the riptide
SUMMARY ! after the break-up that tore her world apart, ella finds herself back in the house they once shared, forced to confront max—and the feelings she swore she'd buried. but sometimes, hate is just love that lost its timing.
WARNINGS ! angst. emotional hurt/comfort. break-up/make-up. mentions of anxiety. max is bad at feelings. ella is stubborn. a lot of rain. a lot of silence. a lot of things left unsaid.
AUTHOR'S NOTE this is my very first fanfic ever, so please be gentle with me 😅 i've been reading fics for ages and finally worked up the courage to write my own. i'm honestly so nervous posting this !!
i'm still learning, so any feedback (whether it's good, bad, or somewhere in between) is so, so welcome. seriously, tell me what you think! i want to get better :)
The house was the same.
That was the first thing that hit Ella as she stood on the curb, the grey drizzle of a Dutch autumn sticking to her coat like it didn’t know where else to go. The sky looked unfinished, like something mid-thought.
Three months.
That was the only number her brain kept repeating. Three months of not saying his name out loud. Three months of pretending the absence of Max Verstappen didn’t echo in everything she did.
Her key still worked, of course it did. The lock clicked open with the same soft, mechanical certainty as always, like nothing inside had ever changed enough to justify hesitation.
Inside, the house was quiet. Too quiet.
The ventilation system hummed softly through the walls—steady, controlled, constant. Max had always liked systems that didn’t surprise him.
Ella stepped in, closing the door behind her.
Nothing here felt like hers anymore.
The cushions she had once picked were gone. The small imperfect vase she loved wasn’t on the shelf. Everything was clean in a way that felt like erasure instead of care.
And then she saw him.
Max stood in the kitchen with his back to her, looking out at the rain hitting the glass. Grey joggers, black shirt, slightly messy hair. Still, somehow, he looked like someone who hadn’t slept properly in a long time—as if something in him had gone missing too.
He turned before she could fully decide what to do with her hands.
His eyes landed on her.
There was no shock. Just a pause. A recognition that didn’t know what shape to take anymore.
“You could’ve called,” he said quietly. Not cold. Just careful. “I would’ve brought them to you.”
“I wanted them myself,” she replied, sharper than intended. “Didn’t think you’d want me here longer than necessary.”
A small tension pulled at his jaw. “They’re in the spare room.”
“Right.”
She walked past him without looking back, even though the air still smelled like him in a way that made her angry at her own memory.
The spare room was exactly as she left it. Her life, flattened into cardboard.
She started opening boxes too fast, like speed could replace stability. Tape tearing, objects shifting, memories collapsing into categories. Anger was easier than anything else.
Then she heard it.
A sound from the kitchen.
Soft. Almost absent-minded. A hum. Not a song. Not intentional. Something older than thought.
She froze.
She knew that melody. His mother used to hum it when he was younger. He only did it when he wasn’t fully there, which meant something was off—or too real.
She pressed a box shut harder than necessary.
He appeared at the doorway a few minutes later.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Fine.”
“You’re making a lot of noise.”
A laugh without humor escaped her before she could stop it. “So? You don’t live with me anymore. You don’t have to manage me.”
Something flickered in his face. Gone quickly.
“You left, Ella.”
“I left because you gave me no space to stay.”
Silence. Not the comfortable kind. The kind that accumulates weight.
“You made it about choosing,” she continued. “Me or the simulator. Like I was just another variable you could remove.”
“That’s not what it was.”
“Then what was it?”
Max exhaled slowly. “I didn’t know how to do both,” he said.
“That’s the point.”
He leaned on the doorframe slightly, like he needed something physical to stay upright. “I know racing. I know systems. I know what works and what doesn’t,” he said. “I don’t know what you’re supposed to do when someone needs you and nothing you do feels… right.”
Ella looked at him then. Really looked.
He didn’t look like someone who had moved on. He looked like someone who had been waiting for instructions that never came.
“I kept telling myself it was easier after you left,” he added. “Less distraction. More focus.”
A short pause.
“It wasn’t.”
He swallowed.
