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Warnings / Triggers: difficult labour, childbirth complications, panic attacks, mentions of death, blood, medical trauma, fear of losing a spouse, emotional distress, crying, discussions of maternal mortality, anxiety, pain during childbirth
Summary: The night Anthony Bridgerton becomes a father is also the night he is forced to confront his greatest fear: losing the woman he loves. As labour turns dangerous and impossible choices loom over Bridgerton House, Anthony must become the steady hand his terrified wife clings to, even while his own heart is breaking.
Author’s Note: Found this one in my drafts 😅 Enjoy!
By the time the first real contraction struck, Anthony Bridgerton already knew something was wrong.
Not because the physician had said so. Not because the maids had begun moving too quickly through the corridors of Bridgerton House or because Violet Bridgerton’s calm voice had sharpened ever so slightly with concern.
No.
Anthony knew because the sound that left your mouth did not resemble pain.
It resembled fear.
Pure, blinding fear.
He was beside you instantly, crossing the room in two hurried strides just as your knees threatened to buckle beneath you, and the moment his hands settled around your waist you clung to him with trembling fingers, burying your face against his chest while another contraction tore through you hard enough to force a cry from your throat.
“Anthony,” you gasped, your voice cracking apart. “Anthony, I cannot do this.”
His heart nearly stopped.
Anthony wrapped both arms around you immediately, one hand cradling the back of your head while the other pressed firmly against your spine, grounding you against him as though he could physically shoulder some of your pain himself.
“Yes, you can,” he whispered, though his own voice shook violently. “Yes, you can, my love. Look at me.”
You lifted tear-filled eyes to his, and Christ, the terror in them nearly destroyed him.
“I am frightened,” you admitted in a whisper so small it sounded childlike. “Something feels wrong.”
Anthony felt every ounce of blood drain from his body.
But he could not break.
Not now.
Not when you were already trembling apart in his arms.
So he cupped your face with both hands and forced himself to become steady, even while panic clawed viciously at his ribs.
“You listen to me carefully,” he said softly, brushing damp strands of hair from your face. “You are not alone in this. Do you understand? I am here. I shall remain here. You may scream, cry, curse my name if you must, but I will not leave you.”
Another contraction hit.
You cried out sharply and doubled forward, clutching at the front of his waistcoat while Anthony held you upright, his jaw clenching painfully at the helplessness of hearing you suffer.
“Breathe for me,” he whispered desperately. “Please, sweetheart, breathe.”
The hours that followed blurred together into something feverish and endless.
The bedroom grew unbearably warm despite the rain battering against the windows outside. Candles flickered low. Maids rushed in and out carrying fresh cloths and steaming water. Violet remained near the bed with a composure Anthony suspected was only held together by years of practice, though he noticed the way her hands shook whenever your cries grew too loud.
And through all of it, Anthony never once let go of you.
Not once.
He held your hand through every contraction until his fingers were numb. He wiped tears from your cheeks with trembling thumbs. He pressed shaking kisses against your forehead whenever the pain became too much and you began sobbing openly into his shoulder.
At some point during the night, your fear began infecting him completely.
Because the physician had stopped reassuring him.
That was what Anthony noticed first.
The older man had initially spoken calmly, confidently, but as the hours dragged on his expression grew increasingly grim. He exchanged too many looks with the midwife. Too many quiet whispers. Too much silence.
And Anthony Bridgerton had always been clever enough to recognize when people were hiding the truth.
Another scream ripped from your throat, raw enough to make Violet close her eyes briefly in visible anguish.
“I cannot,” you sobbed, clutching Anthony’s hand so tightly it hurt. “Anthony, please, I cannot do this anymore.”
“Yes, you can,” he said immediately, though tears were already burning behind his own eyes. “You are the bravest woman I have ever known.”
“I am tired,” you whispered brokenly.
Anthony nearly shattered right there beside the bed.
Because you sounded defeated.
Because your voice had gone weak.
Because beneath the sweat and pain and exhaustion, your face had begun losing colour in a way that made terror crawl steadily up his spine.
Then the physician approached him quietly.
“Lord Bridgerton,” he murmured carefully. “A word, if I may.”
Anthony’s stomach dropped instantly.
You noticed too.
Your hand tightened around his weakly. “No,” you whispered immediately, panic flooding your exhausted features. “No, do not leave me.”
Anthony bent down at once, pressing his forehead against yours.
“I am not leaving,” he promised quickly. “I shall be right outside the door. Only a moment.”
You looked unconvinced.
Terrified.
Anthony kissed your forehead shakily before forcing himself upright and following the physician toward the hallway, every instinct screaming at him not to walk away from you even for a second.
The moment the door shut behind them, Anthony turned sharply.
“What is happening?”
The physician hesitated.
That hesitation alone nearly drove Anthony mad.
“My lord,” the physician said carefully, “the labour is not progressing as it should. Her Grace has lost a concerning amount of blood already, and the child remains in distress.”
Anthony stared at him.
No.
No.
“She is frightened,” Anthony said immediately, as though saying it aloud could somehow fix the situation. “That is all. She has been in pain for many hours.”
The physician’s silence was unbearable.
Then came the words that would haunt Anthony for the rest of his life.
“If matters worsen…” the physician began quietly, “I may need to know who you wish me to save.”
Anthony stopped breathing.
The hallway tilted violently around him.
“What?”
The physician lowered his gaze. “I pray it shall not come to that. But if I am forced to choose between mother and child, I must have your instruction beforehand.”
Anthony physically recoiled.
“No.”
“My lord-”
“No.”
His voice cracked so violently that Violet appeared at the far end of the corridor, alarm flashing across her face immediately.
Anthony dragged a shaking hand through his hair, breathing hard now, panic threatening to suffocate him whole.
“You save my wife.”
The physician nodded once.
Anthony grabbed his arm before he could leave.
“But you save them both,” he said, his voice suddenly vicious with desperation. “Do you understand me? You do not let her die.”
Violet reached him just as the physician disappeared back into the room.
Anthony looked utterly destroyed.
His mother had not seen him like this since Edmund died.
“Anthony,” she whispered softly.
He turned toward her with red-rimmed eyes.
“I cannot lose her.”
And suddenly he was no longer Viscount Bridgerton.
No longer the composed head of the family.
He was simply a terrified husband.
A frightened little boy who had already buried one parent and could not survive burying the love of his life too.
Violet cupped his face gently.
“You must be strong for her now.”
Anthony let out a broken laugh.
“I am trying.”
Then another scream tore through the door.
Anthony was moving before thought could catch up to him.
He rushed back into the room and immediately crossed to your bedside, taking your face into both hands as tears spilled freely down your cheeks.
“There you are,” you sobbed weakly. “You left.”
“I came back,” he whispered instantly. “My love, look at me. I came back.”
Your fingers clutched desperately at his sleeves.
“I do not want to die.”
The words hit him like a blade directly through the chest.
Anthony’s composure broke entirely.
“You are not going to die,” he said fiercely, though tears were streaming down his own face now. “Do you hear me? You are not leaving me. I forbid it.”
A weak sound escaped you that might once have been a laugh.
“You cannot command death, Anthony.”
His mouth trembled violently.
“No,” he whispered hoarsely. “But I shall fight it for you if I must.”
The physician instructed you to push again.
Anthony held you through it all.
Through the screams.
Through the tears.
Through the moments you nearly gave up entirely.
He whispered constantly, desperate encouragement spilling from him between shaking breaths.
“That’s it.”
“You’re doing beautifully.”
“I have you.”
“Just a little longer.”
“I love you.”
And when your body finally began failing beneath the strain, when your head lolled weakly against the pillows and the physician’s expression turned urgent, Anthony felt true terror consume him for the first time in years.
“Stay with me,” he begged, gripping your hand tightly enough to hurt. “Do not you dare close your eyes.”
“I am so tired,” you whispered faintly.
“No.” Anthony bent over you immediately, his forehead pressing desperately against yours. “No, no, no, sweetheart, stay awake for me. Look at me. Look at me.”
Your eyes fluttered weakly.
Anthony was crying openly now.
Violently.
Helplessly.
“You promised me forever,” he whispered brokenly. “You cannot leave me here alone.”
Then suddenly, chaos erupted.
The physician barked orders.
The midwife moved quickly.
And a sharp cry split the room.
The baby.
Your baby.
Anthony barely heard it, because his eyes were fixed entirely on you, on your frightening stillness. “Why is she not moving?” he demanded, panic rising instantly. The physician was saying something. Violet was praying quietly somewhere behind him.
Anthony could not hear any of it over the roaring terror flooding his ears.
Then finally.
Finally.
Your eyes opened.
A weak breath left your lips.
And Anthony collapsed. Actually collapsed beside the bed with a broken sob tearing from his chest as he seized your hand and pressed it desperately against his mouth. “There she is,” he choked out through tears. “There you are. God, do not ever frighten me like that again.” You smiled weakly despite your exhaustion. Then the physician carefully placed your daughter into your arms.
The room fell silent.
Anthony stared at the tiny infant in complete disbelief, his entire face crumpling with emotion as your daughter let out another soft cry.
“She is beautiful,” you whispered tearfully.
Anthony looked between the two of you, utterly devastated by love.
His wife. His daughter.
Alive.
Both alive.
He reached out with visibly shaking hands and touched the baby’s tiny fingers.
And then he cried harder than he ever had in his life.
—————
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summary: coercing lord bridgerton into pretending to court you to avoid the affections of a baron is very simple. that is, of course, until it isn't.
featuring fake dating/courtship, minor rivals to lovers, idiots in love, mutual pining that they think is unrequited, slowish burn, hurt/comfort, a signature bridgerton happily ever after, and my blood sweat and tears!
total wc: 44,497
overall warning(s): historical inaccuracies, period typical misogyny, implied/referenced sexual harassment -- individual, more specific warnings on each chapter. reader is referred to with the last name worthing for convenience
part 1
↳ 10k words | miss worthing makes an awful sort of proposal to the viscount bridgerton.
part 2
↳ 7.1k words | miss worthing despises and revels in the viscount bridgerton's company in equivalence.
part 3
↳ 9.7k words | miss worthing has a terrible realization.
part 4
↳ 7.6k words | the viscount has a revelation and miss worthing decides against her heart.
part 5
↳ 9k words | miss worthing and the viscount find themselves at a crossroads.
Can I get a scenario where Anthony is the Reader’s legal guardian/trustee after their father dies, like Reader falls for him, but Anthony is so obsessed with being proper that he tries to marry them off to a distant cousin just to get the temptation out of his house, he’s basically breaking his own heart to keep the Reader’s reputation perfect in the eyes of the Queen
✦ A NOBLE TORMENT
“Appointed as your guardian, Anthony Bridgerton tries to protect your honor by marrying you off to another man, only to realize he is too consumed by love to let you go.”
─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───
𓍢ִ໋🌹͙֒ Anthony Bridgerton x Reader ┊ Jealousy, Angst/comfort ┊ 2.7k words
The rain tapped steadily against the windowpane of the study as Anthony stood behind his desk, staring down at the ledgers. The fire in the hearth flickered, casting long shadows across the polished mahogany floor.
Ever since your father passed away, Anthony had taken his role as your legal guardian with absolute seriousness. He managed your inheritance, oversaw your estate, and ensured every detail of your life was protected. But over the months, the quiet evenings in the library and the shared glances in the drawing room had shifted into something far more dangerous. You had fallen completely in love with him, and deep down, you knew he felt the exact same way.
Yet Anthony Bridgerton was a man bound by honor and duty. In the eyes of society and the Queen, taking advantage of his position as your guardian would ruin your reputation forever. The scandalous whisper of a trustee courting his own charge would destroy your standing in the ton before your life even truly began.
He could not let that happen.
Anthony cleared his throat softly, keeping his gaze strictly focused on the papers in front of him. He refused to look up at you, knowing that one glance into your eyes would melt his resolve.
"I have arranged a meeting for tomorrow afternoon," Anthony said, his voice measured and tight. "Lord Thomas will be visiting Bridgerton House."
You paused near the doorway, your heart sinking as you looked at him. Lord Thomas was a distant cousin of the Bridgerton family, a perfectly respectable gentleman who lived far away from the gossip of London.
"Lord Thomas?" you asked, taking a hesitant step into the room. "Why is he coming here?"
"Because he is a suitable match," Anthony replied, finally looking up. His expression was a rigid mask, though the slight tension in his jaw betrayed the war raging inside him. "He possesses a fine estate, an impeccable name, and the favor of the court. He will make a fine husband."
"A husband?" You felt a sudden ache in your chest. You took another step closer to his desk. "Anthony, I do not wish to marry Lord Thomas. I do not even know him."
Anthony stood up abruptly, leaning his hands against the wood of the desk. He was trying so hard to be the proper Viscount, the honorable guardian who did what was right. But every word he spoke felt like a blade turning in his own chest. Sending you away to marry another man was tearing him apart, yet he believed it was the only way to save you from himself.
"It does not matter if you know him yet," Anthony said, his voice dropping to a low, strained whisper. "You will get to know him. He can offer you a proper life, a position in society, and a spotless name. I am your trustee, and it is my duty to ensure your future is secure."
"Is that all this is to you?" you asked quietly, your voice trembling slightly. "Just a duty to fulfill? Just a responsibility to pass on to someone else?"
Anthony closed his eyes for a brief moment, breathing in deeply as he fought the overwhelming urge to cross the room and take you in his arms. He wanted to tell you the truth. He wanted to tell you that he lay awake every night tormented by the thought of you, that he was desperate to keep your honor intact even if it meant breaking his own heart into pieces. If the Queen ever suspected a scandal, your life would be ruined, and he loved you too much to let his own desires destroy you.
