Rumours. So many rumours fly around this place. The incredible, the dubious, the intriguing, a melting pot of conspiracy and what might be. You would think that living this life we would all get to used to this, the constant intrusion, malicious little lies and manipulated half-truths cast around in an unfair and prejudicial manner. All part and parcel of our lives in the glare of an unforgiving spotlight, the sanctity of a personal life and reputation sacrificed on the altar of fame and reward.

I’m lucky in many respects. I can sit in the shadows and watch the current sport of the greedy hacks which is baiting you, goading you with calculated remarks to wound rather than kill, as I’m sure they prefer to keep you in a perpetual state of distress, more amusing than ending their game right now with a soul-destroying assault. Yet the scars they cause are meant to linger, else where would be the fun in toying with you if they couldn’t maim?

I have called you weak in the past, my troubled team-mate, because of this. For being such an easy target. There is no doubt in the minds of those vultures that you have most certainly brought about your current quagmire by your mental fragility because if you are no predator, no match for your team-mate at the very least then there is only the slippery slope to faded obscurity to await you. And yes, I am partially to blame for giving you those extra few shoves, pushing you in the wrong direction.

You have played into my hands most beautifully, your wretchedness from public and private whispers adding to your spiral into depression which has affected you both off and on the track. I have no interest in the former, but I cannot help but be an interested party in the latter. I have never needed to play these foolish mind games, my on-track actions speak louder than spiteful comments and the world has seen me conquer you. This would have been the case even with or without your added emotional baggage. But then, perhaps, that underestimates your natural abilities, so suffice to say your mental weakness just proved that final nail in the coffin of your career that not even pure talent can salvage.

Or perhaps I underestimate you again. You have survived this long, maybe there is a glorious resurrection in your future.

I admit this press speculation is unfair. Yes, it benefits me, but still, it is unfair on you, that they cannot allow you to compete on a level playing field. Rumours this, rumours that, nothing, from your personal life to your on-track performances, is safe from these judges.

And now, and now these reports of an enforced transfer to the god-forsaken Toyota team. Not exactly Minardi, but not a team with a glowing future, no matter how much gloss and spin your manager likes to feed you. what a step down from which your career would never recover. Condemned to the backwaters in a sport whose media would never permit someone of your calibre of your surname, to sink so low without assassinating whatever remains of your self-respect and confidence. Of course, I would have nothing to fear from a possible successor. My self-assurance would never allow me to suffer the frailties, the failures some might say, in your mental armour. And I know how little credence to place on rumours more fitting for the dustbin as I rationally know your immediate contract is secure, and there are few out there available to match your abilities when you shrug off the shackles of self-doubt to reign victorious in a moment of glory. After all, even I can grudgingly admit that, in terms of success, it has been you, my rival, my team-mate, that has brought back to Grove the trophies and champagne, the sweet taste of victories where I have only yet tasted the once.

Not that I should care about these rumours that have helped to shake you to the core of your psychosis. To have an unsettled rival is one thing, but a team-mate is priceless. One would be a fool if he did not take advantage of another’s misfortune. It is a cut-throat world out here, we all know that, understanding the pressures to succeed, to win, to defeat our rivals. Had I the problems, I am sure you would take your chances, for although we do not hate each other, there is no love lost between us and the folly of our Nemesis is the gain of the protagonist.

So, yes, I take the profits while you wallow in misery. I sympathise, but can do nothing to help you. I doubt very much that you would want my assistance even if it was offered. To be comforted by a friend in this troubled time, yes, but by your rival? Only a fool would accept such a tainted olive branch, an indication of a war lost when signs of weakness can bring down the most successful careers.

But the thing is ... what I’m trying to say, in my own secretive way, is that perhaps I would like to offer that help. For all the self-preservation instilled in me by a heartless sport, I cannot help but feel pity for your plight. You would most certainly refuse my support, quite rationally seeing mischief in my motives. But it is becoming harder to justify my desire to help you in terms of dragging out your defeat. Am I mellowing? I hate to think. Perhaps it is a good thing that I know you would refuse my help. It means that I can keep this secret to myself, certain in the knowledge that even as wounded as you are, not even you are quite so low as to submit and respond to outside aid. It is not part of the game we play, to open yourself to potential destruction when you could hide, lick your wounds and hope to salvage something out of troubles and ingratitude.

Even if I wanted to help you which I don’t, not really, you would not accept. No, we are enemies. We know it, the team knows it, the press certainly know it. Enemies that spit venom, air their claws in public and despise each other. Time and familiarity may have softened our temperaments somewhat. We no longer bitch nor stalk, but still rivals. Still enemies. Enemies that hate ... dislike ... tolerate ... co-operate ... work well together ... understand each other? I have always sought clarity to define my surroundings, yet it seems increasingly obtuse regards you, the one who I ... I don’t know any more. Or perhaps it is not that lack of precision which concerns me, but the vividness of clarity in the unexpected?

Then again, where is it written that I have to hate my enemy? My Nemesis you are, yes. My rival, the one I most desperately long to beat, from whose defeats I take a pleasure verging on the perverse. Yet, under what laws must I hate you? Who says that I do?

Perhaps I used to. No, I know I used to. Now, with the passage of time and wisdom, I find that hate irrational, more a hindrance. You see, my deepest satisfactions come from my victories over you. if merely hate drove our professional relationship, I would not only be ambivalent to the rumours of your departures and mental state, I would positively encourage them, playing Devil’s Advocate for the hungry press seeking to destroy. Because you would not matter to me.

But you do matter. A most strange bond indeed that keeps us together. I cannot say that I would take such pleasures against another rival or feel so dejected if you get one over me. Take today, such an insignificant moment in terms of the race, yet my little move on you was as thrilling as any duel for victory against another.

And so we get to the root of my malady, the reason for those idle thoughts and uncharacteristic introspection. I don’t want you to leave this team, the prospect has worried, scared me in such a way I cannot help but feel I’m over-reacting. After all, you’re just a team-mate. But without you here to spur me on with that petulant stubbornness bordering on the confrontational, I would lose some of the motivation to push myself harder. Moreover, I would lost most of the joy.

Most of all, however, I would miss you. I shouldn’t say it, I shouldn’t think it. But I would. Because hidden beneath all of this argument that is an important reciprocal ... whatever, there is a part of me, a very hidden part of me, that wonders ... just wonders that if we can put aside our differences for the good of the team, could we become friends? Too rare are the occasions when that defensive wall of yours crumbles momentarily and I see, with you beside me or from a distance, a tantalising glimpse of what you are really like. And it intrigues me when I find you can be less of the struck-up little child you sometimes revert to, the protective mechanism you use to warm people away when they stray too close to the real you.

Yes, I’m a curious creature. I would love to get close enough to see, yet not for the reasons you would suspect or for the reasons I tell myself, but just because I would like to see further. You really are a curiosity. I know the side of you that you permit me to see is not your true nature. I know you can laugh, an infectious giggle far too filthy to match that naïve and proper façade normally imposed.

So, I have admitted this much, but for now that is enough. Those thoughts are leading down dark alleys that I don’t yet feel comfortable with. I guess we both have skeletons in our closets, hidden from view. Yet, my secret I can keep for a little while longer. I would gain nothing from admitting more or telling you, but I could lose so much that it is not yet advantageous to play my ace. So, instead I’ll sit here and watch you with mild curiosity as you struggle with a complicated life, lost, alone and out to sea.

When I know you better, when you least expect it, then I’ll make my move. Not to unsettle you or for selfish reasons like that, but because I like surprises. And I need to know that you do too.

~The End.