chapter two
"rumor has it all"

trigger warnings: hospitals,
mentions of death and cancer

Nine in the morning. On the dot. The doorbell rang and Leslie answered the door. An exhausted looking Lando was standing in the doorframe. She must say that she wasn't looking much brighter than him though, dark circles beneath her eyes drawing her face.

Lando really was the last person she needed to see right now - also afraid to break down right in front of him - but at least he had remembered her appointment.

No words were exchanged and the two got into the car. Lando had tried to open the door for Leslie, but she was faster than him and did that herself. She didn't need his help. All would have been easier honestly if she had her driver's license, but finances weren't in her favor after all of her medical needs the past two years.

The drive was dead silent and the tension laid thick in the air. Both wanted to talk, but didn't at the same time. Again, their stubbornness took over and made them look like two toddlers in a fight over toys.

They arrived at the hospital and they walked inside. Lando was still trying to get her to talk and tried to put his arm around her waist, but it was swatted away. Instead she started clenching onto her stomach and worry spread over the guy's face.

Her stomach cramped and the pain was starting to get unbearable. Overnight the cramps got worse every time, but Leslie didn't want to wake her best friend who had been there for her, and also had an exam the next morning. She noticed Lando's worried face, his eyes mainly. His eyes were an open book for her, she learned how to read them along the way. She ignored it though and bit her lip to try to draw the pain to another part of her body. Lando couldn't believe her. She wasn't the only one who had learned how to read the other in these two years, so he just saw how much pain she was in. But still she was rejecting his support.

Suddenly Leslie stopped in her tracks and doubled over in pain. A muffled groan escaped her mouth, her lips pressed. This was the last straw for Lando. He grabbed her arm and put her down on the nearest chair in the main hall.

"You stay here until I come back." he growled and he scanned the area for wheelchairs.

Her ears were ringing, this was not good. Though she has had this pain before, with the same symptoms as right now. The last time she felt this specific pain she passed out. So that wouldn't be a good prospect. Good thing is that she was already in the hospital, so in case she would faint again she'd get immediate help.

Leslie felt her head starting to become lighter. "Oh no." Is what she thought. Her instincts told her to sit on the floor and rest her legs up on the chair, and that's what she did. People started giving her weird looks and some others neared her asking if she was alright. Lando had seen it all happen and bolted over to her, pushing a wheelchair he finally found.

"What are you doing?" he hissed, staring at the girl who waved him off.

"Laying here for fun, shut up. I'm trying to get blood in my fucking brain." she barked back. Even if you didn't know who they were, you could tell something was wrong between the two, and people didn't know how to react.

She was fainting. That's what she meant. Lando knew. Leslie had a habit of encrypting her sentences so that what she actually meant to say was a riddle at times.He wasn't sure whether to help her up or not, considering her previous behavior towards him. She wasn't feeling the need to be nice to him right now and though it annoyed him so much, he understood her as well. But it was frustrating that she was refusing any of his help.

"Is she okay?" A doctor who had come up from behind asked the young man.
"I honestly don't know. She has her half-yearly check up but she is in pain right now." Lando replied with a sigh, ignoring Leslie who shot daggers with her eyes his way.

The doctor nodded and explained that he'd take her right with him to their department and that checking in was taken care of. He helped the blonde into the wheelchair and pushed her towards the elevator. Lando followed in silence. He felt helpless, useless, and he had no idea what to do about it. She didn't want him to be here right now, that was obvious.

Still, deep down, she was happy to have him here. But she was way too angry and headstrong to admit it. In all honesty, she was scared to be here. She didn't mind the check ups, but the whole vibe of the hospital reminded her of the times that she wasn't doing great at all. Better to say, the times that she was on the brim of being alive or being six feet under. And somehow this time she had a hunch that she wasn't going to walk out with an all clear and no problems.

And she was correct. Her gut feeling was right - though her 'gut' told her she was in agony at that moment. Her body created scar tissue incorrectly, probably over the whole last year after her surgery. She was informed about what was needed to treat her and she was speeded to the O.R.

Lando was stunned. What had he just witnessed? His girlfriend - ex-girlfriend - wasn't even in the hospital for an hour, but got rushed out of the MRS room still laying flat on her back.

The doctor from before popped his head out of the room to see if he could find the young man from before. He knew well who he was. Besides Lando basically being a national hero, he had also attended every hospital appointment his patient Leslie Bennett had in the past. Doctor Haynes treated Leslie all these years and her boyfriend never left her side, but this morning something felt off. He wasn't going to ask about it, because it was none of his business, but it was a sad sight to see.

Dr. Haynes approached Lando and coughed to get the guy's attention. Lando looked up in shock, he hadn't heard him coming. The blond haired sat down next to him and had a serious gaze. This couldn't mean any good.

"Lando, I don't want to stress you out but I am not going to deny the fact that Leslie is indeed in quite some pain."

He heard him. He heard the words, they got into his head, yet only the last three stuck in his head: 'quite some pain'. How bad was 'quite some'? Was she only going to need new medication or was she going to die? Whatever it was, the words hit him as if he was just stabbed with a dagger.

They hurt.

