Catch Me If Ya Can!

Teuvo Matikainen

Currently I find myself sitting outside of the headquarters of this rally team from my country who asked for my services, but, 'how did I get here?' You might ask...

Ok, let me start...

My name is Teuvo Janne Eero Matikainen, Teuvo Matikainen for shorter.

I was born in the Northeastern town of Kuusamo in the beautiful country of Finland on 8th January 1998.

I am in appearance, a weird mixture of Georgian and Finnish but mostly Finnish. Tall, strong, green eyes. Most people say I look a lot like my dad except for my hair, dark dark brown, almost black, like my mother's, unlike my dad's blonde hair.

My mother, Yekaterina, a school teacher, was born in Tbilisi, capital city of the Republic of Georgia in the Caucasus moved here to Finland for better opportunities. She died of a severe disease in her liver when I was three.

My grandfather was born in Israel and was Jewish, which automatically made me Jewish too.

My father, Jari, owner of the town's biggest library, was born in Oulu, in Western Finland. He gave me a good life, educated me well about life and other things and provided for me good enough even after my mother passed.

And he didn't did that for me but he also introduced me into the world of this beautiful thing known as Motorsport -Formula 1 and Rally Racing specifically-so I grew up watching races and in no time, it became my dream to become a great racing driver one day. He also taught me many things about car mechanics -another of his skills as he worked in a mechanic workshop some years ago-and taught me to drive at an early age.

At school, I've always had my own problems for being an immigrant's son.

People called me weird and stupid in many times, I didn't mind it but I always thought it was stupid for them to hate on me for my origins.

On several occasions they called my dad cause I had beaten a classmate, especially on middle school, but my dad never grounded me for it or anything, instead, he encouraged me to defend my origins.

And, yeah, I am also that kind of guy that is never in a relationship, not because I am not attractive, as a matter of fact, more than once I heard rumors at school that many girls wanted to literally eat up every single inch of my body, but they wouldn't actually do it just because I'm Georgian descent.

But on the first year of high school, when the insults hadn't stopped, they kicked me out of school for reportedly putting a classmate in the hospital and since that was the only high school in my town, I had no place to study so I pulled out of school.

That same year, I signed up in the army -at age 15, what a country!-to fight in the Operation 'Heimosodat II', a second attempt of an operation whose objective was to recover the territories lost to Russia in 1940 -Karelia, Petsamo and Salla-and even gain a little more land from Estonia, Sweden and Norway. I was accepted because of my driving skills and mechanics knowledge, I was the guy that drove troopers from one place to another, driving around the snow and earth.

But as I mentioned before, my dream was to be driving at a high speed in a racing circuit in Belgium or to be drifting a rally car at 70 km/h in the forest, snow or the desert.

Downsides to that, I was friends online with a girl from Helsinki, Raisa Laitinen, black long hair, blue beautiful eyes. Our friendship was great, we both liked to listen to -Finnish artists-JVG, Ruudolf, Mikael Gabriel, Karri Koira, Stepa and Sini Sabotage's music, she had met all of them in person before and because of our friendship, I got to meet them all too when they came to Kuusamo.

We would spend many hours speaking to each other, send pictures and sweet messages, I often told her how beautiful she was and how bad I wanted to meet her and she always was there for me when I wanted to speak about my problems.

We also had in common our passion for motorsport.

I even spoke with her when I was at the battlefield, she always said she would pray for me.

But one day, she just deleted me off her contacts with no apparent reason.

Some weeks later, speaking to her friends, I got to know that she stopped speaking to me cause her parents thought I was a bad influence because of my background and because I was fighting in 'Heimosodat II'. It broke my heart.

In the end, 2 years later, war ended, Russia agreed to return the lands lost in 1940, we also got the whole territory of Estonia and the region of Finnmark from Norway.

I received some cash for giving my services to the nation, something like €6.500.

I spent some of that money on a car trip to Lahti, where there is a racetrack often used for the Finnish Formula 3 Championship races, and where I enjoyed taking my car -one that my dad bought for me when I came back from 'Heimosodat' after I got my drivers license for my 18th birthday-to drive around the circuit, going as fast as possible.

As I drove out of the racetrack to make my way to a hotel to stay the night and then travel a little around the country, a man came running to speak to me.

"Hey, have you looked at the way you drive?"

"Not really, why? Does it matter?" I asked him.

"Well, to you it might be normal or something. But, you know who I am? I work with Hirvonen Rally Team, I am the guy responsible for finding good drivers and signing them. To me, what you did right there is nothing else but the proof of pure talent. I'd like you to meet us at the team's headquartes next Friday at 11 o'clock to negotiate about your career and contract ok?"

I just nodded not even understanding what this meant in my life.

The pursue of a dream that I've had my whole life and that always seemed impossible, now seemed possible.

I drove back home as soon as I could and I told my dad what happened, at first he didn't believed me but I got him to believe it when I showed him the card that the man gave me.

I was pretty sure of the decision that I was gonna take and what was gonna come with it.

I waited anxiously for that day, until it came, I drove all the way from Kuusamo to the team's headquarters in Helsinki.

Now, well now I am sitting next to my car in the parking lot watching the clock until it marks 11 o'clock in the morning.

And that is pretty much the story of how I got here.

End notes- Thank you all for reading the first chapter of this story! Hope you're liking it so far! Please, keep reading cause I can assure you, if you liked this first chapter, you'll probably like the rest of this story too!

Comment, fan, recommend, give me feedback and share this story with ya frans!

-Also, check my other work here in Wattpad: If I had to get a concussion to be with you, I'd do it. - A Hockey Love Story.

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And check my friend @PleaseIgnoreKriszy 's Cody Simpson Story and follow her on twitter: @AugustusVVat3rs (it's 2 V's not a W)

Bye!