Your mother's voice echoes in your head—the same conversation you've had a dozen times this season: "Darling, perhaps it's time to think about other options. You're so bright, there are so many paths you could take." What she doesn't know is that you've only ever wanted one path, and it's always led to the girl now bathed in golden light and victory.

"Congratulations to our champion!" The announcer's voice crackles through the speakers as confetti cannons explode in bursts of gold and silver. You should be happy for her. You are happy for her. It's just that happiness feels like swallowing glass when it sits next to everything else—the want, the longing, the years of loving her in ways that have no name in the world you've both been raised in.

Abbi finds you in the garage afterward, still in her race suit, trophy tucked under one arm like it belongs there. Like everything always has. Her hair is damp with sweat and champagne, curling at her temples in a way that makes your fingers itch to touch.

"Did you see that overtake on turn fourteen?" Her eyes are wild with adrenaline, pupils blown wide. She's always been beautiful after a race—flushed and electric and untouchable. Golden hour personified. When she smiles like this, all teeth and joy, you remember why you fell in love with her before you even knew what love was.

"I saw." Your voice comes out quieter than intended. You're still in your own race suit, though yours tells a different story. Dust and gravel on the elbows from your spin at turn six. A small tear near the shoulder where you'd had to squeeze past a barrier. Next to her radiance, you feel like a shadow.

She notices, because of course she does. Abbi has always noticed everything about you, even when you wish she wouldn't. Especially when you wish she wouldn't.

"Hey." Her free hand finds your shoulder, thumb tracing the torn fabric with a gentleness that makes your chest ache. The touch burns through the fabric, straight to your skin. "You okay? That spin looked nasty on the replay."

Replay. Right. Your moment of failure, broadcast for everyone to see. You wonder if your parents even watched, or if they'd changed the channel after lap fifteen when it became clear you wouldn't be challenging for points. Your mum probably switched to the cooking show she likes, the one with the cheerful presenter who makes everything look effortless.

Her fingers linger longer than they should, longer than friendship requires. But then again, your friendship has never existed within normal boundaries. It's built on shared hotel beds and lingering touches, on the way she braids your hair before races and how you paint her nails in team colors. On stolen glances and almost-moments that never quite become something real.

"I'm fine," you lie, hyper-aware of her hand still on your shoulder, the warmth of her palm seeping through your suit. "Just tired."

The lie tastes familiar on your tongue. You've been telling it for years now, ever since you realized that the flutter in your stomach when she laughed wasn't just friendship. Since you understood that watching her lips move when she talked made you forget how to breathe, that you'd memorized the exact shade of gold in her eyes when sunlight hits them.

"Listen," Abbi's voice drops lower, the way it does when she's about to tell you something important. She steps closer, close enough that you can smell her perfume mixed with the scent of racing fuel and victory champagne. "I got the call yesterday. GB3 confirmed for next season. Full backing, everything."

Your heart performs some complicated maneuver that would probably earn you a penalty flag if it were a racing move. Joy and pride and something that tastes like copper flood your system. "Abbi, that's incredible. I'm so proud of you."

And you are. God, you are. Even as it kills you. Even as you remember being fifteen in that cramped hotel room in Silverstone, lying face to face in the narrow bed, whispering about your dreams while her fingers traced patterns on your arm. How she'd kissed your forehead when you won your first F4 race, her lips soft and warm against your skin. How you'd pretended it was sisterly affection when every cell in your body screamed otherwise.

She grins, the smile that's been breaking your heart since you were twelve. The smile that makes her look like she's made of sunlight while you're made of midnight and longing. "Remember when we used to talk about racing wheel-to-wheel in the big leagues? You and me against the world?"

You remember. You remember everything. The way she'd curl into your side during movie nights, her head on your shoulder, your fingers tangled in her hair. How she'd change in front of you without a second thought, all golden skin and casual intimacy that felt like drowning. The night in Spa when she'd cried after a bad qualifying session and you'd held her, feeling her tears soak through your shirt, wanting to kiss them away but settling for stroking her back until she fell asleep.

"Different paths," you say, because it's easier than the truth. The truth being that there's only one path, and it's hers. You've just been running alongside it, pretending you could keep up, pretending that friendship was enough when every fiber of your being ached for more.

