#eff one

The first moment you feel even a little bit like yourself, you’re walking back into the paddock for the first time. 

Everyone must’ve known you were coming. Dozens of people you should recognize are milling about, trying not to stare at you. Camerapeople are stationed at a many-pointed star of focal points, and you know this - you know that your every movement is being reported on, filmed and collected to tell the story of your triumphant return to racing in the aftermath of a traumatic brain injury. 

You’re being shepherded by your cousin and a man with a weak chin whose name should stick with you at this point. He’s your boss, you’re fairly certain, though he’s too classy to say so. 

You lay eyes on - well, your mind wants to call him a boy, but he’s a man. Almost-blond, wavy hair falling over his eyes, his face still and inscrutable. His eyes flicker to you and immediately away, then back again, widening, as you - 

As you break into a full-tilt sprint. You land hard on your knees, on the concrete, throw your arms around the man’s legs, bury your face in his stomach. He’s safe, you know. For the first time in these horrible, confusing, lost months of your life, you know something. 

His hands are urgent, trying to hoist you by your armpit, patting your side frantically. He leans over to mutter in your ear, “Carlos - Sainz, mate, stand up, c’mon, Carlos, christ -” 

His accent is a surprise. Cah-loss. Your name has felt so effortful in your own mouth. This man, he says it easily, simply. You feel your heart might explode. 

You realize you must be acting pretty out of character, but you can’t figure how. You’d put your eyes on this man and felt such a surge of - relief, comfort, familiarity, adoration. Something you’d begun to fear you wouldn’t feel again, if you didn’t feel it with your own family. 

You let him haul you to your feet. He’s harried, hunted, and he looks over your shoulder, saying, “Give us a moment, actually, great, yeah.” Dismissive, a little entitled. You adore him. 

You hustle into a meeting room, stepping on the backs of his shoes. The man’s face is pale as he shuts the door and lets out a shaking breath. He turns to you and blinks his damp eyes. “You remember? Carlos, do you remember?” 

You would cut your own hand off if it meant never having to hear that question again. “What is your name?” 

Something brittle breaks across the man’s expression. “No, yeah, I shouldn’t have. Oscar. It’s Oscar.” 

“Oscar. Oscar, Oscar, Oscar.” You roll the name around in your mouth, pleased, then abruptly sad. “Why didn’t you come to me? My family, they did not let you? I would have asked for you, had I known.”

“No, mate, I couldn’t... I’m a driver. We’re - we... why did you-?” Oscar gestures to the paddock, to your display. His shoulders are broad, his arms and chest defined, but his hands are small. You want to pluck them out of the air and cover them with your own big and tan ones.   

“I don’t know,” you confess. “I saw you, and I just.” Your fist clenches, opens, clenches in pulses in front of your heart, trying to tell him. “I knew. You are my. Unless. But no, the way I feel. I knew, you are my lover.” 

Oscar is pink. He looks young. You spare a little judgement for yourself. “Carlos, we can’t...” 

“It is a secret?” You think back to Teto, his careful words, his calculating tone, telling you about your girlfriend waiting to see you in the hospital. 

“Yes. Obviously, we’re both drivers, we can’t... and we just. I never got the sense from you, that you... that it was...” 

“That it was...?”

Someone is knocking at the door. You grip Oscar’s wrist, pleading. “That it was?” 

“Serious,” he blurts. “Just, after races, we’ve - hooked up. Once in Monaco.” 

You shake your head. “I could not hide, how I am feeling. I would not.”

Oscar’s face goes grim. A weird tilt to his mouth. “I don’t want to distract you.” 

You get that feeling again, the one you’ve been having recently. Where whoever you’re speaking with has had this conversation before. Where you’ve got lines you’re meant to say and can’t remember. 

“Just, Carlos, focus on your recovery, mate. And...” 

“And?” Your voice is desperate in your own ears. The knocking repeats, louder.