I’m back. Funny, in some respects it’s as if I’ve never been away. No matter where in the world we are it’s always that comforting ... I don’t know how to describe it ... sameness. The same familiar faces, the same press conferences, the same eager photographers and pushy journalists anxious for their next story and demanding your immediate attention. The flashing lights from cameras, the scream of the engines ...

But at the same time, everything’s changed.

July seems such a long time ago now, as if it never happened, well, not in this lifetime. But at the same time it’s affected my life in ways I can’t yet come to terms with. A strange paradox, I guess. Things change, things stay the same ... and you’ll do anything to stop things changing, to stop your life moving on in the only way it can, clinging on to the past at whatever cost, whoever’s cost because you don’t want to face the unknown future alone.

But you can’t.

Events happen, people change, their desires alter, they evolve, grow, change and there’s nothing you can do about it, nothing you should do about it. You can try to stop it, stop them, try to hide in your own idyllic daydream but then you’re cheating in the game, not playing by the rules, just delaying the inevitable.

I have to do this. Not just because my priorities should be with my family - my beautiful wife and children. That’s never stopped me before, they’re a different part of my life. No, but because the only way I can give him what he wants, what I’ve prevented him from having for far too long now, is by letting go.

Next season will be tough, so strange without him. Four years as team mates, confidantes, friends ... lovers. If I ask myself honestly, I don't want to let him go, I can’t bear the thought of him not being there every moment, not being able to touch his soft skin, not having his arms wrapped tightly around my chest, pulling me closer. In some respects, he knows me completely .. but then again in others we are like strangers because I’ve never dared to let him deep into my thoughts. But it was always difficult to disguise our feelings. I guess most of our mechanics knew but they kept their silence for us, kept our secret from prying eyes, made excuses for us.

But he needs to go. It’s better if we’re no longer in the same team, working together, the temptation’s far too great and I don’t trust myself not to just forget those promises to myself and fall back into his arms as I’ve done many times before now.

And he had to want to leave himself. I couldn’t make him or force him out. I admit I spoke with Luca, placed a few ideas in his mind just to make sure. Not out of malice, I could never do that, but because he can’t stay. For both our sanity.

But just because my head’s telling me we have to end it, that it’s not working, that it hasn’t worked for months, that doesn’t mean my heart feels it. There isn’t a moment goes past that I don’t long to change the past but I can’t. We can’t. We just won’t admit it.

I still love him though, I always have. Even when through sobs he told me that he’d been unfaithful and begged me to forgive him that night in Japan, salted tears causing his blue eyes to shine iridescent opal and I couldn’t stop myself gazing into those glassy depths and wanting to claim his lips in my own. Forgiveness didn’t matter to me; all I wanted was him and no-one else mattered, nothing else mattered.

For a year after that it was perfect. But then I guess we simply drifted apart. I became too caught up in my ambition, losing was no longer an option, so they kept telling me. I suppose he had a right to feel used, although that was never, ever my intention. I didn’t mean to hurt him but my life revolved around winning, the desire for success. So much so, I couldn’t see that I was choking him, denying him the sort of affection I should have given him. All he wanted was for me to reciprocate his love, to be treated with the respect I never showed him because I was too occupied, too focused, too demanding. I just didn’t realise that I was driving him away with my selfish demands for him one moment and then my cruel ignorance of him and his desires the next.

I hope he knows I didn’t mean it. That I was too caught up in my own dreams to realise I was hurting him. It wasn’t until that fateful day in July, the scene of my shattered dreams for another year, that I realised he was fighting back, showing me he didn’t need me.

And that hurt so much.

Of course I knew about his new relationship, he made sure I found out, wasted no opportunity in flaunting it. I just had to choke back the tears so he wouldn’t see me cry. Suffer in silence, though it was perhaps the worse thing I could have done.

On the fateful day in July I realised we were over. There was nothing left.

We still loved each other but it wasn’t enough any more, we were hurting each other too much. And it had to stop.

So, I’ve made my decision, and now I’m back I have to do what I should have done earlier but was too scared of the future to do. For his sake, for mine.

Perhaps in the months to come he’ll realise that what I did was right. I can tolerate his hate if it means I’ll spare us both the pain we’d feel if I didn’t end right now. If I can, I will give him the race today, a parting gift, but the championship? No, I can’t. My dream for so long, I can’t do that ... not even for him. He has to do that for himself. He probably won’t forgive me if I don’t but he has to do this himself. He has to understand or ...

No one can see into the future. For all I know I’m making another mistake. But then again, if I sit back and allow us to continue, I could wreck everything.

It has to end, now.

~The End.