I was mostly annoyed at the world at this point. The anger and sadness were packed away deep inside of me, as I didn't want these trolls to get the better of me, but it was hard. The backlash actually kind of ruined the sweet morning I had with Charles. Olivia had been texting people, probably trying to fix my mess, and suddenly threw her phone at the end of the bed. Why couldn't people just let me live my life, it's not that I was that interesting, I was only Toto's daughter. I had lived my life outside of the spotlight for years, nobody cared then, why would they care now? I groaned.