"What about you?" she asks, and there's something careful in her voice. Her hand moves from your shoulder to your wrist, fingers circling it like a bracelet. Like a claim. "Any word on next season?"

You shake your head, trying not to focus on the way her thumb is stroking across your pulse point. "I might take a break. Figure things out."

Abbi's face falls, and suddenly she's gripping your wrist tighter. "You can't quit. You're too good to quit."

I'm not good enough to stay, you want to tell her. I'm not good enough for racing, I'm not good enough for you, I'm not good enough for anything that matters. Instead, you try to smile. "Someone's got to cheer you on from the sidelines, right?"

"Don't." Her voice turns fierce, and she steps even closer. You're backed against the workbench now, trapped between metal and her warmth. "Don't make jokes about this."

"Who's joking?" The words come out breathier than intended because she's so close you can count her eyelashes, can see the way her lips part slightly when she's upset.

"You could come with me," she says suddenly, desperately. Her free hand comes up to cup your face, thumb brushing across your cheekbone. "To GB3. We could figure something out. I can't... I don't want to do this without you."

For a moment, the world narrows to this: her thumb on your skin, her eyes searching your face, the way she's looking at you like you're something precious. Like you're something she might lose.

"Abbi..." you breathe, and for a wild second you think she might kiss you. The air between you feels electric, charged with six years of almosts and what-ifs.

But then someone calls her name from across the garage—media commitments, photographs, the golden routine of victory—and the spell breaks.

She steps back, hand falling from your face, and you immediately miss her warmth. "I should go," she says, but her eyes are still fixed on you.

"Yeah. You should."

Neither of you moves. You want to tell her everything—how you've been in love with her since you were fifteen and she taught you how to take Paddock Hill Bend flat-out. How every victory of hers feels like watching the sun rise, beautiful and necessary and utterly beyond your reach. How you lie awake at night imagining what it would feel like to kiss her properly, to love her openly, to be loved back.

Instead, you reach up and straighten her race suit collar, your fingers brushing her neck. She shivers, eyes fluttering closed for just a moment, and you memorize the sight of her like this—vulnerable and beautiful and so close you could lean forward and—

"Go be brilliant," you whisper. "Like you always are."

She catches your hand before you can pull away, presses it flat against her collarbone where you can feel her heartbeat racing as fast as yours. "What if I don't want to be brilliant without you?"

The question hangs between you like a bridge you're both too scared to cross. You want to say then don't, want to say take me with you, want to say I love you in all the ways you've never been brave enough to voice.

But then the media team calls again, louder this time, and the moment shatters.

"I'll call you," she says, finally stepping back. Your hand falls to your side, cold in the absence of her warmth.

"I know." But you both know she won't, not really. She'll be too busy being brilliant, being everything she's supposed to be. And you'll be too busy learning how to love her from the shadows, the way you always have.

You watch her walk away, trophy catching the light, her name already being printed on headlines around the world. Before she disappears around the corner, she looks back at you once, and the longing in her eyes nearly brings you to your knees.

Later, alone in your hotel room, you'll lie in bed thinking about the way she looked at you, the way her thumb felt against your pulse, the question she asked that sounded like a confession. You'll draft a text you'll never send: I'm so proud of you it physically hurts. I love you. I love you in ways that don't have names. I want to tell you how beautiful you looked today, how you always look. I want to tell you that I'd follow you anywhere, even if it's just to watch you shine. But I can't come. I can't follow where you're going.

Instead, you'll send: Congratulations, superstar. You deserve everything.

Because some loves are meant to be small and quiet and shaped like letting go. Some loves are about knowing when you don't belong in someone's story, even when they're the only story you want to tell. Some loves are about six years of almost and the terrible knowledge that almost is all you'll ever get.

You turn off the lights and listen to the distant sound of celebration, pressing your fingers to the spot where she touched your face. Outside your window, Abu Dhabi glitters like scattered stars, beautiful and unreachable. You're not the moon, you're not even a star. You are small and distant and devoted, loving her in the only way you know how.

Tomorrow you'll fly home to your mother's worried face and a future that looks nothing like the one you dreamed. But tonight, you let yourself imagine being her little spoon one more time, let yourself remember the weight of her arm around your waist, the way she'd whisper your name in her sleep. Let yourself pretend that all those touches meant what you wanted them to mean.