“I won races,” he said, almost detached. “And I went home and it felt like I was just… repeating something that didn’t matter anymore.”
That landed differently.
“I didn’t stop thinking about it,” he said after a while. “About us. About what I didn’t say.”
Ella’s voice came out quieter than she expected. “I hated you.”
He nodded once. “I know.”
“I hated that you didn’t fight for me.”
“I did,” he said, but softer than before. “Just… not in the way you could see.”
That made her look up.
“I stayed quiet when I should’ve spoken,” he added. “I thought giving you space was the right thing. It wasn’t. It just made everything worse.”
His hands were in his pockets. Tense. Controlled. Like always. Except not really.
“I kept thinking I’d fix it later,” he said. “After the next race. After the next win. After I had time to figure out how to say things properly.”
He gave a small, humorless breath. “I never figured it out.”
Silence settled again. But this time it wasn’t empty, it was full.
“I didn’t realise it felt like that for you,” he admitted.
That was the closest thing to breaking he had done so far.
Ella felt her anger shift. Not disappear. Just change shape.
“I didn’t want to hate you,” she said.
“I know.”
“I needed it,” she corrected herself, voice tightening. “Because loving you without it was worse.”
That made something in his expression soften.
“I never stopped,” he said. Not dramatic, not polished. Just said. And then, quieter: “I don’t know how to turn that off.”
Ella stared at him for a long moment.
Neither of them moved.
Outside, the rain kept falling like it wasn’t interested in their conversation.
“I want you back,” he said finally, then exhaled like the words had escaped before he could refine them.
“I don’t mean it like fixing things,” he added. “I just… don’t know how else to say it.”
“I miss you here. Everything feels wrong without you.”
Too simple. That was the problem.
Ella didn’t answer immediately.
For the first time since she walked in, she didn’t feel like she had to.
The silence between them was no longer about distance. It was about choice.
“You don’t get to say that and expect everything to reset,” she said finally.
“I know.”
His answer came instantly. No defense. No argument. Just acceptance.
“I’m not trying to fix it,” he added. “I’m just telling you where I am.”
That mattered more than it should’ve.
A long pause.
Then:
“Can I…?” he started, then stopped.
He didn’t finish. He didn’t have to.
Ella looked at him. At the hesitation. At the fact that he was actually waiting. Not assuming. Not taking. Waiting.
“Don’t make it mean everything is solved,” she said quietly.
“I won’t.”
And only then, carefully, like something fragile that could still break—he kissed her.
It wasn’t urgent. It wasn’t certain. It was the first honest thing they had done in a long time.
Nothing about it fixed anything. That wasn’t the point.
When they pulled back, neither of them smiled like it was over, because it wasn’t.
Max rested his forehead against hers briefly.
“We’re going to mess this up again,” she whispered.
“Probably,” he admitted.
“And?”
A pause.
“I still want to try.”
That was all.
Later, they ended up on the couch. Not because everything had been resolved, but because leaving felt harder than staying.
Ella leaned against him, his arm around her shoulders. The house was still the same shape, still the same architecture, still too clean. But it didn’t feel empty anymore. Not fully.
“You know this still has no personality,” she muttered.
A faint exhale of laughter against her hair. “That’s your job,” he said. “I’ll approve things.”
“That’s dangerous.”
“I’ll survive.”
She shook her head slightly, but didn’t move away.
Outside, the rain slowed. Not stopped. Just less loud.
“I don’t know how to do this properly,” Max said after a while.
“Neither do I.”
“That’s kind of the problem,” she added.
“Yeah.”
Silence. Then, quieter:
“But I don’t want to go back to before.”
Ella didn’t answer right away. Before had hurt. But at least it had been something.
“This isn’t fixed,” she said finally.
“I know.”
“And it won’t be.”
“I know that too.”
A pause.
Then she nodded once.
“Okay”.
Not forgiveness. Not closure. Just permission to begin.
Outside, the clouds started to thin, not dramatically, not like a movie ending. Just enough to change the light.
The house was still the same.
But for the first time, it wasn’t pretending to be empty.
And neither were they.
