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They used to say it like it was already written

Not if they ended up together

but when

Y/n and Lando had grown up tangled in each others lives from back gardens becoming racetracks and imaginary concerts. School mornings waiting outside each others houses, family dinners blurred together so often that his mum stopped asking if she was “coming over for dinner” and started putting out an extra plate without thought.

She was there when he first said he wanted to race professionally

He was there when she first wrote a song she was too shy to sing properly

Neither of them ever questioned that they would be apart of each others futures until it started pulling them in the opposite directions.

—————————

They were sixteen when it started feeling different

They never had a grand confession, but somewhere between the years of friendship and growing up together, they simply fell inlove.

Lando’s mum Cisca was simply over the moon

She let out the biggest smile before pulling y/n into a tight hug. “finally,” she laughed looking between them.

“i’ve been waiting years for you two to figure it out.”

Lando groaned, rubbing the back of his neck. “mum…”

“don’t mum me,” she grinned. “everyone knew you’d end up together.”

————————————————————————————

The Beginning Of The End

It didn’t happen suddenly.

It started with a phone call.

Lando was at home when it came. The late afternoon light streaming through the windows, the kind of quiet that felt too normal for something that was about to change everything.

The call didn’t last long. It didn’t need to.

By the time he hung up, everything he had been chasing since he was a child had finally reached out and said: we want you.

He didn’t even realise he was smiling until he turned and saw her in the doorway.

y/n.

Barefoot. Hair messy. Half written lyrics scribbled on her arms like she always did when she was thinking too much.

“what?” she asked softly.

He couldn’t speak at first. Just crossed the room and pulled her into him so tightly it almost hurt.

“i got it,” he said into her shoulder. “i got the seat.”

For a moment she didn’t move.

Then she laughed, small and breathless, disbelief written over her face.

“oh my god.”

And she meant it. She really did.

Because she loved him.

She loved him enough that his dreams always felt like hers too.

But even then something in the air had started shifting.

————————————————————————————

Leaving Home

The weeks after were a blur.

Suitcases being packed and unpacked. Family dinners that felt too loud. Conversations that always ended in we’ll figure it out later.

But “later” kept moving further away.

The first time someone from the team said it out loud, it didn’t sound like advice.

It sounded like an instruction.

“you’ve got to be careful now,” one of them told him.

“you’re stepping into something big, distractions, relationships, it complicates things.”

Lando didn’t answer.

Because when he looked at y/n across the room too busy writing in her notebook, he didn’t see a distraction.

He saw home.

But then he started noticing the small things.

How cameras lingered too long on anything personal, how interviews twisted small details into headlines, and how quickly people decided what a driver’s life should look like.

And suddenly love didn’t feel simple anymore.

It felt exposed.

Dangerous.

One night, after a long silence between them, he finally said it.

“i think we need to… be careful.”

y/n looked up from her notebook. “careful how?”

He hesitated.

That was the moment everything cracked, even if none of them admitted it yet.

“just.. less visible,” he said “for now”

Less.

————————————————————————————

The choice

It happened in her bedroom.

Suitcases half opened again. Another departure.

Another “temporary”

She was sitting on the edge of her bed when he said it properly this time.

“i think it might be better if we don’t.. do this right now.”

Silence.

Not shock, or confusion just an understanding arriving too fast.

She let out a low breath like she’d been holding in it months without realising.

“you mean us,” she spoke

He shook his head immediately. “no i don’t mean us,

i just- “

“you do,” she interrupted.

He ran a hand through his hair. “i just can’t afford to mess this up, not now, i need to focus.

There it was.

Focus.

As if she had been something pulling him away from his life instead of part of it.

Her voice didn’t rise. It barely shook.

“so i’m distracting you?”

“no,” he said quickly. Too quickly.

But he didn’t say anything after that.

The silence answered for him.

She nodded once, like she’d just confirmed something she already knew but had been hoping it wasnt.

“okay,” she said quietly.

The word barely reached him.

She looked down, blinking hard, composing herself to keep it together but no matter how many times she tried to swallow the lump in her throat, a tear escaped slowly tracing it’s way down her cheek.

She was quick to wipe it away, turning her face ever so slightly, hoping he hadn’t noticed.

He did.

Lando’s chest tightened.

Every instinct told him to cross the room and pull her into his arms. Take everything he said back.

“please don’t..” he whispered, voice cracking slightly.

