Foggy Mirrors | Max Verstappen

Chapter 13 - THE PAST

"Are you watching football practice?" Joshua asked his little sister as he found Leanne sit under a tree, her history book in hands, but she was starring off into the distance.

"Huh?" Was the first reaction he got, before the younger Van der Verden looked at her brother, who was raising an eyebrow. "If you will watch the football practice later. Ines said you weren't on the grandstand to watch in weeks."

"No?" She answered causing her brother to huff.

"What is wrong with you?" Joshua wanted to know while keeping a few feet distance between the two of them. Leanne was actually okay as were some others from her class, but they were youngsters and Joshua, and his friends were real adults compared to them. It was very rare that her older brother cared enough to come over and say hi at school, but that suited Leanne just fine.

"You need to have it together Leanne, I can't handle .... Not you too, okay?" Josh muttered, which caused his little sister to look at him worry taking over.

"I have it together, Joshua. I am the only one to have it together it seems." Leanne answered him, anger now taking over. How dare he come over and tell her that she needed to have her shit together. She knew that much herself, him telling her was not needed or appreciated at all.

"Don't talk about shit you have no idea about." He warned her, which caused Leanne to narrow her eyes.

"Then tell me what the fuck is going on with you."

"No." Joshua said, not leaving room for any argument, but Leanne was sick of playing hide and seeks with her brother's drama.

"Why?" She wanted to know instead of answering his question which caused Josh to exhale slowly, while a girl from his class came over and wined his names, before telling him to get a move on.

"Anyways, see you at home." Joshua said, not answering his sister's question, to busy following the girl back to his friends.

Sometimes Leanne thought of their relationship as strange. In school they weren't even greeting each other most of the time, but at home, she held him when he cried after his father beat him up with the belt again, because something in his life had gone wrong years ago and he had a bit too much to drink. Here she was ignored, at home she iced his bruises and tried everything to hide them, so no one at school would see them, but Leanne noticed when he winced as the girl through her arm around his back. The last lashing marks weren't healed yet. Their father was also the reason why Joshua had stopped playing football and volleyball at school. He was scared someone would see.

"Hey." Alida said, pulling Leanne from her thoughts, only to earn herself a small smile in greeting from Leanne. Smiling back, Alida folded her hands in her lap, before glancing at Leanne a bit unsure, before changing the way she held her hands to each other again and exhaling slowly.

"So, there's something I wanted to address before the boys' practice starts. Just with you, if that's okay. I don't want the others to know." Alida told Leanne which also explained why Rie and Ines were missing. They normally passed Leanne's tree hideout to say hello before they would go to sit in the grandstands.

"If it's about me not showing up to the squat lunch meetings as often anymore, I'm just busy." Leanne spoke before Alida could which caused her friend to smile understandingly, making Leanne's skin itch. She hated lying to her friends, but she also knew that it was unfair to sabotage Max's career even though it was only sport at school.

"A lot of people are awfully busy at the moment. Max too is rarely coming around anymore. Cornelis is worried about him, but that's actually not what I wanted to talk about." Alida explain to her which caused Leanne to gesture for her to go on, causing her friend to take a deep breath.