Rêveuse

Chapter 4.

February 2023

Charles has been busy for a month already, and I'm going out of my mind. His calls are getting less and less frequent, and most of the time he doesn't have time to pick up when I call him. He's at the gym, he's in the simulator, he's in meetings, he's taking photos for the upcoming season, he's in training camp, he's doing sponsor stuff, he's going karting in Dubai.

I know he said he'd be busy and I told him I understand and that it would be fine, but one month in and I'm already getting sick of it. He calls me as often as he can, but most of my day just goes by, walking around in our apartment that we share, but it's empty most of the time.

I spend so much time trying to find other things to do. Things to distract me. Like asking Kelly to babysit Penelope even when she doesn't need babysitting. I even went in to help with teaching at my old dance studio again, but there's only so much I can do. Of course I have no problems helping out in the little kids classes, as it's not very demanding.

I get very good at golf, hoping that I might get to spend time with Charles that way when he finally has some spare time. I go golfing with his mom, and I even got to go with Lorenzo's girlfriend, as a good way of getting to know her.

The season hasn't even started yet, and he's already so busy. When he's traveling around the world in different time zones this will just get harder.

At least I've had a lot of time to work on myself and to try to make myself feel better. Our apartment has also never been so spotless, you might think that no one lives there.

My parents are moving back to Monaco in March. They've bought the old house back, and I saw the family who's lived there for the past seven years pack their things into moving trucks when I was there last. Whenever I visit Pascale, I look out the window and I try to see my parents living there now, but I just can't do it. The most familiar house suddenly looks so foreign to me.

It's going to be so weird to see them pack their old and new stuff into that space as if nothing happened and we were never away. I will get to see them a lot more often, which is nice, but the thought of going to dinner there after all this time makes me feel sick. It feels so wrong.

My room is still untouched in Sweden, and a lot of stuff should probably be rinsed out and thrown away, instead of junk being moved from one country to the other. So I planned on going to help them pack and get rid of some stuff that I didn't mind keeping. I hadn't seen them since Christmas either, so it was time.

I was packed and ready with my suitcase waiting in the bedroom, two days before I was leaving. I had been bored and just packed before it was really necessary, and it worked as a nice reminder that I would be getting away from my own company in the lonely apartment soon.

I was sitting in the kitchen having dinner by myself when Charles called. I hadn't heard from him all day, and only been able to text him the day before, so I got excited and quickly pressed the green button.

"Bonjour Chérie," Hello Darling, I replied happily.

"Salut, je suis désolé de ne pas avoir appelé hier," Hi, I'm sorry I didn't call yesterday, he replied, I heard he was talking over the speaker in the car.

I couldn't even be mad that he didn't call, because he apologized and that just means he's aware of it and he didn't just forget it. He still knew he should've called, but sometimes things get in the way and he gets too busy or it gets too late to call. He doesn't know that I stay up later just in case he calls me.

"C'est bon je comprends," It's okay I understand, I replied.

"Je rentre à la maison... il me reste quelques jours avant d'aller à Maranello," I'm going home... I have a few days left before we go to Maranello, he said.