She looked at him, tears glistening her eyes

“don’t cry”

He closed his eyes for a moment, shaking his head.

“i can’t do this if you cry.”

She frowned, her voice barely above a whisper.

“why?”

He let out a shaky breath.

“because if i come over there…” His eyes met hers again, already full of regret. “i’ll stay.”

Silence filled the room

“and if i stay,” he continued quietly, “If i stay i won’t leave. I’ll convince myself it would work out and it can’t.. not right now.”

Another year rolled down her cheek

She nodded slowly, even if though every part of her wanted to beg him to stay.

“then go,” she whispered

He stood there for a second longer, as if trying to remember every detail of her before turning towards the door.

Neither of them realised it would be the last time they’d look at each other as the people they used to be.

————————————————————————————

The distance

The days after didn’t feel like heartbreak at first but absence. Like forgetting something you couldn’t name.

He texted.

She replied less.

He called.

She stopped answering.

Not because she hated him, but every time she heard his voice, she remembered what it used to feel like when he chose her without thinking.

And now he had to think.

—————————

So she started writing instead.

At first it was fragments, lines that didn’t make sense together, melodie’s she’d hummed into voice notes at 2am.

Then one night, sat at her piano she wrote something and it became something else entirely.

Not as revenge.

Just as the truth.

She titled it: Less.

————————————————————————————

A year later

The world didn’t know it was about him, his family never asked but they knew.

She hadn’t planned to release it, but songs have a way of refusing to stay private when they’re honest enough.

It went up quietly.

No announcement or explanation.

And it spread.

Fast. Too fast.

Clips of it appeared everywhere. People using it for edits, relatable videos, captions like “i’m sobbing, who broke her”

And somewhere in that noise, it stopped being hers alone.

——————————

Lando heard it in the garage first.

Someone’s phone playing low through speakers. A chorus drifting through tools and conversation.

He freezes before he even processes why.

Then he hears it.

“i wish you loved me less..”

His stomach drops.

Her voice.

He’d know it anywhere.

The voice of his childhood, the voice he spent years falling asleep to, laughing with, the voice who cheered louder than anyone from the sidelines, his first love, the one he’d spent the last year trying not to think about.

That night, he searches for the song himself.

And he listens.

Once.

Then again.

Because the first time doesn’t feel real.

But the second time ruins him.

“i feel it again, edge of the bed

body and head protesting..”

He stops breathing properly somewhere in the first verse.

Because it doesn’t feel like a song it feels like sitting in a room he used to live in.

A room he left without realising it would linger with that memory.

Then the chorus hits.

“if loving me means letting go and wishing me

the best”

“then i guess”

“i wish, i wish, i wish you loved me less”

He pauses the song.

Stares at his phone.

He thought leaving was the right choice, that it was responsibility.

He thought love meant stepping back so nothing broke.

But she didn’t write it like that.

She wrote it like she broke anyway.

———————————

Big Sur becomes a road trip they once took when everything still felt easy.

LAX becomes the airport goodbye he convinced himself was temporary.

The bed edge becomes where the song haunts him the most.

And suddenly it isn’t just a song but a timeline of everything he didn’t notice slipping away while he was too focused on becoming someone else.

He wanted to reach out.

He doesn’t at first. Not because he doesn’t want to but because he doesn’t know what to say that doesn’t sound like it’s too late

But the silence gets heavier.

And heavier.

Until it feels louder than any race he’s ever driven.

He types messages and deletes them, opens her contact and closes it.

Because what can he say?

That he thought he was doing the right thing?

————————————————————————————

The Annual Christmas Dinner At The Norris Household

The house still looked the same.

That was the first thing she noticed.

Snow clung to her coat, melting into her hair as she stood outside. Inside laughter echoed, familiar voices layered over familiar music, the kind of comfort she used to belong to without thinking.

Y/n stood at the front door for longer than she meant to.

She almost didn’t come.

Not because she wasn’t invited though she tried avoiding this dinner at all costs.

But because she didn’t know what she was anymore inside this place.

Then the door opened.

His mum.

Cisca.

“oh, sweetheart,” she said immediately like no time had passed at all, pulling her into a hug that was warm, so achingly familiar.

“you made it,” she added softly, like she was almost scared you wouldn’t.

“i said i would,” y/n replied, but her voice didn’t quite match like it used to.

Nothing about her did anymore.

——————————

The house was louder than she remembered.

