The weirdo girl obsessed with a couple of Motorsport drivers she admires to the point of stalking them so much she almost ruined their lives? That's me. I'm not entirely sure how I ended up here, but with my heart pounding like crazy, a camera in hand loaded with digital gold, and zero chances of sleeping this entire week, I guess I'm a full-time stalker now.
For months I can officially say I make a living out of this. Remember that, Jennie: you're the only one in the whole faculty who gets paid for it. I had almost lost hope, but my "reflective writing" personal project covers this penthouse and my car, so yes, I'm clearly winning at life.
Not the time for self-sabotage. This is huge. Seriously huge.
It's been two and a half years since this... adventure started. I've always been extremely ignorable. The selfies I post on IG barely reach twenty likes. And two and a half years ago, for the first time, I tasted what going viral felt like. From that moment on, I was convinced that if I did it once with the dumbest thing on the internet, I could do it again as a professional.
I'm a stalker.
That day, Crust TeamSports had signed him: Alan Marti. The sworn enemy of their star, Christopher Crust. They hated each other; they even fought more than once, and not just screaming matches. Actual punches. And I'm not going to lie, you know I never lie to you... it turned me on like a freight train.
What if that rivalry wasn't just on track? What if, secretly, they were forbidden lovers whose only way to touch each other, to get that electric contact, were the punches they threw during the Toronto Grand Prix? I know, I'm spiraling. Don't judge me too harshly. The two most handsome guys I'd ever seen were rivals, and now Crust TeamSports had signed him. He was probably the most desired driver in the SS10, and now he was teaming up with Christopher Crust himself. They were going to be unstoppable. And they actually were.
But that only fed my delusions and I couldn't stop. Like a kid in primary school, I made a couple of edits of the boys: those fleeting glances, their "queerbaiting" jokes that everyone does, but I saw so much attraction, so much chemistry between them. Within hours, my edits had millions of views and likes on TikTok. People all over the world reposted them, and I wasn't the only one. I felt part of a community. A community of stalkers.
A few months earlier, I had registered a college project: an amateur magazine, Savage Magazine. It was my personal outlet. I started doing it as a vlog nobody took seriously; then I tried to make it a bit more professional and uploaded it weekly to Issuu. People like that kind of stuff, plus it fed into my vlog and also a web blog. I was used to anonymity; that had never stopped me. But I discovered that whatever I talked about, no matter how important, was irrelevant compared to anything I posted about the Christopher Crust and Alan Marti ship. Christlan was my niche, and it was the closest thing to being successful. I knew I had to milk it.
During the SS10 Mexico press conference, I knew it was my moment. Crust TeamSports rarely accepts local press conferences; they know perfectly well that local fans are the most intense, so they're extremely careful to avoid scenes that could harm their image or let fans make the boys uncomfortable.
I swear it's not me. They're the ones who build all that mystery around the guys. They show them as unreachable, stunning, top-level athletes who seem to care only about entertaining millionaires, never the fans.
The national teams' press conference for the SS10 World Championship should've been held at the headquarters of the team representing the United States, but Crust TeamSports always managed to hold the big ones in Europe. Not this time. Apparently they weren't getting special subsidies this year, something that clearly annoyed Roger Crust. He looked super tense on camera. But lucky for me, the conference would be here: Local Miami Crust TeamSports.
I had to go. I tried the proper way first, I promise. I sent my request as an independent interviewer, but I was completely ignored. Not even the "we've received your request" auto-reply landed in my inbox. That night I dressed as elegantly as I could, dragged along a couple of classmates I basically bribed into coming with me, and snuck in. It wasn't hard at all, and I know I shouldn't admit it, but it was way too easy. Miami Crust TeamSports, if you ever read this... your security team isn't doing its job.
I had been preparing my questions for a while, ever since that 2018 incident when the team principal (whose name I forgot) standing next to Christopher Crust was asked about his political orientation in front of a thousand cameras. Roger Crust was furious; everyone knows he hates apologizing more than anything, and he had to do it. Since that day, instead of improving the quality of interviewers, he simply moved all important press conferences to Europe.
I needed a question interesting enough to publish in Savage Magazine, but subtle enough to avoid censorship. Anything that slightly upset the FRA was instantly censored.
So my question was:
"Do you two get any time to spend together off the track?"
I addressed it to Alan Marti. He was always the least reluctant to talk about non-professional topics. Christopher Crust was basically immovable.
Alan looked at me with a slight smile, always warm and respectful. Not really knowing what he was going to say, he thought for a moment and, in the cutest, clumsiest way possible, replied:
"Chris... schedule, empty."
Christopher couldn't help blushing. He was clearly trying his best to hide it, but he gave that gorgeous, mischievous smile we've only seen a couple of times.
Alan Marti is Spanish. He speaks English, although very clumsily, though he's improved a lot. He's better every time, but off the track he's awkward. Very awkward. He said a couple of words implying that he always cleared his schedule for Christopher.
Those words burned into my brain. That same night I wrote the headline: "Schedule, empty." Soon it became a fixed section of my magazine. Since I talked about them so often, I kept it. Every time I wrote about them, and it was a lot of times, that headline appeared on the cover. And every time it did, that issue sold ten times more than any edition without it. It became a tradition.