When he opened his eyes, the cold mask was back, though his hands trembled slightly at his sides.
"My opinion does not alter what is right," Anthony said, looking past you toward the door. "Lord Thomas arrives at two o'clock tomorrow. Please ensure you are prepared to receive him."
You searched his face for any sign of hesitation, but he kept his gaze fixed on the wall behind you. With a quiet sigh, you turned and walked out of the study, leaving him alone in the dim light of the fire.
The moment the door clicked shut, Anthony sank back into his chair. He buried his face in his hands, letting out a heavy breath in the quiet room, completely heartbroken by the very decision he had forced himself to make.
The next afternoon, the drawing room felt suffocatingly quiet. You sat near the window, dressed in a soft silk gown that Anthony’s servants had meticulously prepared for the occasion. Across from you sat Lord Thomas, speaking pleasantly about his country estate and the upcoming hunt. He was polite, cultured, and thoroughly uninteresting to a heart that already belonged to someone else.
Anthony stood near the fireplace, playing the perfect host. His posture was stiff, his face an unreadable mask as he watched Lord Thomas lean forward to compliment your smile. Every laugh you gave out of courtesy felt like a physical strike against Anthony's chest.
He was doing what honor demanded. He had brought a wealthy, well-connected gentleman into the house to secure your standing before the Queen could hear a single whisper of impropriety. Yet watching another man attempt to win your affection was an agony he had severely underestimated.
"You must visit the estate in the spring, Y/n," Lord Thomas said warmly, placing his teacup onto the saucer. "The gardens are quite magnificent."
"I am sure they are lovely," you replied quietly, your eyes fleetingly shifting past him to meet Anthony’s gaze.
For a fraction of a second, Anthony failed to keep the mask in place. His dark eyes flared with an intense, raw emotion that made your breath catch. But just as quickly, he blinked, smoothed his expression, and stepped forward to intervene.
"Perhaps a walk through the Bridgerton gardens first, Lord Thomas?" Anthony suggested, his tone smooth yet tight with unspoken tension. "The weather is exceptionally mild today."
"A splendid idea, Viscount," Lord Thomas agreed, standing up and offering you his arm.
You hesitated, looking up at Anthony, hoping for any sign, any subtle gesture that would tell you to stay. But Anthony merely offered a polite, formal nod, holding the door open for both of you. As you brushed past him into the hallway, his hand briefly brushed against yours. The heat of his touch was electric, making both of you freeze for a tiny beat before Anthony pulled his hand back, clenching it into a tight fist at his side.
He walked a few paces behind as Lord Thomas escorted you down the stone path outside. When Lord Thomas paused to admire a row of roses, Anthony leaned in slightly, his voice dropping so low that only you could hear it above the rustle of the leaves.
"You are conducting yourself with great grace today," Anthony said, his words forced out through a tight throat.
"Is that what you want?" you asked softly, not looking back at him. "To watch me walk away with him?"
Anthony swallowed hard, his jaw tightening until the skin stretched pale. He wanted nothing more than to grab your hand, send Lord Thomas away, and declare his feelings to the whole of London regardless of the ruin it would bring upon his noble name. But he had sworn to protect you, and protecting you meant saving you from the scandal of his own desires.
"I want you to have the life you deserve," Anthony whispered, every word breaking a piece of his own heart. "A life without whispers, without shame, and without the judgment of the court."
"Even if it means I do not get to be with you?"
Anthony stopped walking entirely, forcing Lord Thomas to take a few steps ahead unawares. Anthony looked down at you, his eyes filled with a desperate, unspoken devotion that no society rule could ever truly erase.
"Especially then," he murmured, his voice cracking just enough to betray the immense sacrifice he was forcing them both to make.
Lord Thomas continued to chatter about the estate, completely oblivious to the silent storm brewing just steps behind him. But Anthony had reached his absolute limit.
Every breath he took felt like inhaling glass. He had told himself that seeing you with a respectable man would give him peace, that knowing your reputation was safe from royal scrutiny would be enough to sustain him. He was wrong. The image of Lord Thomas taking your hand, of Lord Thomas taking you away to some distant manor, was a torture far worse than any scandal society could ever whisper.
"The library at the manor is quite grand as well," Lord Thomas said, turning back to you with an easy smile. "I believe you would spend hours there, Y/n."
"She prefers the small alcove by the south garden," Anthony interjected suddenly. His voice was no longer the calm, collected tone of a dutiful guardian. It was sharp, dark, and laced with a dangerous edge that made Lord Thomas blink in surprise.
You turned to look at Anthony, your eyes widening slightly.
Anthony took two slow steps forward, his gaze locked entirely on you, ignoring Lord Thomas altogether. The tight composure he had maintained for weeks was snapping strand by strand. He could feel his heart hammering against his ribs, loud and frantic, screaming at him to stop this madness before it was too late. Honor be damned. The Queen be damned.
"Viscount?" Lord Thomas asked, sensing the sudden shift in the air. "Is something wrong?"
Anthony did not look at him. He could not. If he looked at Lord Thomas, he would simply tell the man to leave his house and never return.
"The weather is turning cold," Anthony said, though the sky was completely clear. His jaw was set, his breathing heavy as he fought a desperate, losing battle against his own instincts. "I believe it would be best if we concluded this walk."
Lord Thomas looked confused, glancing up at the sunlit sky, but he offered a polite nod. "Of course. Perhaps we might resume our conversation inside over tea?"
"No," Anthony snapped, a bit too quickly, a bit too fiercely. He caught himself, taking a ragged breath, trying to force the polite mask back onto his face, but it was useless. The sight of you standing there, beautiful and out of reach because of a rule he was imposing on himself, was driving him utterly mad. "I believe Y/n requires rest. And I have urgent matters to attend to regarding the estate."
You stood still, watching the violent conflict playing out across Anthony's face. The posture of the unyielding Viscount was crumbling, revealing the raw, desperate man underneath who was choking on his own restraint.
Lord Thomas bowed, sensing he had somehow overstayed a boundary he did not understand. "I see. Then I shall take my leave for today, Lord Bridgerton. I look forward to calling again tomorrow."
"Do not," Anthony blurted out.
The silence that followed was suffocating. Lord Thomas froze. You caught your breath, your heart leaping into your throat.
Anthony swallowed hard, his dark eyes fixed on yours with a wild, tormented intensity. He had built a fortress of propriety to protect you, but standing there in the garden, watching the love of his life being handed away to another man, Anthony realized he would rather tear the whole world down than endure another second of this torture.
Lord Thomas cleared his throat, thoroughly baffled by the abrupt display, before offering a stiff bow and taking his leave.
The moment the front door closed, the heavy silence of the grand hallway descended upon the house. Anthony turned on his heel and strode back toward his study, his steps fast and agitated. You followed him closely, the rustle of your silk gown trailing behind his hurried pace until he crossed the threshold and turned around, attempting to shut the door.
You placed your hand flat against the wood, stopping the door from closing.
"Anthony, wait," you said, stepping into the dim light of the room.
He backed away toward his desk, refusing to meet your eyes. His chest heaved with shallow, uneven breaths. The iron grip he had kept on his emotions for months had finally fractured, leaving him entirely undone.
"What just happened out there?" you asked softly, taking a cautious step closer. "You practically drove Lord Thomas out of the garden."
"I did what was necessary," Anthony replied, his voice raspy and strained. He grabbed the edge of his mahogany desk, his knuckles turning white as he tried to anchor himself. "I am trying to protect you. I am trying to keep your name clear."
"By forcing me onto a man I do not care for?" You took another step, narrowing the distance between you until you were standing right in front of him. "Look at me, Anthony. Please."
Anthony let out a ragged breath and finally lifted his gaze. The mask of the noble trustee was completely gone, replaced by a desperate, tormented hunger. His dark eyes swept over your face, tracing every detail as if he were memorizing you for the last time.
"I cannot do this," he whispered, his voice cracking under the weight of his own agony. "I thought I was strong enough to watch you walk away. I thought I could sacrifice my own happiness to ensure the Queen and the ton never breathed a word of scandal against you. But seeing him near you... hearing him talk about taking you away..."
"Anthony..." you breathed, reaching up to lay a hand against his cheek.
The slight warmth of your palm broke whatever tiny thread of restraint he had left.
With a low groan, Anthony closed the remaining space between you. His hands found your waist, pulling you against him so tightly that no space remained between you. All the rules, the strict propriety, and the fear of society vanished into the air as his lips met yours in a deep, desperate kiss.
It was wild and unyielding, born from months of unspoken longing and tortured restraint. Anthony held you as though you were the only solid thing in a collapsing world, his fingers tangling into your hair as he poured every ounce of his suppressed devotion into the kiss. He had spent weeks trying to save your reputation, but in that quiet room, holding you close, he knew he was completely powerless against the temptation he had tried so hard to fight.
The kiss ended as breathlessly as it had begun, leaving both of you silent in the warm, dim light of the study. Anthony rested his forehead against yours, his hands still holding your waist, his heart hammering wildly against his chest.
He took a slow, deep breath, trying to steady the frantic rush in his veins. The overwhelming tide of emotion had finally broken through his defenses, but as the quiet settled over the room, the reality of what they had just shared began to sink in.
"I swore I would not do that," Anthony whispered, his voice thick with emotion, though he didn't pull away. His thumbs traced gentle circles against your sides. "I swore I would keep you safe from every scandal, even if the danger was me."
"I do not want to be saved from you," you replied softly, leaning into his touch.
Anthony closed his eyes, a tiny, pained smile touching his lips. He lifted one hand to gently trace your jawline, his gaze searching your face with an intensity that made your pulse race.
"If society finds out, if the Queen hears even a rumor..." Anthony began, the protective guardian in him struggling to regain its footing.
"Let them talk," you interrupted quietly, placing your hand over his. "I do not care about Lord Thomas, or the ton, or any grand match you think I deserve. The only future I want is right here."
A heavy silence stretched between you, but the cold distance that had filled the room for weeks was completely gone. Anthony let out a long breath, finally letting the burden of his rigid propriety melt away. He pressed a soft, lingering kiss to your temple, wrapping his arms securely around you, no longer willing to break his own heart just to play the dutiful trustee.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
The sort of person who somehow made an unfamiliar room feel welcoming within seconds of stepping into it. Which, somehow, did nothing to calm the nerves currently sitting somewhere between your ribs.
You had spent the entire drive here reminding yourself that this was not an interview.
She was not judging you.
She was not some intimidating figure whose approval you had to earn.
She was just Oscar's mum.
The woman who raised him.
The woman who knew every version of him you would never get to meet. Which, somehow, made it both better and significantly more terrifying.
The moment the apartment door opened and her eyes landed on you, her entire face lit up.
"There you are!" she beamed, already crossing the room before you had even fully stepped inside.
You barely had time to smile before she wrapped you in a warm, genuine hug.
Not polite.
Not cautious.
Just the kind that made it feel like she'd already decided you belonged there.
Behind her, Oscar quietly exhaled.
Not because he had been worried.
Somehow, he had known this would happen.
But because seeing two important parts of his life meet was still something different entirely.
One hand rested briefly against the back of your shoulder as she pulled away again, smiling at you like she was already delighted to finally put a real person to all the stories she'd been hearing.
"I've heard so much about you," she said warmly as she pulled back just enough to look at you properly.
You smiled, "Hopefully only good things."
Nicole let out a laugh that sounded so much like Oscar's it caught you off guard. Not the sound itself but the rhythm of it. The little breath before the laugh. The slight shake of her head afterward. The exact same mannerism.
Your eyes flicked instinctively toward him before returning to her.
"Oh," she smiled knowingly, "you have no idea."
Her eyes drifted past you toward her son.
"You've been a very frequent topic of conversation."
You instinctively looked over your shoulder.
Oscar was standing exactly where he'd been a second ago, one hand shoved casually into the pocket of his shorts, hip leaning against his kitchen island, quietly watching the two of you interact for the very first time.
Warm hazel eyes settled on you.
Not anxious.
Not waiting for anyone's approval.
Just... happy.
Content in a way that softened every line of his face.
His expression hadn't changed in the slightest.
Only the faint pink creeping over the tops of his ears betrayed him.
Your heart skipped.
Because somehow that tiny blush felt infinitely more endearing than if he'd looked embarrassed outright. He knew exactly what his mother was implying. And apparently had decided the best strategy was simply...
...to outlast it.
You couldn't stop the small smile spreading across your face.
"Well," you laughed quietly, looking back at Nicole, "let's hope everything he told you was actually true."
"They are," Oscar answered before his mother even had the chance.
The certainty in his voice made both you and Nicole fully turn toward him.
He finally crossed the last few steps toward you without seeming to think about it. No hesitation. No announcement. Just the unconscious pull of someone who had spent enough time beside you that distance now felt vaguely incorrect.
His hand found your waist almost absentmindedly, fingers warm against the silky fabric of your skirt as he drew you gently against his side.
Not possessively.
Not protectively.
Just familiar.
Like this was simply where he expected you to be.
His thumb brushed once across your side — the same small, checking motion he always made. Like reassurance went both ways.
Then, completely without thinking, he leaned down and pressed a soft kiss against the side of your head. "Hi," he murmured quietly against you, lips lingering for the briefest moment before he straightened again.
A tiny gesture.
Almost nothing.
Except Nicole noticed. Of course she did.
You saw it the second you looked back at her.
The tiny pause. The amused silence. The knowing smile that slowly spread across her face — not surprised, just quietly, completely satisfied.
"Oh," she said softly, the corners of her mouth curling even higher.
Oscar blinked. "...What?"
"Hattie was right." Nicole's smile only widened. "You’ve got it bad."
"Mum."
