Pole Position: Between Logic and Passion

Tomorrow

But I hadn’t told him he couldn’t. I just didn’t know how.

And now… I didn’t even know where he was.

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Two days.

Forty-eight hours of nothing.

No texts. No calls. No sign of life. Just a suffocating silence that wrapped around me like a weighted blanket I couldn’t pull off. The kind that made breathing feel like work. The kind that kept me from eating, sleeping, thinking straight.

Kate and Arthur hadn’t heard anything either. Neither had his mom. Everyone was starting to get nervous. But no one said the word.

Missing.

Because that wasn’t Charles. He didn’t just disappear. He didn’t ghost people. He got quiet when he was hurting, sure—but this was different. This felt like something had cracked.

I was sitting on the floor of the living room, surrounded by half-unpacked boxes, trying to focus on anything other than the ache in my chest when my phone buzzed with a dozen notifications at once.

At first, I thought it was just group chats. Maybe Kate, finally saying she’d found him. But when I glanced at the screen, my heart stopped.

"Charles Leclerc seen partying in Ibiza—intimate photos spark controversy amid Ferrari silence."

I didn’t even hesitate. I clicked on it, already bracing for the worst, heart pounding like a drumline in my chest.

And there it was.

Dozens of photos. Charles on a yacht with a group of people I didn’t recognize. Some girls—models, probably—draped around him like they belonged there.

One photo in particular stole the air from my lungs.

A girl with long legs and barely-there clothes sat on his lap, laughing with her head thrown back. Charles was smirking—tipsy, careless, flushed from the sun and probably more than a few drinks. His hand was on her thigh.

He looked free. Like someone who didn’t give a damn.

I blinked hard. Once. Twice. Hoping the image would change. Hoping it was a mistake, a trick of the angle. But it wasn’t. And it wasn’t just one picture—there were five, six, seven versions of the same story.

I stared at the screen until my eyes burned.

There it was—plain as day.

His left hand.

No ring. Of course. Of course he’d taken it off.

I zoomed in just to be sure. My throat tightened. Empty. Completely bare.

I didn’t even think. I didn’t cry, didn’t scream, didn’t do anything dramatic.

I just opened the family group chat—the one we had with Kate, Arthur, maman, and even Pascal who never said a word but always had the damn read receipts on. The same chat that had gone quiet for the past two days, full of "any news?" and "has anyone heard from him?" and "just let us know you're okay."

I uploaded the photo. The one with his stupid smile and the girl in his lap and the hand that used to hold mine now resting on someone else's thigh.

Amy: “You guys can stop worrying. He’s doing just fine.”

I didn’t wait for the typing bubbles. I didn’t wait for a response.

I put the phone face down on the kitchen counter and walked away, because if I didn’t, I would’ve thrown it straight through the nearest window.