Winter testing. God, to be anywhere else but out on a bleak day, with only myself to keep me company.

He wasn’t here, well, I didn’t expect him to be. Perhaps it’s a good job he isn’t. It would be ... too much. He’ll most probably be in Italy, hidden from prying eyes ... gloating. I thought the break would do something, stop me feeling this rage or at least relieve some of it. If anything though, even the mention of his name now can ...

And after everything I’ve done for him in the past. Our past. Stuck by him when things were difficult, when people asked questions of him. But he doesn’t remember the sacrifices I had to make for him, for his glory, playing the dutiful number two just to make him happy, to prove myself to him. For his success. All he remembers is ... it’s not even as though it meant anything at the time. What do they call it, a foolish fling? He actually said it was a good thing, unsteadying his championship rival for the race? But that’s Michael - always thinking of his glory, his fight, never me or mine.

It didn’t really matter when I failed again, our so-called relationship was crumbling around us and suffocating us both. Not that he seemed to care. It was always on his terms anyway. He always made it seem as though I needed him but he didn’t need me. As though I was the desperate one, the weakest one, the one who needed the affections of the other. I guess the second time was defiance, I was looking for it, looking for someone to control like he controlled me. Show him I wasn’t just his possession and that he couldn’t just treat me as his occasional lover.

Or maybe it was just a desperate bid to make him be angry with me, to get us to argue, to talk, to make him feel jealousy. At least then I’d know that he did care.

But nothing. He knew all about it but didn’t say a word. He let me go as if it didn’t bother him. Then, my only solace was with the one I wanted to use in defiance. I don’t know if it was love. Perhaps it became that, although it didn’t start off that way. He was the only one who mattered to me after Japan, the only one I felt I could run to, cry in front of, be myself. But even he wasn’t enough. Perhaps I’m just too cynical to love anyone. No, that’s wrong. The only way I can hate this much is because I did love.

I thought his accident would change things, put things back the way they were. We really talked, for the first time in ages. And he listened to me in a way he’d never done before. Then when he came back, it seemed okay. We seemed okay. Better than okay. He seemed happy for me, willing to treat me like the equal I’ve always wanted him to see me as.

I truly thought he meant it when he told me he loved me. The night spent in his arms in the Malaysia hotel when it seemed we could have a new beginning.

A masquerade though, all of it. A pretence. Nothing was fixed, we were still like strangers. I just couldn’t see it.

So, I made a few mistakes in the past, said the wrong thing, did the wrong thing. Does that mean he had to deliberately hurt me like this? He knew how much I wanted it, that I’d probably never get another shot at my dream again. And while I’m sitting on the floor in a cold, lonely garage, surrounded by unfamiliar faces, as I try to come to terms with the sudden collapse of my life, he’s probably laughing, knowing that he’s always been my better and that nothing’s changed, regardless of my outbursts, my tantrums, my tears.

And I can’t forgive him for that. I want to hurt him. I want to hurt him more than I’ve wanted to hurt anyone before. Make him suffer the way he made me suffer; treat him with the same contempt, the same indifference, toying with my emotions, loving me one minute then coldly ignoring me the next.

I need to hurt him like that.

And I think I know exactly how. And I can wait.

~The End.