Oscar's protest came automatically. The blush that had only colored the tops of his ears moments ago had now spread all the way across them, disappearing beneath the curls at the nape of his neck.
Nicole only laughed — and it was his laugh again, the same shape of it, and you filed that away because it did something warm to you that you hadn't prepared for.
"What?" she said innocently. "I'm just making an observation."
You couldn't help but chuckle softly, while Oscar let out a long sigh through his nose, somewhere between resigned and amused.
"You two are going to get along far too well."
"I certainly hope so," Nicole replied cheerfully.
And somehow, that sentence meant more than you expected. Because that was exactly what you had hoped for.
A proper connection.
Not just politeness. Not just “meeting the girlfriend” formality. But something real.
Because she was the one who had raised him.
The one who had created the boy you had fallen in love with.
The quiet one.
The thoughtful one.
The one who reached for your hand without thinking and kissed the back of your head when he thought nobody was paying attention.
If there was anyone whose opinion suddenly felt impossibly important, it was hers.
Not because Oscar needed her approval.
You knew he didn't.
He'd made that abundantly clear the moment he'd told you she wanted to meet you, not the other way around.
This wasn't about permission.
It was about belonging.
About hoping that one of the people who loved him most might one day also decide you made sense beside him.
As if sensing exactly where your thoughts had drifted, Nicole reached over and gave your forearm a gentle squeeze.
“I’ve been looking forward to this,” she admitted warmly. “It’s nice to finally meet the woman I’ve heard so much about.”
Oscar tilted his head slightly at that, brows lifting.
“You make it sound like she’s been a weekly report,” he said dryly.
Nicole smiled without missing a beat.
“Not quite,” she said, shaking her head lightly. “But I’ve definitely heard enough about you that I was… more than intrigued.”
Her eyes flicked to you, amused and soft at the same time.
❁✿❀❁✿❀
One thing you had looked forward to most was hearing Oscar's childhood stories.
Mostly because they belonged to a version of him you'd never get to meet.
The little boy before Formula One. Before interviews and cameras and race engineers. Before the careful answers. Just — Oscar.
Nicole did not disappoint.
She started gently — the way good storytellers always did, easing you in before you realized you were already invested. A detail here. A small anecdote there. And then, somewhere between the coffee she'd made herself at home preparing in Oscar's kitchen and the afternoon light shifting gold across his living room floor, the floodgates had quietly, cheerfully opened.
"He was the quietest baby," she began, settling back into the corner of the couch with a warmth that suggested she had been waiting for exactly this opportunity. "Didn't cry much. Didn't fuss. Just... watched everything. Very serious eyes, even then."
She smiled to herself.
"People always assumed something was wrong because he was so quiet. But no." She shook her head. "He was just... taking the world in."
"That tracks," you said.
Oscar, from his position on the sofa next to you, looked up at the ceiling as though asking it for patience.
"He'd sit in his high chair," Nicole continued, clearly delighted to have an audience, "and just observe. Like he was taking notes. You'd almost forget he was there and then you'd look over and he'd be staring at you like he was solving a problem."
"Also tracks," you said.
"I'm right here," Oscar said.
"We know," you and Nicole said at the same time.
A beat of surprised silence.
Then you both laughed.
Oscar pointed between the two of you with mild alarm. "That was — you can't do that already."
"We just did," Nicole said serenely, and took a sip of her coffee.
She laughed softly. "He also hated asking for help."
Oscar sighed.
"Mum."
"It's true."
She looked at you. "He must've been five, maybe six. He spent almost twenty minutes trying to reach a cereal box from the top cupboard."
"Twenty-eight," Oscar corrected automatically.
You turned to him.
"You timed yourself?"
"I was committed."
Nicole smiled.
"He dragged a chair over. Then another chair because the first wasn't tall enough. Then a broom."
"A broom?" you repeated.
"To pull the box closer."
"Did it work?"
Oscar looked offended. "Eventually."
Nicole laughed. "After it fell on his head."
❀
The stories came in waves after that, arriving between stretches of easy conversation.
Nicole asked you about your work, about Monaco, about how you'd met. She listened with genuine attention rather than polite patience, asking follow-up questions instead of simply waiting for her turn to speak.
She remembered details from earlier in the conversation and circled back to them twenty minutes later as though they'd never left her mind.
She laughed easily.
Often.
At some point you'd completely forgotten that, only an hour earlier, you'd been terrified she wouldn't like you.
She was, in short, exactly the kind of person whose child would turn out the way Oscar had. Which somehow made you love him even more.
Something you hadn't expected to happen over coffee on a random Monday afternoon.
"Can I ask you something?" Nicole said a little later.
You had drifted into the kitchen by then.
Not deliberately.
Just naturally.
She had stood to start dinner, insisting she'd already bought everything she needed, and before you'd really thought about it, you'd followed her in to help.
Oscar, meanwhile, had somehow been recruited into chopping vegetables.
He accepted the task without complaint.
Standing at the kitchen island with a chopping board in front of him, looking way too handsome for being dressed in a simple white shirt and some shorts, knife moving with surprising precision.
You watched him for half a second longer than necessary.
Even chopping vegetables, he somehow looked like he was preparing for qualifying.
It was ridiculous.
And, annoyingly adorable.
"Of course," you replied, turning your attention back to Nicole.
She stirred the pan slowly, letting the onions soften before speaking again. For a moment she didn't say anything. Like she was deciding whether to ask. Then she glanced briefly toward Oscar.
He was pretending not to listen. Pretending being the important word.
She looked back at you.
"Are you happy?" she asked. "With him. Are you actually happy?"
The question was so direct and so genuine that it bypassed every instinct you had to deflect.
You looked across the kitchen at Oscar, who had his back to you and was apparently extremely focused on a courgette, though the slight stillness in his shoulders suggested he was listening.
A smile tugged at your lips before you even realized it.
"Yeah."
You almost laughed at yourself.
"Yeah," you repeated, quieter this time.
"I really am."
Nicole nodded once, like that was exactly what she needed. Simply taking in the way your face had changed without your permission.
"Good," she said quietly. "He deserves someone who means that."
From the counter, Oscar said nothing.
But the back of his neck slowly turned pink beneath his curls.
And he was very deliberately cutting the courgette into pieces slightly smaller than necessary, which you had come to understand was his version of feeling something he didn't quite have words for yet.
You looked back at Nicole.
She was already looking at you with an expression that had moved past warmth into something closer to recognition. Like she'd been assembling a picture of you from everything Oscar had told her, every small detail and careful description, and now she was looking at the finished thing.
"Thank you," you said quietly. "For — I don't know. For wanting to meet me. For making it feel like this."
Nicole shook her head slightly. "He made it feel like this. I just showed up."
"You did more than that."
She smiled — the real one, not the performance of one. The one that looked exactly like his.
“He talks about you,” Nicole said softly.
“Not all the time,” she added quickly with a small smile, almost like she could already see you getting embarrassed. “Don’t worry. He’s still very much himself.”
A quiet laugh escaped you.
“But the way he used to talk about racing when he was small. Not loudly. Not constantly. Just — whenever something happened that mattered, you were in the next sentence."
Your throat tightened unexpectedly.
"You'll be talking about Singapore one minute..."
Nicole smiled.
"...and then somehow, two sentences later, he's telling me about this little restaurant you insisted he try in Monaco."
A beat.
"Or the flowers you bought because you said the apartment looked too sterile."
Oscar groaned quietly from the island. "Mum."
"What?"
"I liked the flowers."
"I know you did."
Nicole looked at you triumphantly.
You looked down at the counter, pressing your lips together because you weren't entirely sure what to do with the sudden warmth spreading through your chest.
"That's—" you started, then stopped yourself, shaking your head slightly because you weren't even sure what you were trying to say anymore. "I don't know."
"Please don't cry in my kitchen," Oscar said, from the counter, without turning around. Though there was no harshness there. Only softness and readiness to turn around in case you did in fact start crying – wanting to be the one holding you if that was the case.
"I'm not crying," you said immediately.
Your hand found his back as you stepped closer, fingers lightly catching the fabric of his shirt. Not because you needed saving. Just because you needed to touch him for a second.
A reminder.
A quiet I'm okay.
“Your voice did the thing,” Oscar said.
You immediately looked offended.
“My voice does not do a thing.”
“It does a very specific thing.”
“It does not.”
“It absolutely does.”
Nicole pointed at him with her wooden spoon. "Leave her alone."
Oscar finally glanced over.
“I’m just saying—”
"You're chopping."
Oscar turned around enough to look at his mother.
She lifted one eyebrow, then gestured back toward the courgette with complete authority.
He turned back around.
You caught Nicole's eye. She pressed her lips together, trying not to laugh.
You failed completely.
Oscar glanced over his shoulder again at the sound. "There it is."
"What?"
"The laugh."
"What about it?"
"I missed it."
The words came so casually he probably didn't even realize he'd said them.
Nicole certainly noticed. She smiled to herself but said nothing.
Just turned back to the stove, giving the sauce another gentle stir.
And in the warm, unhurried quiet of Oscar's Monaco kitchen, surrounded by the smell of something good cooking and the low hum of an evening falling into place, something settled — soft and certain — in the middle of your chest.
Not relief, exactly.
Something quieter.
Something that felt, unexpectedly and completely, like being known.
❁✿❀❁✿❀
Sol’s Insta Story
❁✿❀❁✿❀
✿❀ Let the Light in ❁✿
The witch is back!! 🧙♀️✨
Well… at least to some extent. 😌
I’ll be trying to upload regularly again, but please don’t be mad at me if I end up skipping a week here and there. Life happens, and I’m still trying to find my rhythm again 💛
But I’m so excited to be sharing this story with you again!! 🥹✨
Let me know how this chapter made you feel in the comments!! I can’t wait to read all your reactions, thoughts, theories, and feelings — and I’ll do my best to reply to everyone!! 💌🫶
Thank you for sticking around and welcoming me back 💕
Summary : You and Oscar had been best friends for years and he slowly distances himself after getting a girlfriend.
Word count - 3540
Based on Treat You Better by Shawn Mendes
You'd met back in 2020 during the pandemic in an Australian supermarket. You were searching the aisles for any sign of your comfort food but you couldn't find it anywhere.
He'd noticed and instantly decided to devote the rest of his day to helping you find what you were looking for. "You're not from here, are you?" He asked with a knowing smile, picking up on the subtleties of your accent through the uncomfortable masks. "I was born here but I moved to England when I was eight." You explained, your eyes still searching every shelf in hope.
"I can tell. So, what made you come back?"
"I was visiting my family when lockdown struck. Because I was born here, I'm not on the emergent list to return home so it looks like I'll be here for a few months." You sighed, just wanting to see your parents and pets again. You also missed your siblings, not that you'd ever tell them that.
Sticking true to his word, Oscar spent four hours roaming through different stores with you in search of your food and since that day, you'd been inseparable. You'd practically moved into his small one bedroom apartment with him by the end of your time in Australia to the point where he asked you to actually move in with him.
At first you declined, having not seen your family and friends in over six months but after being back in England for a while and him constantly begging you to move back, you gave in.
You packed your bags, said your goodbyes and returned to his small appointment with a smile, excited for your new chapter.
Obviously you couldn't stay in a one bedroom flat so you both instantly got to house hunting as soon as you arrived and eventually settled on an old, three-bedroomed cottage that was covered in the perfect amount of ivy to remind you of home.
Over the years, your lives practically conjoined. When he got the call that he was officially joining Formula One, he'd asked you to travel to each race by his side so he would have his good luck charm with him everywhere. It was only supposed to be his rookie season, just long enough to get him settled into his seat and then you'd return to every day life.
But one season turned into two and two into three and before you knew it, you were getting ready to travel alongside him for the fourth year in a row.
Though that didn't quite go to plan.
You were sitting in your room on call with your brother when Oscar walked in and asked to talk. He'd seen you packing for China and knew that he needed to tell you.
You quickly hung up the phone and moved over so he could sit beside you like always.
"Uh, you know I love you. Right?" He began, his voice uneven as he took in your confused face.
"Duh." You nodded, eyebrows furrowing in concern.
"well, I was thinking that maybe this season I travel alone. You can still come to races obviously but whenever we travel together it spreads rumours and I don't want to make Jules uncomfortable." He explained, his eyes refusing to meet yours as you digested his words.
"Oh, uh, yeah, of course!" You nodded. Not because you wanted to but because Oscar was your best friend and if his girlfriend of three months was uncomfortable with the rumours that always spread about you then you needed to distance yourself.
"You okay?" He questioned, finally letting his eyes meet yours. "Mhm, it actually means I get to go see my family for a bit." You replied, keeping your happy smile on as best as you could. He could see through it though, he always did.
Still, he didn't say anything, he just pulled you in for a hug and placed a soft kiss to your head before leaving you alone in your room.
With a sigh, you stood from your bed, walked over to your suitcase and began unpacking, taking deep breaths to prevent the emotions you'd been pushing down for the past three months from surfacing.
You hadn't meant to fall for Oscar Piastri in the same way that you hadn't meant to be born or get stuck in Australia for six months, it'd just happened. Somewhere along the five years of living together, Oscar had become much more than just a roommate, he became the person in which your life revolved around.
You were actually working up the courage to tell him when he came home all smiley saying that he'd met a girl who seemed just as interested as he was. You saw how happy he was anytime Jules was even mentioned so you swallowed down your feelings and pretended everything was fine and that you were just best friends.
Like you hadn't spent the past five years being the only woman in his life. Like he hadn't rushed to you to ensure that you were the first person who knew about F1, like he hadn't blushed every time his family joked about you becoming a future Mrs. Piastri.
