L O C K -U P | c. leclerc

10| Keep you in my Heart

A. Devereaux

The day I won my first race, I lost my grandfather. I remember getting the call from the hospital and they told me he died peacefully but I couldn't believe it.

I couldn't believe he was gone. I remember the salty tears that fell down my face, as I drove as fast as I could.

I didn't want to believe it still. That was until I saw him, lying lifeless on the hospital bed. The last person I wanted to see was there. My dad. He was there with his happy little family and it made me hysterical.

"Get out," I calmly said, wanting time alone with my grandfather and to be as far away from them as possible. My father, who chose to abandon me had surprisingly said, "Artemis, please let us be here for you-."

"You were never there for me and I will never let you be there for me," I yelled, "You're only here now because you already escaped the raising a child part. You didn't have to change nappies, or teach me how to walk or bring me to my first day of school! My grandfather did it for me! That's why I'm so appalled that you're his son!"

"How can a man like my grandfather, have a son like you," I yelled and I didn't care if the entire hospital could hear me. It needed to be said.

"GET OUT!," I yelled for a final time and they finally did. I couldn't remember much after that. I could remember little inklings of me crumpling into my emotions. However, till this day, how I felt in that moment was scored into my heart.

All my life I felt unwanted. I felt that I wasn't good enough. My mother died too early and my father didn't even want to raise me but my grandfather reminded me every day how special I was. And now he's gone, and all that supposed self-worth I felt just faded.

For days, before his funeral, I would lie on my bed crying my heart out to a non-existent audience. I constantly asked if this is what I deserved. Is this what I was supposed to feel every single day for the rest of my life?

I didn't realise how much I relied on my grandfather to tell me what I was worth until he was gone. It didn't help when the paparazzi just stormed his funeral. I was hysterical. I cried out and yelled at them saying that they disrespected his grave.

I grabbed their cameras and trashed them to the ground, next thing I know. The headlines came. "Nightmare Lauda" became my new name. I wasn't Artemis anymore, and I wasn't my grandfather's sweet granddaughter. I was, according to the articles, "a cutthroat bitch with no regard for others' well-being."

A big piece of my head had been carved out the day he died. He had left so much to me. A lot of money to sponsor a team in F1 academy, his house in Austria, and a trust he apparently had for me this whole time and had just never released until he died. His family hated me for inheriting so much as if I hadn't been family either. Just because I took my mother's last name, I always felt like a ghost amongst them.

Eventually, I gave up the house in Austria to them. I didn't want to fight about it, it was too painful. Too painful to see them squabble and tell me how I was only a thorn on their side and that I was just lucky to have been brought up by my grandfather.

Till this day, it is scored my heart that I would never forgive them. I would never forgive them for giving me a hard time when I already was having a hard time. I had gained no sympathy, no care, and no remorse from anyone. I received no apologies or condolences.

I was branded as an unstable girl who had no regard for anyone but myself. From then on, when they called me a nightmare I decided to make it true. It was much easier becoming the person who they thought I was rather than defend who I truly am.