He hurt.

The doctor saw the facial expression drop from sad and worried to frightened for the woman's life. He took a deep breath and continued explaining the situation. "It seems that pelvic adhesions have been created around her old internal scars. We don't know if she is going to need Epidural Adhesiolysis or if cutting it away and releasing it with laparoscopy will be enough."

Lando looked as if the guy next to him was talking alien and as if he was supposed to understand all that. He was a racing driver, not an academically trained doctor like the blond. A grin cracked through the serious face of the doctor and elaborated.
"She will not die, Lando. Basically what I was saying was that internal scar tissue is bonded abnormally. The tissue is like a rubber band twisted too tight and it's pinching the scar and what's left of her cervix. We're either going to insert medicines that will loosen the tissue or we're going to cut it via a very small hole. It's not at the worst stage yet, but it was big enough to cause her this much pain. Immediate surgery is needed though, hence why you saw her being rushed out of the room."

The young Brit let out a big sigh. It was relief, but also worry, still. What was he supposed to do now? Tell Haynes that the two of them weren't on the best terms right now? That he actually had a flight in three hours because he needed to go to his next race? It was Wednesday, everybody knew that he had to fly out on Wednesdays on raceweeks.

"You can head off, boy. She will remain under anesthesia for a couple more hours and she'll have to stay here for two more days to have her under our watch. Just to make sure everything went well. Head back home, go pack your stuff."

Lando didn't like to be called 'boy' as he felt small, useless, immature when called a 'boy', but at the moment he was, and in this situation the doctor, who was at least ten years older than him, couldn't have said much else he guessed. He silently nodded and stood up from his chair.
   "Which room will she be in? I'll buy her flowers and inform her mom about it."

Her mother needed to know what was going on. She was closest. Leslie's parents were divorced and since her dad still lived in Newcastle, her mom living in Luton just outside of London lived most nearby.

"She'll be in C239. We were going to contact her too, but if you'd like to do it that's completely fine too. We'll call her though to explain the situation." Dr. Haynes replied, waiting for a second before he continued to talk. "See, Lando, I noticed something was off today, with the both of you. And you don't need to tell me what's up, but has there been a high stress level event that happened recently? I could have triggered the scar tissue to tighten."

Nope. He was not ready to talk about it yet.

So people noticed...

Lando simply nodded his head and mumbled a 'yes', but then walked off. He didn't want to stay in this place for a single second longer. He still hadn't gotten many words from Leslie and it pained him. Normally they shared everything and they talked for hours and hours, but now he had gotten exactly fifteen words coming from her mouth. He was going to take this shitty feeling into his weekend. He didn't want to, because he knew it was going to have its effect on his performance, but he couldn't help it.

When he sat in his car and locked the doors he made a quick call to Maisie Wright, Leslie's mother, to roughly sketch the situation. Maisie was calm as usual, she went through a lot with Leslie already - I mean, the girl has had two near death moments already and she is only 19 - so this was just a mere inconvenience. She was headed straight from her work to the hospital and wished Lando a good race weekend, suspecting nothing was off. How could she know after all?

Next was Max, both their best friend. Lando already felt guilty enough about the night before and now needing to leave her in the hospital for his work added up to the stinging feeling. This was the least he could do and he knew Max was going to be there for Leslie. So he texted him.

Hey Max, can you please head
over to Royal Marsden? Les is
going to need surgery

Mate what's going on?! Does she
have a miscarriage? She can't get
pregnant anymore right?

Wtf are you talking about. No she
can't get pregnant you dumbass

Bro the whole internet is full of
rumors. Papz saw you two
entering the hospital while Les
was holding onto her stomach for
dear life

What's happening?

Something about scar tissue
being in the way and causing an
unbearable pain. She needed
immediate surgery, Maisie's on
the way too.

Please come? I have my flight in
2,5h so I really can't stay... I feel so
stupid

It's okay

I'm on my way

And indeed, the internet was full of articles with gossip about the young (ex-)pair. The world was suspecting that the young blonde was pregnant. How could some people be so ignorant and not know she was never going to be able to have kids of herself? Of course she didn't advertise it, but she had it enough times in the media that at least the whole press world should know. But it was gossip he guessed. Cheap rumors making big money. And everybody seemed to believe it too, as his Instagram was flooding with tags and DM's asking him all about it.

But all was untrue. The two weren't happily together, Leslie wasn't clenching onto her belly for happy news and she was most definitely not pregnant.

And she wasn't in pain for now as she was under anesthesia, but she was before and the frightened look on her face was printed on his netinas. He hadn't seen that look for a long time, not since February 27th, 2020, to be precise. The day that she got the news.

author's note: hello there. i am just here to say thank you so much for the continuing support on this book even if i haven't uploaded in like two weeks. you brought it to 2k already, omg!
thank you so so much and i am hoping to be uploading more consistently from now on.

reason for not consistent updates, hehe: this book requires way more studying from my side than I expected lol. Leslie obviously has some medical conditions going on, and I am not a doctor or studying meds. I am trying my hardest and still it will not always be as realistic. But I have fun doing this research, I've  made it my little project and I'm excited to learn more about it!