When you met her for the first time, you got an uncomfortable vibe from her, something was off but you didn't know what. The problem was that you couldn't talk to Oscar about it because he would be devastated.
Before you knew it, three months had passed and she was officially a part of his daily life. You didn't understand why, though. Not when she made him cry and constantly worry about if she was going to break up with him every time they had a fight. Not when you were right in front of him the whole time.
The first race passed slowly. You'd watched his race on TV, or at least you'd wanted to.
Instead, as soon as the feed connected and the race began, you noticed that your favourite driver hadn't started. You quickly switched to listen to his radio channel and were shocked when you realised that neither he nor his teammate would be competing in that race.
The fans online went insane, claiming that it was your lack of presence that cursed the McLaren and that you needed to be at the next race.
Of course you knew that it wasn't true and that there was probably an internal issue with the cars but you did find it funny that the Papaya fans were such defenders of you being a good luck charm.
An hour into the race, you finally called Oscar, thinking he'd be free from media duties by now. What you weren't expecting was to hear Jules' voice when the call connected.
"Hey, babe, he's really sad right now. Call back later, yeah?" She spoke, her tone sharp as she hung up before you could even get a word in.
Sitting there appalled, you decided to call Lando instead, offering support to the other McLaren driver. "Hey, leaf." He greeted, using the nickname that the drivers had given you since you reminded them of the luck from a four leaf clover.
Though you could see him smiling through the camera, you could tell he was devastated. "Hi. How are you doing?" You questioned, your eyes softening at the sadness on his face.
"Oi, who's that?" you heard a voice ask. "It's your girl!" Lando replied with a cheeky smirk, hating Jules just as much as you did. "Leaf, why didn't you call me first?! I'm offended." He joked, dropping down beside his teammate so he could see you. "I did! Jules said you were busy and hung up." You explained, trying to keep your bitterness to yourself. "Oh." He muttered, his face falling in confusion as to why she would do that.
When the call finally wrapped up, you said your goodbyes and quickly posted a story on Instagram, showing your support and joking that it was your fault for taking their luck away from them.
Sitting in the silence of your shared cottage was strange. You were almost never home alone, usually accompanied by Oscar's loud yet calm presence. You were used to hearing him practicing on his sim rig through all hours of the night or him creating some disaster in the kitchen that you would pretend to enjoy.
You weren't used to knowing that he was on another continent without you.
And you didn't like how it felt.
Deciding you needed some company, you made the short drive to Oscar's childhood home to spend some time with one of his sisters, Hattie, and his mother, Nicole. Upon arriving, Hattie instantly pulled you into a hug and insisted that the two of you make cookies since she'd been craving them all day.
"So, why aren't you with Osc in China?" She questioned, mixing the batter thoroughly as you sat on the counter beside her. "He asked me not to go." You shrugged, leaning over to taste a bit of batter.
"What?!" She exclaimed, far too loudly for the calm you had been sitting in. "Jules is apparently uncomfortable with the shipping so he asked me not to go with him this season." You explained, stealing a little bit more of the dough before she swatted your hand away.
"No wonder he didn't start, then." Nicole muttered as she walked into the kitchen, her signature warm smile taking over her face. "Nicky!" You gasped, looking at his mother in disbelief. "What? I'm just saying, you've gone to every one of his F1 races for the past three years and now he's telling you not to because some gold digger is insecure!" The unbothered woman continued, walking over to give you a hug.
"I never thought I'd hear you gossip about your own son's girlfriend." You laughed as she pulled away.
"well if he were dating you instead of that cunt, I wouldn't be." She smiled once more, taking over the stirring from Hattie who had been practically dying of laughter since her mother walked in.
Over the course of the next few races, you hardly saw Oscar and when you did he was always accompanied by her. You knew that he wasn't trying to push you away, but whether that was his intention or not, he was succeeding.
Deciding that you'd had enough of the distance, you asked if you could attend the Monaco Grand Prix since you had many friends there and wanted to see them. To your surprise, he said no. He said he didn't think it was a good idea since the rumours had finally died down.
You were heartbroken but you didn't let it show and instead replied with a simple 'k'.
Oscar Piastri knew you like the back of his hand. He knew when you were pissed off, happy, and basically any emotion ever. He also knew how to read your mood from your message so he clearly knew you weren't happy after sending that reply yet it seemed he didn't care.
You asked again the next week about attending the Barcelona GP and again for Austria yet each time you were met with a short reply as to why it was a bad idea.
You got so used to the disappointment that you didn't even bother to ask about the British Grand Prix despite it being your home race and you already being in the country. You just assumed that he would say no and upset you further.
You weren't sure when the distance between you two began to grow but you were sure that Jules was behind it since she'd attended every race of the season with a constant smile on her face even when it was clear from the interviews and the way that Oscar was racing, he was exhausted and miserable.
What hurt more than anything was seeing him so miserable while knowing that if you were in her place, he'd never feel like that. You knew that you could treat him so much better but you missed your chance and you would have to live with that forever.
You spent the days leading up to the race with your family, feeling far too sad for yourself to do anything else.
It was the morning of qualifying for Silverstone when you got an unexpected text from your favourite rookie.
ARVID
Ur in england right
Y rnt u here?
LEAF
Oscar doesn't want me there
I'm just going to watch on tv like usual
ARVID
Nonsense
The whole paddock misses u
Lando hates Jules n its rlly awkward
Come to the race
U can stay in VCARB w me n liam
LEAF
U sure?
I don't want to piss Osc off
ARVID
Mate hes ur best friend
And its ur home race
If hes pissed off at that then he doesnt deserve u
LEAF
Thank you, Arv
ARVID
Anytime
Just do me a favour
Sprinkle a bit of ur luck on me
LEAF
I'll do my best
And that's how you found yourself racing to Silverstone and using your year-round paddock pass for the first time that year. walking through the paddock gave you a sense of home that you'd missed more than anything.. Okay, maybe not more, Oscar still came first on that list.
Fans held their phones up in excitement at the first sight of you since Australia but their faces contorted in confusion upon realising that instead of being fully decked out in McLaren apparel like usual, you were wearing a plain outfit with a Red Bull jacket and a VCARB cap. Clothes that you'd never worn to the paddock before, usually opting to be a walking advertisement for Oscar's merch.
You quickly made your way over to the VCARB motorhome with a smile on your face. Once you were inside, you were immediately pulled into a bone-crushing hug from Liam, Arvid, and Ollie who was for some reason no where near his own team. "Bear, chill. Why're you not in HAAS?" You questioned, patting his back as a sign to let you go.
"Leaf, I've missed you so much!" He spoke, purposely ignoring your question. "We all have, Oscar's miserable without you." Liam chimed in, his hand finding your shoulder in comfort. "I've missed being here." You smiled.
"Again, why are you not in HAAS?" You repeated, curiosity getting the best of you. "He keeps stealing Red Bull and they caught him so now he's taking it from here." Arvid explained, laughing slightly as Ollie's face reddened.
"I leave for a few months and you turn into a thief!" You laughed.
"Whatever." He huffed before looping his arm through yours. "You should walk with me to HAAS, I'm sure everyone wants to see you!" He insisted, practically dragging you out the door until you agreed.
On the walk, Ollie kept his arm looped through yours, treating you as though he was a child and you his mother.
You saw many drivers during your walk, all of which hugged you and insisted you start attending races again. Even Max seemed happy to see you.
Just as you approached the HAAS motorhome, someone emerged from the McLaren trailer directly opposite you. Something Ollie hadconveniently forgotten to mention.
"Leaf?" He questioned, his eyes squinting to see you through the bright, English sun.
"Hey, Osc." You gave a tight lipped smile, getting ready to ignore his existence and walk into the motorhome with Ollie. "What are you doing here?"
Ollie began to speak, to defend you, but you quickly cut him off saying that it was fine and that you'd meet him inside.
"You don't have to worry, I'm not here to interact with you. You can pretend I don't exist." You crossed your arms, huffing slightly as his eyebrows furrowed. "What? Why would I pretend you don't exist?"
"Because you have for months? Because since Australia, the lonest conversation we've had is two sentences. I get you wanting to cut the rumours off, I understand that she's uncomfortable with that. But for the past four months I've been living life like you're not my best friend. I spent my birthday with your family and you didn't even bother to send a message. Sorry if I assumed you didn't want me in your life anymore." You scoffed.
You hadn't wanted to start an argument. Especially not out in the open for everyone to see.
But once you saw his face it was like your restraint melted away. You were mad at him for not being there but you were even madder that as soon as you saw him, you wanted to melt into his arms.
"Leaf, I'm sorry. I just, she's my girlfriend." He tried to explain but it wasn't good enough. "And I've been your best friend for six years. But apparently that means nothing as soon as you get a single sniff of a relationship even if it's toxic as fuck." You laughed, a dry, bitter laugh.
It was either laugh or cry and you didn't feel like showing him how much he'd hurt you.
"leaf, please."
"We don't need to argue, but I can't do this anymore." You sighed, feeling the tears pool in your eyes as he looked down at you sadly.
"But you're my best friend."
"Oscar, I love you so much but I can't keep a friendship if it means I'm being hurt for your girlfriend's insecurities. I'm sorry. When you get back to Australia, I'll be gone." You smiled lightly, knowing that as long as Jules was in his life, you'd be paying the price.
"I'll break up with her, I don't care. I need you, please don't do this." He rushed out, quickly grabbing your wrist as you tried to turn away from him. "Oscar.." You began, reaching out to stroke away a tear that fell from his eyes.
"She doesn't matter to me. You do. I don't even care that you don't feel the same as me, I can't live without you. I thought that if I got a girlfriend and distanced myself the feelings would go away and that we'd go back to normal but it didn't work."
"What do you mean feelings?"
"leaf, I have been in love with you since the day I asked you to move in with me. And I'm sorry if that changes your view of me but I can't live this life without you. I need you like I need oxygen." He rushed, trying so hard to keep you beside him that he hadn't even noticed the smile growing on your face.
"C'mere, you dummy." You smiled, pulling him by the collar of his McLaren shirt to kiss him. You didn't want to be a homewrecker and you certainly didn't want him to cheat but Jules had been a bitch to everyone in the paddock and not a single person in Oscar's life liked her. Not even the fans.
So you didn't particularly feel bad about finally kissing him.
"What?" He whispered in confusion as you pulled away. "I love you too." You smiled, rolling your eyes at his oblivion.
"Really?"
"Dude, it was so obvious!" Ollie chimed in, still leaning against the HAAS motorhome. "You're still there?!" You turned around to look at him, watching as he nodded with a smile. "Had to make sure you finally confessed. Now Kimi owes me £20!"
"You bet on us?" Oscar's eyes widened. "Mhm. You might wanna go break up with your girlfriend now because qualifying starts in forty minutes and from the look on her face, it's gonna be a long conversation." He cringed, pointing behind you where Jules was standing, red faced in the way that steam would be coming out of her ears if she were an animated character.
"You go deal with that." You shot Oscar a smile before climbing up the stairs to join Ollie.
Walking into the HAAS motorhome, Ollie continuously nudged your shoulder with a teasing grin on his face. "Oliver, stop it." You deadpanned, feeling like if he touched you one more time then HAAS would need to find another driver because Ollie would be in the hospital.
"I'm just happy you finally confessed." He muttered, holding his hands up in defence.
"Alright, I'm gonna go get ready. I'll see you later!" He smiled, leaving you in the middle of the motorhome to go get changed into his driving suit.
Slowly, you made your way into the McLaren space with a small smile, waving to all of the engineers that recognised you.
By the time you reached Oscar, you could see the tear marks on his face. "What's wrong?" You questioned, instantly reaching up to wipe away the tears. "I'm just glad I finally have you." He smiled and pulled you into a loving kiss that was interrupted by his boss calling him for the start of Qualifying.
"I'll see you after, right?"
"Always." You nodded and for the first time in a long time, you felt as though you'd finally be okay.
I lowk loved writing this, lemme know what u think!!
synopsis: mercedes invites you to the paddock to participate in a prank. it's simple - you will join kimi at his interview to ask and answer as much as possible, but instead of calling kimi 'andrea' as you usually would, ollie will, sparking confusion and a slight existential crisis.
note: thank you for this cute request @xubissouxa 🫶 hope it's what you had in mind!!
kimi masterlist — join my taglist — make a request
"Right this way please," a member of the Mercedes marketing team was ushering you towards what appeared to be a small platform, "My colleague over there will mic you up."
"Okay, thank you." You smile and nod at her, ducking past a few stray people on the path. A few days ago you'd received an email from this very team, asking you to come in for an interview. Right when you received it, you'd pooped your pants a little, thinking that people wanted the inside scoop on yours and Kimi's relationship or that they were asking you to present - something you'd had practically no experience in. Instead, it was something far more up your street, especially because the goal of it was to confuse and/or annoy Kimi.
You and Ollie Bearman had been tasked with pranking Kimi while he answered audience questions - the goal was to refer to him as 'Andrea' as many times as possible throughout. The catch was that you were the only person who called him that, among other nicknames, so Ollie using it would throw him off big time.
The woman's colleague sorted you out with the microphone, provided you with a few cue cards containing prompts and questions you could ask Kimi yourself and pointed you to where you should stand, next to the boys who were already there. You greeted them both quickly and took your position, waiting for the audience to arrive. You had to admit it was a little daunting seeing the sheer volume of bodies filling the space opposite the barrier that sat in front of the platform, but you were sure you were going to provide everyone with some entertainment.
"Hi everyone!" Ollie was the first to speak, "We're going to be answering your questions today, with help from our special guest, Y/n." People cheered upon hearing your name, causing your cheeks to heat up, but you tried to give them a confident wave nevertheless. After Kimi said his piece, various people started chatting, you could make out a few phrases in the cacophony of noise being thrown at the platform but the staff at the front of the crowd were forced to settle them down, encouraging them to ask questions one at a time.