Or maybe she was just quieter now. She recognised everything in pieces.

The staircase she used to sit at while scrolling through race updates, the kitchen where she used to steal midnight snacks while he laughed at her, the living room where she once fell asleep on the sofa waiting for him to come home from karting.

Now all of it felt like someone else’s memory she had been invited to witness, not live.

His family greeted her like she still fit. As if the distance hadn’t made a difference, like she still belonged in the gaps between their conversations.

——————————

She saw him before he saw her.

Of course she did.

He was standing near the kitchen counter, half-turned away, talking on the phone.

Older in the face in a way that wasn’t just time, it was pressure. Responsibility. Everything he had wanted finally sitting heavy on his shoulders.

He laughed at something someone said.

It was automatic.

But it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

Y/n didn’t move.

Neither did he.

Not yet.

It was like the room itself had to decide whether to let this moment happen.

Then someone said her name behind him.

Not loudly.

Just enough.

And everything stopped.

—————————

He turned.

And there she was.

Not a memory. Not a thought he could ignore later.

Real.

For a second, he forgot how to breathe properly because his brain still knew her instantly even if his life didn’t know where to place her anymore.

“hey,” she said first.

Simple.

Careful.

Like stepping onto ice she wasn’t sure would hold her weight.

His mouth opened slightly before closing again. He ended the call, placing his phone on the counter.

“hi,” he managed back.

Silence stretched between them.

Not awkward in the usual sense but worse. The kind that used to be full of comfort but now it just exposed everything that wasn’t there anymore.

“i didn’t know you were coming,” his voice was softer than she expected.

“it was last minute,” she replied.

A pause.

“i wasn’t sure i should”

He nodded once.

Like he understood exactly what she meant.

Or maybe like he didn’t want to pretend otherwise.

“you look…” he started, then stopped.

She waited. He tried again, quieter.

“different.”

A small, sad smile touched her mouth.

“i am.”

That was all she said.

No explanation needed.

Because they both knew what she meant.

For a moment neither of them moved but the house around them kept going. glasses clinking, people laughing, christmas chaos unfolding in every corner but here between them, everything stopped.

“i listened to it,” he said eventually.

Her eyes flickered.

She probably figured it would reach him of course she did.

“yeah?” she replied softly.

He nodded.

A beat.

“i didn’t realise it felt like that for you.”

There it was. The thing he’d been carrying since the song came out.

She looked at him for a long moment.

Really looked.

And when she spoke, her voice wasn’t sharp.

It was tired.

“that’s the thing,” she said. “it didn’t feel like that for a while, it felt like that slowly until it was the only thing left.”

He swallowed. Hard.

Because that was worse than anything else she could’ve said.

“i thought i was doing the right thing,” he said quietly.

“i know,” she answered immediately.

No hesitation.

And that almost broke him

Because she didn’t argue with him, she understood him too well to need to.

A silence settled again.

Different this time.

Heavier.

“i miss you.” he admitted.

It wasn’t planned.

It just slipped out like something that had been sitting in his chest for too long.

She didn’t react immediately she just nodded slowly.

“i know.”

A pause.

“the us that grew up together…” she exhaled softly. “I think we left them behind.”

His eyes dropped for a second like he knew that.

Someone called her name from the living room.

She turned slightly but she didn’t leave yet.

Not immediately.

There was one more thing sitting between them.

Unfinished.

“i didn’t hate you for leaving,” she said quietly.

His eyes lifted again.

“i hated that you didn’t realise i was already losing you before you even walked away.”

That hit differently because it wasn’t accusation it was clarity.

He nodded once.

“i think i understand now,” he said.

She gave a small, almost bittersweet smile.

“i think you do.”

A pause.

Then, softer:

“it just came too late.”

She finally stepped back.

Not abruptly.

Just moving forward because there wasn’t anywhere else for this moment to go.

“i hope you win this season,” she said gently.

He let out a quiet breath that almost sounded like a laugh.

“always the same,” he murmured.

She tilted her head slightly.

“what?”

“even now,” he said, “you still wish me the best.”

Her smile faded a little.

“yeah,” she replied. “i always did.”

Then she walked away back into the house, leaving him standing exactly where he was.

Surrounded by noise.

But completely alone in the silence she left behind.

————————————————————————————

Authors note: this was my first ever fic i’ve written i hope it was okay! don’t know if im happy with it at all 😞😞