"Do you find the training to be more intense now you're in formula one?" was the first question. Ollie looked over at Kimi, urging him to answer first. "Uh.. well I think the competition is a lot harder and the stakes are higher so I kind of expected to have to work more. The training exercises are the same but I guess they are more frequent, it can get tiring." The person who asked the question nodded, and Kimi eyed you, wondering if you had anything to add.
"Yeah I'd agree, it's not super different but you can feel it has ramped up a bit," Ollie agrees, "I know Andrea took it in his stride better than me. I was really tired at the beginning, it took me so long to adjust".
Kimi froze hearing his name, and looked at Ollie with wide, confused eyes. He elected to say nothing though, not wanting to disrupt the flow of the interview. You were struggling to hold back your laugh, beaming at Ollie, who you had exchanged a triumphant look with. "Yeah, you guys work very hard, I couldn't do it," You smile, eyes searching the audience for the next question.
Meanwhile, Kimi had almost stopped listening completely. Had Ollie really called him Andrea? Maybe he'd said "And, yeah"? They did sound somewhat similar, but even Kimi couldn't convince himself fully of that.
"Andrea," A voice cut through his thoughts, "You've been asked if you'd rather drive in extreme heat or rain?" You were looking at him encouragingly, prompting him to answer. "Uh... Rain?" He shrugged, "It's wet?" You had to bite the inside of your cheek to prevent any laughter from escaping, you hadn't anticipated Ollie calling him his government name would throw him off so much. "What about you Ollie?" The person who asked the question continued. "I'd have to agree with Andrea, the heat would be unbearable."
Kimi's head snapped around to look at Ollie, mouth slightly agape. "I'd imagine you already sweat a lot just being in the car!" You giggle, trying to distract the audience from Kimi and act naturally. Ollie nodded, laughing a little.
"Now I believe Y/n has a few questions for you?" A member of staff quickly cut in, to which you began pulling out the cue cards. "These were sent in by fans online," you tell the audience, selecting the perfect question. "This is a good one," you glance at Ollie, he was already looking at you with a slight smirk on his lips - he knew this was going to present him with a golden opportunity. "mercedesfan83 asks, 'Who is more likely to get lost while driving?'"
"Oh, definitely Andrea," Ollie interjects, not allowing Kimi even a second to react and answer first.
"Wha-" Kimi starts, looking between you and Ollie for answers.
"He'd end up in a different country or something," Ollie continues, "I remember once he went to the wrong garage."
"It was very early in the morning. I was sleepy," Kimi defends himself, trying his best to continue normally, ignoring whatever the hell was happening.
"Ferrari is bright red," you tease him, "I think it would be very hard to mix it up with Mercedes." At this, a ripple of laughter passed throughout the audience.
"Okay, I have a question actually," Kimi states, "Why is everyone calling me Andrea?" Ollie turns around quickly, his back facing the audience, to mask his laughter - he was nearly red in the face from holding it in. "That's your name?" Ollie shrugs, as if the question was a stupid one, "I believe we have some more audience questions?" Kimi ignores this completely, "No one ever calls me Andrea."
"It's on your birth certificate," You smile innocently, blinking up at him before turning back to the audience. "Moving on, before Andrea has an identity crisis.." You scan the crowd, looking for the next person with a question, tuning out Kimi's protests.
"Uhhh...I'm your boyfriend??" Kimi raises an eyebrow at you, shuffling his feet on the platform. "That is correct." You affirm, lips pressed together in a tight line as you tried to maintain a neutral expression.
"So... why is Ollie calling me Andrea?" He tilts his head expectantly as you struggle to hold your nerve. "Only you call me that? How does he know?"
Both you and Ollie stay silent, and the crowd follows suit, letting Kimi figure it out for himself.
"Wait..." Kimi said quietly to himself, "I'm being pranked! And you're all in on it!" He shakes his head, narrowing his eyes, and looks between you, Ollie, the audience and the cameras accusingly. You crack first, it was impossible to hold the laugh in at this point - the way his eyes widened, the way he was so deep in thought trying to understand what was going on - the prank had gone perfectly. The audience cheered and clapped at his realisation, having known beforehand that this was the point of the interview - they considered it a success.
"You should've seen your face," Ollie hit him lightly on the arm, doubling over in laughter. "Unbelievable..." Kimi muttered, as the staff began clearing the people out now that the prank was over. You all smiled and thanked everyone efficiently before leaving the platform. Ollie immediately went off to tell the other drivers about the prank and started looking online to see if it had already been posted.
"I can't believe you would betray me like that," Kimi pouted, folding his arms across his chest. "Aww," You step into his space, wrapping your arms around him, "You know I had to do it for the content, the marketing guys practically begged me to."
"I kind of liked having something that was just ours," Kimi smiled sheepishly, gazing down at the floor. "Andrea was your thing." He shrugged, "No one else called me that."
"It is still ours," You reassure him, but he frowns, "It doesn't really feel like it."
"It is, today, that was just for the prank." You cup his cheek, rubbing your thumb over it soothingly, "Tomorrow it goes back to being ours, I promise."
"Hmmm..." You could tell he wasn't sure how to feel, "You're all so annoying. But I believe you, Y/n."
He pushes your hair out of your face and gives you a peck on the lips, "But I guess I don't mind being annoyed by you."
do you guys ever like forget you’re interested in something until you start engaging with it again and you go “oh wait i’m like crazy crazy about this yeah”
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✦ genre: hurt/comfort, grief, emotional angst, slow burn, slice of life
✦ warnings: death
✦ wc: ~5k+
a/n: kinda wanna make this into a little series of olivia rodrigo’s new album cuz i loved it sm hshs been thinking it since it came out but idk if i’ll be able to commit to it lmfao 😭
A story about the difference between waiting for a ghost and honouring a life and the long, difficult process of learning how to be your own garden.
Pebbles crunched under Oscar’s shoes. It was a Thursday, the air crisp and biting, the kind of weather that made his lungs ache just a little. He clutched two steaming cups, a cardboard carrier balancing the weight, as he made his way to the solitary wooden bench tucked away under the sprawling oak.
He stopped. He didn’t need to look at the ground to know exactly where he was. He took a seat on the right side, just as he always did, and carefully set a paper cup down on the left. The steam curled up, dancing in the cold air, dissipating into nothingness.
"It’s colder today," Oscar murmured, his voice barely a whisper, a habit carved into his bones. "I brought the peppermint mocha. I know it’s your favorite."
He leaned back, eyes fixed on the empty space beside him. His heart didn't break anymore, it had already done that years ago, but it pulsed with a dull, constant throb, a phantom limb that refused to stop aching.
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
“Oscar, look! The sky is finally clearing,” she’d said, pulling him toward the bench by his sleeve. She was breathless, her cheeks flushed with a pale, fragile pink that he’d learned to dread. She clutched a tiny bouquet of daisies, her fingers trembling slightly.
“You shouldn’t be out here,” he’d countered, his voice thick with the medical textbooks he’d been studying until 3:00 AM. “The humidity is bad for you.”
She just laughed, a sound like glass chimes in the wind. She sat down, pulling her knees to her chest. “I’m fine, Dr. Piastri. Just look at the clouds.”
He looked at her instead. He looked at the way the light caught her eyes, the way she was already beginning to fade, and he felt a cold, hard knot of terror tighten in his throat. He had been studying cardiology for six months specifically for her. He memorized heart valve diagrams and oxygen saturation levels, convinced that if he just knew enough, he could build a wall around her that death couldn’t breach.
“I’m going to be a great doctor, you know,” he told her, grabbing her hand to warm it. “And you’re going to be a patient that’s remarkably difficult to deal with.”
“I’m not a patient,” she whispered, staring up at the darkening sky. “I’m your girl.”
“You’re my everything,” he promised, and he meant it so hard it hurt.
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
Oscar adjusted his scarf. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a single, perfect peony. He placed it gently on the bench next to the coffee. It looked out of place in the gray winter, a splash of vibrant, defiant life.
"I finished the order for the Browne wedding," he said, shifting his gaze toward the playground in the distance. "I used the technique you wrote about in your red notebook. The one where you wire the stems to get that specific tilt. Everyone loved it. It’s funny. They think I’m some kind of flower whisperer now."
He let out a short, hollow chuckle. He wasn't a whisperer. He was just a man following a blueprint drawn in faded ink by someone who wasn't there to correct his mistakes.
"I walked the route this morning," he added, his tone conversational, as if she were simply looking out the window of their old apartment. "The balcony light was burnt out. I fixed it, but only in my head. I didn't want to get arrested for trespassing.
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
“Text me when you’re inside,” Oscar said, standing at the base of the apartment stairs. It was dark, the streetlights flickering with a low hum.
She turned around, already halfway up the flight of stairs, her hair a wild, beautiful mess. “Oscar, it’s ten feet. I’m literally within your line of sight.”
“Still. Text me,” he insisted, crossing his arms. He watched her shadow move across the wall. He waited until he heard the metallic click of her deadbolt.
He stayed for a moment longer, looking up at her balcony. A silhouette appeared behind the glass, waving. He waved back, felt the vibration of his phone in his pocket, and only then did he allow himself to breathe.
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
He stood up now, his joints stiff. He left the coffee on the bench. He always left it. By the time the janitor cleared the park, it would be cold and bitter, but it had served its purpose. He walked away, not looking back, heading toward the flower shop that still held the scent of her perfume and the dust of her absence.
The shop was a time capsule. When he took over, the landlord had asked if he wanted to renovate, maybe brighten the place up, make it modern. Oscar had looked at him like he was insane. He kept the crooked shelf because that was where she kept her shears. He kept the faded sign because it was the first thing she’d hung up after she got the lease. Even the radio station was locked onto the frequency she liked, a mix of soft jazz and local news that buzzed in the background of his long, silent shifts.
"Oscar, you're doing it again," his sister, Jade, said from the doorway, her voice tight with a mixture of pity and frustration. She didn't come by often. The place suffocated her.
"Doing what?" Oscar asked, not looking up from a bouquet of carnations.
"Standing in the dark. Listening to that radio. You’re rotting in here. It’s been two years. Mom says you haven't even looked at a new girl. You haven't gone back to your residency."
Oscar stopped mid-arrangement. His hands were steady, his movements precise, exactly how she would have done it. "I’m not rotting. I’m working."
"You’re preserving a museum," Jade countered, walking over to the cash register. She tapped the wood. "She wouldn't want this for you. She would have wanted you to be happy."
Oscar looked at his sister, his eyes flat. "I know she would. You tell me that all the time. But tell me, Jade, how? How do I be happy when the only person who knew how to make me happy isn't here? Is there a manual? A course I can take at the med school I dropped out of?"
"You didn't have to quit," she whispered.
"I did," he said, his voice dropping an octave. "I entered medicine to save her. When you take away the goal, the path doesn't make sense anymore. It’s just... mechanics. I don't want to fix other people’s lives when I couldn't even keep her heart beating."
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
The room was too quiet. That was the thing he remembered most. The absolute, suffocating silence of the ICU. His hand was wrapped around hers, her skin feeling like cool porcelain against his palm.
He had spent years memorizing how to hold her. He knew the pressure she liked, the way her fingers would lace through his. But now, they were limp. She had been drifting for hours, her breathing a rhythmic, stuttering drag.
“I’m here,” he whispered, leaning his forehead against her knuckles. “You don’t have to stay, okay? You don’t have to fight anymore. I know it’s hard. I’m right here.”
He felt a single, weak squeeze. And then, the steady tone of the heart monitor flattened into a continuous, piercing hum. He didn't scream. He didn't call the nurses. He just kept holding her hand, feeling the heat slowly leave her skin, locking the sensation into his memory until it was burned there, forever.
He had let her go. He let her go then, he let her go at the funeral, and he let her go when the dirt hit the casket. He had mastered the art of losing her.
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
"I’m not delusional, Jade," Oscar said, turning back to his flowers. "I know she’s gone. I saw the burial. I paid the bills. I know she’s not coming back."
"Then why keep all this? Why the park? Why the route?"
"Because," Oscar said, picking up a pair of ribbon scissors, "loving someone isn't a light switch. You don't just flip it off because the person isn't there to receive it. If love only exists while someone is breathing, then it wasn't love, it was a transaction. And this? This is just me continuing the life we were supposed to have. It’s not about waiting for her. It’s about keeping the promise that I’d be hers, even if I’m the only one left to keep it."
Jade sighed, leaning against the doorframe, her shoulders dropping. "It’s just so lonely, Oscar."
"It's not lonely," he said softly, a ghost of a smile playing on his lips. "I talk to her every day."
That night, the sky was clear. He drove out to the ridge, the place where they used to go for the meteor showers. He packed the blankets, the chairs, and the mugs.
He set up the chairs side-by-side. He poured the coffee into the left cup, the hot chocolate into the right. He sat down, wrapped his scarf tighter, and looked up.
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
The meteor shower was legendary that year. The Perseids, bright and erratic. She was wrapped in three blankets, her head resting on his shoulder. Every time a streak of light cut across the darkness, she would gasp, her fingers digging into his arm.
“I wish,” she whispered, her voice bright and full of a terrible, beautiful hope. “I wish for a house with a garden. I wish for us to be eighty years old. I wish for 5 dogs. I wish for 10 kids. I wish for a million boring, quiet mornings where you’re still there when I wake up.”
Oscar had looked at her, his stomach churning with the knowledge of her labs, the prognosis that he had read on his own laptop in the middle of the night. He had felt the tears stinging his eyes, but he smiled anyway.
“That’s a lot of wishes,” he said.
“I’m greedy,” she laughed, leaning into him. “I want it all with you.”
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
Now, sitting on the ridge, the stars began to fall. One by one, they streaked across the atmosphere, tiny, dying embers of light.
Oscar didn't make a wish. He hadn't made a wish in two years. He just watched.
"Did you see that one?" he asked the empty chair. "It was huge. You would have screamed."
He sipped his hot chocolate, the bitter sweetness hitting his tongue. He looked at the empty chair again. The blanket was folded perfectly, just like she liked it.
"I don't need to wish for anything anymore," he said to the wind. "I already had the best thing. I’m just... I’m just waiting for the sky to stop falling, I guess."
He stayed until the horizon began to bruise with the light of pre-dawn. He stood up, folded the blankets, and poured the cold coffee onto the dry, frozen grass. He walked back to his car, moving with a steady, quiet purpose.
He’d be back at the shop in an hour. He’d check the peonies, clean the shelves, and listen to the radio. He’d live the life they were supposed to share, one day at a time, keeping the space beside him warm, even if it stayed forever, beautifully, painfully empty. He wasn't waiting for a miracle. He was just honoring the reality of a love that didn't know how to end.
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
Seasons shifted without asking for permission, dragging Oscar into yet another year of silence. The calendar on the back of the shop door was a graveyard of crossed-out dates, each black stroke of his marker a quiet testament to the fact that the world kept spinning even when he wanted it to stop. It has been three years now. Three years since her laughter had been replaced by the hum of refrigerator coils and the soft rustle of wrapping paper.
People still talked. They did it in that low, hushed tone, thinking he couldn't hear them over the running water of the sink.
"He’s still there," his mother would whisper to his aunt over the phone, her voice thick with a worry that had grown heavy and stale over thirty-six months. "He’s thirty years old, and he’s spending his prime years arranging baby’s breath. He was supposed to be a surgeon. He has the hands for it. He’s just... wasting away."
Oscar would just keep cutting stems. Snip. Snip. Snip. The clean, sharp sound of the shears was the only thing that made sense. It didn't require medical ethics, or triage, or the agonizing realization that sometimes, no matter how many books you memorized, people still died.
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
"Oscar, please," his mother said, stepping into the shop on a rainy Thursday afternoon. She didn't buy flowers. She never did. She just stood by the counter, her wet umbrella dripping onto the floor, looking at him with eyes that were identical to his own, tired, stubborn, and desperately searching for a way out. "The dean called me. Personally. He said the board is willing to overlook the gap in your residency. They know what happened. They want you back, Oscar. They think you’re a prodigy."
Oscar didn't look up from his workstation. He was working on a sympathy wreath, weaving white lilies into a damp foam base. "Tell them I lost my stethoscope."
"It's in your closet," she said, her voice cracking just a little. "In the velvet box. Where you left it. You haven't touched it in three years, Oscar. It’s covered in dust."
"Then tell them I forgot how to use it," he murmured. He adjusted a lily, his fingers steady, though his chest felt like someone was tightening a ratchet strap around his ribs. "I like it here, Mom. It's quiet."
"It's a mausoleum!" she snapped, the sudden volume of her voice making him flinch. She immediately softened, her face crumpling as she reached across the counter to touch his arm. Her hand was warm, a mother's hand, smelling of lavender and the rain from outside. "Oscar, honey... you’re not living. You’re just waiting. And I can't watch you wait anymore. It’s killing me."
"I’m not waiting," Oscar said, and for the first time, he looked her in the eye. "I’m working. There’s a difference."
"Is there?" she whispered. "Because every time I see you, you look like you’re trying to disappear. You walk the same streets. You sit on that bench. Your sister told me about the coffee, Oscar. You’re buying coffee for a ghost."
A cold sensation washed over his neck, the familiar, defensive wall rising up instantly. He pulled his arm back gently, returning to the lilies. "It’s just coffee. It’s not a crime."
"It’s a symptom," she said, her medical background slipping through, her tone turning analytical in a way that made him want to scream. "You’re stuck in a grief loop. You’ve built a fortress out of her memories, and you’re letting yourself starve inside it. She loved you, Oscar. She loved you so much. Do you really think she’d want you to spend the rest of your life in this damp little shop, pretending the rest of the world doesn't exist?"
"I don't have to pretend," Oscar said, his voice flat, devoid of the anger he usually felt when they pushed him. He was just tired. So incredibly tired of defending his love. "The rest of the world doesn't exist. Not the way she did."
She let out a long, shuddering sigh, realizing she wasn't going to win this round. She never did. She reached out, patted his hand one last time, and walked out, the little bell above the door chiming a cheerful, mocking goodbye.
Later that evening, Jade showed up. She brought takeout, greasy noodles in cardboard boxes that smelled of garlic and ginger. She didn't say anything about his mother's visit, but she didn't have to. The silence between them was comfortable, built on a lifetime of shared secrets and scraped knees.
"You look like hell," Jade said, shoving a forkful of noodles into her mouth. She was sitting on the old wooden stool by the register, her legs swinging.
"Thanks," Oscar said, leaning against the counter. He hadn't eaten all day, but the smell of the food made his stomach turn. He forced himself to take a small bite. "Mom was here."
"I know. She called me crying." Jade sighed, staring at her noodles. "She’s just scared, Oscar. We all are. It’s like... we lost her, and then we lost you right after. You’re physically here, but you’re not here. You know?"
"I'm here," he insisted. "I run the shop. I pay the taxes. I talk to customers."
"You talk at customers," Jade corrected gently. "You give them their change, you make beautiful arrangements, and then you retreat behind the counter like a turtle. You don't go out. You haven't been to a movie, or a bar, or even a different coffee shop in three years. You’re thirty, Oscar. You’re supposed to be making mistakes, getting hangovers, falling in love with people who are completely wrong for you."
Oscar looked down at his calloused hands. There was green sap stained into his cuticles, a permanent mark of his new trade. "I don't want to fall in love again."
"I know," Jade said, her voice dropping to a whisper. She set her food down and walked over to him, wrapping her arms around his waist. She rested her chin on his chest, looking up at him. "But you have to at least try to live. Even a little bit. For her. If you won't do it for yourself, do it because she can't."
Oscar hugged her back, burying his face in her hair. He didn't promise anything. He couldn't. The thought of letting go of his grief felt like letting go of her hand all over again, and he just wasn't strong enough to survive that drop a second time.
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
Rain continued to batter the storefront the next day, turning the streets into a blurred, gray canvas. Business was slow, which was fine by Oscar. It gave him time to do the deep cleaning he’d been putting off for months.
He decided to tackle the back storage room, the place where she had kept her extra pots, ribbons, and old gardening journals. It was a dusty, cramped space, smelling of dry soil and old paper. He had avoided it because it felt too intimate, too much like stepping into her private thoughts.
He was moving a stack of heavy ceramic planters when he noticed the crooked shelf in the corner. It was the one shelf he had never touched, the one she had hung herself using cheap plastic drywall anchors that had long since given up their grip. The wood was warped, tilting drastically to the left.
"I should probably fix you," Oscar muttered to the shelf, a faint smile touching his lips.
He reached up to lift the heavy metal toolbox she’d left on the top shelf, but as he pulled it forward, the entire unit shifted. With a dry, splintering crack, the wooden backing of the shelf pulled away from the wall. A flurry of old receipts, dried flower petals, and dust bunnies cascaded down onto his head.
Oscar coughed, waving his hand to clear the air. He began picking up the debris, throwing the faded receipts into a trash bin. But then, his hand brushed against something thick. Something that didn't feel like a receipt.
It was a small, square envelope, tucked into the tiny gap between the wooden backing of the shelf and the drywall. It was covered in a layer of gray dust, but the handwriting on the front was unmistakable. It was messy, the letters leaning aggressively to the right, written with a blue ballpoint pen that had bled slightly into the paper.
On the front, it simply said: For my favorite doctor.
Oscar’s breath hitched in his throat. His heart, which usually beat in a slow, heavy rhythm, began to hammer against his ribs like a trapped bird. His hands shook so violently he almost dropped the envelope.
He sat down right there on the dusty floor, his back against a stack of soil bags, his legs pulled up to his chest. He carefully slid his thumb under the flap of the envelope, trying not to tear the paper.
Inside was a single sheet of yellow legal paper, folded into thirds. He unfolded it, the scent of her, faint, almost imperceptible, but still there, like dried lavender and rain, rising from the creases.
The letter was dated just two weeks after she had been diagnosed.
Hi Oscar,
If you’re reading this, it means you finally decided to fix that shelf. I told you those plastic anchors weren’t meant for a lifetime, didn’t I? You’re probably giving me that look right now, the one where your brows knit together and you look like you’re trying to solve a puzzle.
I’m writing this while you’re asleep. You look so peaceful, and it makes me think of all the things we were supposed to be. I’ve been thinking a lot about the way we work, about us. Honestly, it feels like I’m a honeybee and you’re the most beautiful, steady flower I’ve ever found. I’ve spent my whole life buzzing around, restless, looking for a place to land, and then I found you. You were the bloom that held me steady, the one that made sense of all my frantic energy.
But here’s the thing about flowers and bees, Oscar. The flower doesn't exist just to hold the bee. It exists to grow, to turn toward the sun, to be wild and vibrant even when the season changes. I’ve been watching you lately, and you’re trying so hard to be the stem that holds me up, but I’m fading. I’m the petal that’s starting to curl at the edges, and I’m terrified that when I finally fall, you’re going to decide that the garden doesn't matter anymore.
Please don't do that. You have such a vibrant, golden heart, don't let it go dormant just because I’m not there to land on you anymore.
You’re a honeybee, too, my love. You’re meant to fly. You’re meant to go out and find new gardens, new sunrises, and new fields that haven't even bloomed yet. I don't want to be the reason you stop moving. If I’m the flower you loved, then let that love be the nectar that gives you the strength to keep flying. Go find the world. Don't just sit in the shop waiting for a summer that’s already passed.
I’ve always been so scared that I’d be the one to wither while you were still in full bloom. I know you think if you just study hard enough, or hold my hand tight enough, you can keep the winter away. But even the most beautiful flowers have to let go of their petals eventually. It’s part of the cycle. It’s not a failure, it’s just the way it goes.
So, promise me. When the wind takes me, don't let it take you, too. I wish for you to live, Oscar. I wish for you to be happy. Go be your own garden. Find the places that make you want to buzz with excitement, find the colors that make you want to dance. I’ll be there in the way the sunlight hits the leaves, and in the way you remember to be kind to the world.
I love you more than all the fields in the world. Now, go on. Fly.
Always & forever yours
Oscar sat in the silence of the storage room, the letter clutched in his hand. The tears came slowly at first, hot and silent, tracking through the dust on his cheeks. Then, they came in a wave, a violent, chest-heaving sob that ripped through him, shaking his entire frame.
He buried his face in his knees, letting the grief wash over him. But this time, it felt different. It didn't feel like the cold, suffocating weight of the hospital room. It felt like a release. It felt like her hand, warm and gentle, pulling him up out of the deep, dark water he’d been drowning in for three years.
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
Morning came with a soft, watery light that filtered through the front window of the shop. Oscar stood behind the counter, looking at his hands.
They were dirty. They were calloused. They were the hands of a man who worked with soil, who nurtured things, who helped them grow.
He realized, with a sudden, startling clarity, that he didn't want to go back to medicine.
He had spent years believing that his love for the shop was just a symptom of his grief, a desperate attempt to preserve her memory. But looking at the flowers now, he realized the truth. He loved this. He genuinely, deeply loved being a florist.
He loved the way a nervous teenager’s face lit up when he handed them a perfect, single rose. He loved the quiet comfort he could offer a grieving family by choosing the exact right shade of blue hydrangea. He loved the creative puzzle of blending textures, colors, and scents to tell a story that words couldn't express.
He wasn't just a placeholder anymore. He wasn't a ghost-tender.
"I am Oscar Piastri," he said out loud, his voice echoing in the quiet shop. "And I am a florist."
The words felt good. They felt heavy, solid, and real. They didn't feel like a compromise. They felt like an identity.
He walked over to the front window, where a single, blooming pink peony sat in a glass vase. It was her favorite. It had always been her favorite.
He reached out, his fingers gently tracing the soft, paper-thin petals.
"I'm going to learn how to be happy," he whispered to the empty, quiet room. "But I'm going to take you with me."
He didn't need the park anymore. He didn't need to sit on the right side of the bench, leaving the left side empty like a physical scar. He didn't need to buy two coffees and watch one go cold. He didn't need to hike up to the ridge for every meteor shower, shivering in two blankets while one remained folded and untouched.
He realized that love wasn't a static thing, preserved in a jar like a medical specimen. It wasn't a museum exhibit he had to dust every day to keep from fading.
Love was a fluid, evolving force. It was the way he remembered to be kind to the lonely old man who came in every Friday just to talk. It was the way he noticed the beauty in a single, crooked stem of eucalyptus. It was the way he kept his heart open, even when he was terrified of the pain.
He had let her go at the hospital. He had let her go at the funeral. And now, finally, he was letting go of the need to mourn the life they were supposed to have, so he could start living the one he actually had.
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
"You changed the radio station," Jade said, stepping into the shop a week later. She stopped in her tracks, her eyes wide as she listened to the upbeat, acoustic indie music playing from the speakers.
"Yeah," Oscar said, wiping down the counter with a damp cloth. He wasn't wearing his old, faded gray sweater. He was wearing a dark green apron, his sleeves rolled up, his hair pushed back from his face. "The old station kept playing the same five jazz songs. It was driving me crazy."
Jade stared at him, her mouth slightly open. "And... the shelf. You fixed it."
Oscar looked over at the storage room door. The crooked shelf had been taken down, the wall patched and painted, and a sturdy, level iron rack now stood in its place, holding neat rows of terracotta pots.
"It was a safety hazard," Oscar said, a genuine, easy smile breaking across his face. "I didn't want a customer getting concussed by a ceramic planter."
Jade walked over to him, her eyes shining with tears. She didn't say anything. She just reached across the counter and grabbed his hand, squeezing it tight.
"You look... lighter," she whispered.
"I feel lighter," Oscar admitted. "I found a letter. She... she told me to fix the shelf. And she told me to live."
Jade let out a soft, watery laugh, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "Of course she did. She always was the smart one."
"Yeah," Oscar said, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "She was."
He wasn't "moving on" in the way his family had meant. He wasn't erasing her. He wasn't trying to pretend she had never existed so he could feel normal again.
He was integrating her. She wasn't the center of his universe anymore, because the universe was too big, and he was finally ready to explore the rest of it. But she was, and always would be, the most beautiful, tragic, wonderful part of it. She was the foundation upon which he was building his new life.
That evening, Oscar walked home. He didn't take the old route past her apartment. He took the long way, through the bustling downtown streets, watching the city light up in shades of gold and amber.
He didn't look up at the empty balcony. He didn't say "goodnight" to a shadow behind a pane of glass.
Instead, he stopped at a small park he had never visited before. He sat down on a bench right in the middle, spreading his arms out along the backrest. He looked up at the sky, where the first stars of the evening were just beginning to pierce through the twilight.
He closed his eyes, and for the first time in three years, the image of her face wasn't accompanied by the sharp, stinging memory of the hospital monitor’s flatline.
He didn't see the pale, fragile skin, or the tubes, or the cold hand he had held so desperately.
Instead, he saw her laughing. He saw her standing in the middle of a field of wild peonies, her hair catching the wind, her eyes bright and fierce. He heard her voice, clear and loud, shouting wishes at a falling star.
“I wish for you to live, Oscar. I wish for you to be happy.”
Oscar opened his eyes, a deep, steady breath filling his lungs. The air was cold, but it didn't hurt anymore. It felt clean. It felt like a beginning.
He stood up, tucking his hands into his pockets, and walked forward into the night, ready to see what the rest of the story had to offer.
“you’ll be bored of him in two years,” oscar says flatly, “and we will be interesting forever.” (or: 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘯 𝘫𝘰𝘭𝘢𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘦 𝘢𝘶, 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘳 𝘪𝘴 𝘫𝘰.)
ꔮ starring: oscar piastri x reader.
ꔮ word count: 10.2k. (!!!)
ꔮ includes: friendship, romance, angst. mentions of food, alcohol; profanity. references to greta gerwig's little women (2019), mostly set in melbourne, oscar's sisters are recurring characters.
ꔮ commentary box: i've written way too much oscar as of late, so before i go on a self-imposed ban, i had to get this monster out. fully, wholly dedicated to @binisainz, whose amylaurie lando fic does this feeling go both ways? started all this. birdy, i love you like all-fire. 𝐦𝐲 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭
♫ let you break my heart again, laufey. we can't be friends (wait for your love), ariana grande. cool enough for you, skyline. do i ever cross your mind, sombr. bags, clairo. true blue, boygenius. laurie and jo on the hill, alexandre desplat.
Oscar Piastri is not the kind of boy who usually finds himself at house parties.
Especially not the kind with balloons tied to banisters, tables laden with sausage rolls and buttercream cupcakes, and a Bluetooth speaker hiccupping out the tail-end of some pop anthem. But here he is, cornered into attendance by his sisters—Hattie, Edie, and Mae—who’d all dressed up for the occasion and declared, in unison, that he had to come.
So he had. Because he was a good brother and an unwilling chaperone.
And now he’s bored.
Oscar stands near the drinks table, nursing a cup of lukewarm lemonade and trying to look vaguely interested in the streamers above the kitchen doorway. Hattie had already been whisked off to dance by someone in a navy jumper. Edie had found the girl who always brought homemade brownies to school. Mae was giggling wildly with a trio of kids Oscar vaguely recognized from the street down.
No one notices him lingering by himself. That suits him just fine.
Still, he can’t quite shake the restlessness crawling up his spine. The noise is too loud, the lights too warm. With a quick scan of the room and a glance over his shoulder, Oscar slips behind a long, velvet curtain that cordons off what seemed to be the study.
Except there’s already someone there.
He realizes it a moment too late, nearly landing on top of you.
“Oh my God—sorry!” he blurts out, practically leaping backward. His foot catches on the edge of the curtain and he stumbles a bit, arms flailing before catching the side of a bookshelf. His cheeks burn. “Didn’t see you. I didn’t think anyone else—sorry. Again.”
You blink up at him, wide-eyed, legs curled beneath you on the armchair he had almost sat on. There’s a half-eaten biscuit on a napkin beside you, and your fingers are wrapped around a glass of ginger ale. Contrary to everyone else at this godforsaken event, you’re not a familiar face.
“It’s okay,” you said, voice quiet. Accented. Affirming Oscar’s theory that you’re not a Melbourne native. After a pause, you tentatively joke: “You didn’t sit on me, so that’s a win.”
Oscar huffs out a laugh, scrubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “Yeah. Close call.”
The silence after is not awkward, exactly. Just shy. The two of you are tucked away behind a curtain, neither fully sure what to do next. Oscar takes the plunge first, figuring it’s the least he could do after intruding on your escape.
“I’m Oscar. Piastri,” he adds unnecessarily. He gestures vaguely toward the chaos outside. “Dragged here by my sisters.”
“I figured you were with the girls,” you reply amusedly. “I’m new. Just moved here a few weeks ago.”
Oscar’s brows lift. “So this is your introduction to the madness?”
“Pretty much.” You offer a sheepish shrug. “I don’t really know anyone, and pretending to be cool isn’t really my thing.”
“Mine neither,” he says quickly, maybe a bit too quickly. “Hence the hiding.”
That earns him a soft smile. It’s a pretty smile, Oscar privately notes.
He gestures to the empty bit of couch beside you. “Mind if I sit? Promise to check for limbs first.”
You shift slightly to make room. “Be my guest.”
He sits, careful this time, knees bumping slightly against yours as he settles. The party noise feels far away behind the curtain—muted like a dream. Oscar glances at you from the corner of his eye, curiosity bright beneath his awkwardness.
“Got a name, new kid?” he asks, because even though he had agreed that he doesn’t like feigning coolness, he’s still just a teenage boy with a god complex.
You tell him your name. He repeats it back to you, careful with the syllables like he’s folding them into memory.
A few more minutes pass, filled with idle chatter. You talk about your move, the weird smell of paint still lingering in your new house, and the fact that none of the cupcakes at this party have chocolate frosting, which is a tragedy. Oscar, in turn, tells you about his sisters. How Mae once tried to dye her hair green with a highlighter and how Hattie got banned from school discos after she snuck in a smoke machine.
The laughter between you is easy. Unforced.
Then you say it, maybe without thinking too hard. “We should dance,” you muse, finishing off the last of your biscuit.
Oscar freezes. His eyebrows shoot up, alarmed. “Dance? With me?”
“Unless you’d rather go back to pretending the streamers are fascinating.”
“I don’t dance with strangers,” he says, half-laughing, half-panicked.
“We know each other’s names now,” you point out. “That makes us not-strangers.”
With a beleaguered sigh and a scrunch of his nose, Oscar comes clean. “I’m bad at it,” he grumbles.
“Who cares?”
“My sisters. They’ll see. And I’ll never live it down.”
You purse your lips, tapping your glass lightly against your knee. Then, a spark lights in your eyes. It’s the kind that spells trouble; Oscar has seen it in his siblings’ faces, right before they do something so invariably stupid and reckless. “Come with me. I have an idea,” you urge.
He hesitates, a part of his brain screeching something like stranger danger! in flashing, neon lights. In the end, he follows.
You slip out through the back door, motioning for him to stay quiet as you lead him down the wooden steps and out onto the wrap-around porch. The party sounds are muffled here, only the faint thump of bass slipping through the walls.
“Out here,” you say, turning to him with an expectant grin. “Nobody to laugh. Just us.”
Oscar stares at you. “This is crazy.”
“Shut up and dance.”
And so he does.
Awkwardly, at first, because you start them off with wild moves and dance skills that are much more abysmal than his. It gives him the confidence to start swaying a bit, his laughter poorly stifled as he watches you flail like an octopus.
You take his hands, and he lets you spin him gently, sneakers squeaking against the porch boards. There’s no rhythm to it, not really. Just swaying and clumsy steps and the faint thrum of music in the background.
The porch light flickers above you, casting long shadows. Somewhere inside, someone cheers. But out here, it's just you and Oscar.
Two kids dancing badly and not caring.
“You’re a weird one,” he says with a smile that splits his face open.
“Takes one to know one,” you shoot back, fingers squeezing his as you twirl yourself through his arm. It’s a gross miscalculation and you end up stumbling, the two of you cackling as you attempt to detangle from the mess of limbs you’ve entangled each other in.
For the first time that night, Oscar thinks he might actually like this party after all.
Christmas morning in the Piastri household always comes with a sort of chaos—the kind born of slippers skidding across hardwood, sleepy giggles, and the rustle of wrapping paper long before the sun climbs properly into the sky.
This year, however, there’s something new. A wicker basket sits on the porch, ribbon-wrapped and dusted in the faintest layer of frost.
It’s heavy with gifts, each one handmade and meticulously labeled in curling script. Hattie, first to spot it, gives a shriek loud enough to wake the neighborhood. Within minutes, the whole family is gathered in the living room, the basket placed like treasure at the center.
“It’s from the new neighbors,” their mum announces, plucking a card from the basket. Her voice is touched with surprise and delight. “The old man and his granddaughter. Isn’t that sweet?”
Hattie unwraps a pair of knitted socks, blue and gold. Edie lifts out a jar of spiced jam. Mae discovers a hand-bound notebook. Each gift is simple but exquisite, the sort of thing you only receive from people who notice details.
“She’s the one who doesn’t talk to anyone,” Hattie says knowingly, curling her legs beneath her on the couch. You were in the same level as her, it seemed—a year below Oscar.
“That house is huge.” Edie glances out the window, towards your home. “Do you think her parents are loaded?”
“I heard they aren’t even around,” Mae whispers. “Just her and the grandfather. He looks ancient, though. Like, fossil ancient.”
“Girls,” their mum cuts in sharply. “That’s enough. They were kind enough to send gifts. We will be kind in return.”
Oscar, perched on the armrest of the couch, stays quiet through the speculation. His hands toy with the tag on his gift—a simple wooden bookmark, engraved with an amateur sketch of a stick figure dancing. He doesn’t say anything about the study, or the curtain, or the ginger ale.
But the memory floats to the front of his mind: the soft hush of the party behind a curtain, the brush of knees, your laugh when he had called you weird.
“We should make friends with them,” Oscar says finally, looking up. “It’s Christmas, after all.”
The girls pause. Hattie raises an eyebrow. “Since when do you care about new neighbors?”
He shrugs, trying not to look too interested. “Just saying. It wouldn’t kill us to be nice.”
Their mum smiles, pleased. “That’s the spirit.”
Oscar glances back down at the bookmark, running a thumb over the edge.
He finds your family acquainting with his soon enough.
On a sunny afternoon, right as Edie is pouring cereal into a bowl and Oscar is elbow-deep in the dishwasher, the home phone rings. Hattie picks up, listens for a moment, then calls out, “Mae’s at the neighbor’s. She fell off her bike.”
There’s a rush of clattering cutlery and footsteps, and in no time, Oscar finds himself trailing behind his sisters down the sidewalk, toward the big house next door—the one with the sprawling lawn and mismatched wind chimes on the porch.
When they arrive, Mae is perched on your front steps, a bandage already wrapped around her knee and a juice box in hand. She waves lazily as Hattie and Edie fall upon her with a dozen questions. Your grandfather, white-haired and kind-eyed, stands nearby, looking amused by the commotion. He introduces himself and ushers them all inside despite their protests.
Oscar hangs back for a moment until he spots you just behind the door, barefoot and half-hidden by the frame. You glance up, catch his eye, and grin.
“You again,” you say, stepping out onto the porch. “Is she alright?”
“Yeah, just scraped her knee,” Oscar replies, shoving his hands into the pockets of his hoodie. “Thanks for patching her up.”
“We had a pretty solid first aid game back at my old school. I’m well-versed in playground accidents.”
He chuckles, leaning against the porch railing. “That so? Must be a pretty rough school.”
“Brutal,” you agree solemnly. “There were snack thieves and dodgeball champions. It was a jungle.”
“Sounds terrifying.”
“It built character,” you say with mock seriousness, then flash him a grin. “Want to come in? I made too much lemonade.”
Oscar nods and follows you inside. The kitchen smells like lemon zest and fresh biscuits. Hattie and Edie are now harrowing your grandfather with questions about the old piano in the corner and whether the house is haunted. He answers everything with a twinkle in his eye, clearly enjoying the attention.
You hand Oscar a glass and settle across from him at the kitchen table. He takes a sip. “You weren’t lying,” he says through another swig. “This is good.”
“Of course not. I take my beverages very seriously.”
“You’re weird,” he says, but there’s no heat behind it.
“You keep saying that like it’s a bad thing.”
“I’m starting to think it might be a compliment.”
You clink your glass against his in cheers. He smiles, and something warm unfurls in his chest. A startling kind of certainty. Like something’s taking root—a real friendship, honest and surprising and entirely unplanned.
Oscar is surprised to find that he doesn’t mind.
It happens gradually, like most real things do.
You begin spending Saturday afternoons with the Piastri bunch, lounging on their back deck with Hattie and Edie, gossiping about the neighbors or watching Mae attempt increasingly dangerous trampoline flips. You get good at knowing who takes how many sugars in their tea, when to duck because Edie’s chucking a tennis ball, or when Oscar is about to try and quietly leave the room.
You’re there for board games on rainy days and movie nights on Fridays. You help Hattie with her French homework, braid Mae’s hair when her fingers get too clumsy with excitement, and lend Edie your favorite books. Their mum always saves you an extra slice of cake, and their dad asks how your grandfather’s garden is faring this season.
It starts to feel like you’ve always belonged there, wedged into the rhythm of their household like a missing puzzle piece finally found.
Oscar is often quieter than the others, but he’s still a constant. You and he become fixtures in each other’s orbit. Trading messages about school, tagging each other in silly videos, or sending one-word replies that only make sense to the two of you.
Despite being one year his junior, the two of you are close in a way that you aren’t with the girls. He swears it’s because he met you first, because the two of you have emergency dance parties and cricket watch parties that nobody else knows about.
He leaves for boarding school, and the absence sits awkwardly on both your chests at first. But he never really disappears. He always texts when he’s back. Always walks you home at least once before he has to leave again. Always makes you laugh, even when you don’t want to.
And then—one summer—he comes home and something’s different.
It isn’t dramatic. You don’t swoon. He doesn’t speak in slow motion. It’s just... subtle.
Oscar stands taller. His shoulders are broader. His voice has deepened slightly. There’s a small scar at the corner of his lip you don’t remember, and when he grins, it strikes you—how he’s grown into himself, soft and sharp all at once.
You catch him staring at you too, once or twice. Like he’s trying to recalibrate what he thought he knew. Your hair is a little longer, and your skin is tanned from all the days in the sun. He remembers the freckles; he doesn’t remember when they became so prominent.
But it never becomes a thing. You don’t talk about it. You fall back into your usual rhythm.
Because even if your faces are a little older, your banter is still quick and familiar. You still chase each other down the street. You still squabble over the last biscuit. He still rolls his eyes at you, and you still prod him for his terrible taste in music.
Whatever has changed, whatever is beginning to, you both keep it tucked away. For now, it’s enough just to have each other nearby.
It’s a fact Oscar remembers as digs his toes into the hot sand. His jaw is tight; he watches the waves break in even swells. The sun’s beating down hard, but he barely feels it. Not with the way his chest still burns from the shouting match earlier.
Hattie had stormed out of the house with her towel clutched like a shield, and Oscar had followed, only because everyone else was pretending like nothing had happened. His sisters always expected him to be the reasonable one, and today—he hadn’t been.
He’d snapped. Something petty. A dig at her choice of music in the car. Then something sharper about her always having to be right. And before he knew it, she’d looked at him like he was someone else.
He hadn’t apologized.
Now, he sits beneath the shade of a crooked umbrella, arms wrapped around his knees. He watches the group scatter across the sand and into the waves. Hattie’s already out with her board, paddling strong into the break like she’s trying to prove something. Edie is further down the shore, half-buried in a sandcastle war. Mae’s running between them, laughing.
You drop into the sand beside him, skin glinting from seawater, hair tied back and still damp. “You two going for the title of Most Dramatic Siblings today?” you ask, unsurprisingly up to date. Hattie probably told you all about it while the two of you were getting changed.
Oscar sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. “I was a bit of a tosser this morning,” he says dryly.
You nod, not offering him an out. Just letting the honesty settle.
“She’ll forgive you. Eventually,” you add. “You Piastris always find your way back.”
He tilts his head, watching you. The sunlight makes your nose wrinkle when you squint toward the water. Your shoulders have lost some of their shyness from when he first met you. You’ve become more sure of yourself, laughing louder, teasing easily. Comfortable. Confident. Certain.
He likes that.
The two of you sit in silence until Oscar stands, grabbing his board. “I’m going out.”
“Be nice,” you call after him, and he flashes a grin over his shoulder—tight but genuine.
In the surf, Oscar feels the tension bleed out with every push through the waves. The water’s cold and biting, salt sharp in his mouth. He catches sight of Hattie up ahead and paddles after her, trying not to let the guilt slow him down. Hattie notices him, grimaces, and rushes on.
Trying to prove something.
The waves pick up. Hattie catches one, standing briefly before wiping out. She resurfaces quickly, almost laughing, but Oscar watches her expression shift just moments later. There’s a sudden pull in the water, subtle but unmistakable. A riptide.
She paddles against it. Wrong move.
Oscar feels the fright hit like a tsunami.
He’s been scared before. Of course he has. He’s terrible when it comes to horror movies. He’s seen his karting peers fissure into pretty nasty accidents. But this, the fear of this, of his younger sister—
He starts shouting, but the wind carries his voice sideways. Instinctively, he glances to shore—and sees that you’re already running. Board abandoned, feet flying across wet sand. You make it to him in record time, that crazed look in your eyes mirroring his.
Together, you plunge into the surf. Oscar’s strokes are strong, slicing through the current. He reaches Hattie just as she starts to panic.
“Float! Don’t fight it!” you yell, coming up on her other side.
Oscar grabs her wrist, firm but steady. You’re on the other, speaking calm, clear instructions, guiding her body as the three of you angle sideways out of the current.
You’re the voice of reason; Oscar is the force that perseveres.
It’s slow. Exhausting. But eventually, the pull lessens.
You reach the shore heaving, salt-stung, and shaking. Hattie collapses onto her knees, coughing up seawater, and Oscar sinks beside her, heart hammering. His hands rest at her back, as if he’s scared she’ll go down under the moment he lets go.
Hattie says nothing at first. She just looks at him with wet, furious eyes.
It’s a look Oscar is used to seeing on Hattie’s face. They’re siblings. Of course they squabble, and they fight, and they know where to hit for it to hurt. Such was the curse and blessing of being a brother.
Underneath all that, though, Oscar goes back to two cardinal truths: Being the eldest, he made his mum and dad parents—but when Hattie came around, they made him a sibling.
And a sibling he would always be, come hell or high water.
“You didn’t even say sorry,” Hattie sputters, like that’s still the worst thing that has happened this afternoon.
Oscar can’t decide if he wants to cry or laugh. You hover nearby, giving them space. But not too much.
“I’m sorry,” he says, and it’s I’m sorry for picking a fight, and I’m sorry for being a bad brother sometimes, and I’m sorry I never taught you about riptides.
Hattie sniffles, then swats at him. “You better be.”
And that’s how they make up.
Later, as the sun begins to dip, casting everything in amber, Oscar finds you rinsing your arms at an outdoor shower.
“Hey,” he says, stepping close with your towel in his hands.
You look over your shoulder. “Hey.”
He shuffles awkwardly. With salt in his hair and gratitude tangled in his ribs, Oscar thinks there’s no one else he’d rather have next to him when the tide pulls under.
But there’s something deeper, something closer to guilt gnawing at him.
You sense it, in the same way you know when Oscar’s about to have a bad race weekend or when he’s overwhelmed with schoolwork. Stepping out of the shower, you take your towel, wrap it over your shoulders, and gesture at Oscar to follow you.
The two of you walk along the shore, away from where Edie is snapping photos of her sandcastle and Mae is reading some trashy romance novel. Hattie is passed out on a beach blanket, the excitement of the near-drowning taking the fight out of her.
“If she had died,” Oscar tells you, his tongue heavy as lead, “it would’ve been my fault.”
It’s the kind of thought he figures only you will understand. Not because you have any siblings of your own, not because you had been there, but because you’ve always read Oscar like he was a dog-eared book you could keep under your pillow.
“She’s fine, though,” you say delicately, but he’s started and he can’t stop.
“What is wrong with me?” A laugh escapes Oscar—the self-deprecating kind, one that grates more than the sand beneath your feet. “I’ve made so many resolutions and written sad notes and confessed my sins, but it doesn’t seem to help. When I get in a passion—”
A passion. A fit. With his siblings, with his mates, with you. He can’t count the amount of times his sarcasm has offended you. The instances where he’s made you cry, intentionally or not.
And when he’s racing. God, when he’s racing.
In a couple of months, he’s slated to join Formula 4. He has a stellar karting career behind him, one he can barely even remember—because he had seen red throughout it all. Oscar was clinical and cutthroat and cruel the moment he got behind a wheel, and a part of him worries that’s who he’ll always be.
A man who would stop at nothing to be at the top step of any podium. A boy who would insist on being right like his life depended on it.
“When I get in a passion,” he tries again, “I get so savage. I could hurt anyone and enjoy it.”
It’s a damning confession. The kind that could absolutely ruin and unravel Oscar. But he knows, he trusts that it’s safe in your hands. You hum a low sound like he hadn’t just bared his heart out for you to sink your claws into.
“I know what that’s like,” you say, and he has to do a double take.
“You?” He studies the side of your face, as if checking for insincerity. “You’re never angry.”
You’re annoyed with him often and you’ve got a hint of fire in everything you say. But there’s never been rage, never been the sort of flame that could incinerate. And so it shocks him all the more when you confess, “I’m angry nearly every day of my life.”
“You are?”
“I’m not patient by nature. I just try to not let it get the better of me,” you offer, glancing up at Oscar.
The two of you have come to a stop at the edge of the shoreline. Soon, you’ll have to get back to his waiting sisters. For now, though, he surveys your expression and finds nothing but the truth.
He files the facts away in that mental cabinet he has containing what he knows about you. Angry, nearly every day. And then he takes to heart the rest of your words, the roundabout advice of not letting it consume him.
The blaze in him stops roaring for a minute. With you, it’s like a campfire. Inviting and warm.
Better. You make him better.
“Look at us,” he says, tone almost awed. “After all these years, looks like I can still learn a thing or two from you.”
There’s something in your eyes that Oscar can’t quite place. You’ve always looked at him a certain way, but he could never really put a word to it. It’s tender and pained all at once; subtle, ultimately, buried underneath whatever he needs you to be at the moment.
“It’s what friends are for,” you respond, your voice catching on the word in the middle. He pretends not to notice.
Friends.
Oscar’s Formula 4 debut is everything he thought it would be.
The pressure, the lights, the nerves so sharp they buzz under his skin—it’s all there, and then some. He tries to soak in every second, from the chorus of engines roaring around him to the feel of the wheel under his gloved hands. But even with everything happening so quickly, even in the blur of adrenaline and pit stops, there’s still time for his thoughts to drift back home.
More specifically: To you.
It starts small. Just a notification that you’ve made a new post. A photo.
You with your boyfriend.
A guy Oscar’s met once, maybe twice. The sort of guy who plays guitar at parties and wears cologne that smells like department store samples. He isn’t bad—just doesn’t fit. Doesn’t match the version of you Oscar has always known. The one who once danced on a porch, hair a mess, daring him to keep up.
He doesn’t know what to do with the bitter feeling that curdles in his chest. You’re not his, per se. You’ve never been. But surely you could do better than this Abercrombie-wearing, Oasis-playing asswipe.
Summer arrives like it always does—hot and sprawling, with cicadas humming in the trees and long days that stretch lazily into nights. Oscar is home for a few weeks between races.
You’re still around, too. A little less, though, because your boyfriend is a demanding thing who insists he “doesn’t like Oscar’s vibe.” You fight for the friendship, citing it as a non-negotiable, and when Oscar finds out, he doesn’t even try to hide his smugness.
The two of you steal away one evening, climbing onto the roof of the Piastri house with cans of lemonade and a bag of sour candy. It’s tradition by now. The tin roof is warm beneath you, and the stars blink faintly above, a faded scattering against the navy sky.
You sit close, your shoulder brushing his every so often.
“You’ve changed,” you say, head tilted toward him.
“Have not.”
“You look taller.”
“I’ve always been taller.”
You laugh, a soft sound. “Okay. You’ve changed in a good way.”
Oscar bumps your knee with his. “So have you.”
The two of you are older, now, more accepting of the facts of life. Time is not your enemy. It’s just time. You’re still in school, and Oscar is still racing. Your paths have diverged, but the road home is one you both know like the back of your hand.
You go quiet, fiddling with the tab on your lemonade. He watches you closely, trying to read what you’re not saying. You’re nervous. He figures that much out from the fiddling. Nervous about what, though, he can’t—
“I want to run away with him,” you say suddenly.
Oscar stiffens. He wants to call you out for making such a stupid joke, for not having all your screws on straight. You go on, eyes fixed on the dark street below. “Doesn’t sound too bad. Eloping,” you muse. “I’ve never been one for big weddings, anyway.”
“Why?”
“Why don’t I like big weddings?”
“No, stupid. Why the sudden plan of eloping?”
“Because I love him.”
He looks at you, really looks at you, the slope of your cheek in the half-light, the determination behind your words. It doesn’t sit right. This isn’t you. You make rash decisions, but none so life-altering. Not anything that would give your grandfather grief, and most especially not anything that would disclude Oscar.
“You’ll be bored of him in two years,” Oscar says flatly, “and we will be interesting forever.”
You don’t respond right away. Instead, you let the words hang between you. Those two things could co-exist. Your love for this loser (Oscar’s word; not yours), and the fact that there was nothing in the world that could electrify quite like your friendship with Oscar Piastri.
He doesn’t know where this is coming from. He hadn’t realized this would be so serious, that he’d been away long enough for you to start considering marriage with what’s-his-face.
“I don’t expect you to know what it’s like, Oscar,” you say eventually. “To want to be shackled.”
And there it is.
You’ve always supported Oscar’s career. You have years worth of team merchandise for all his loyalties; you’ve been there for every race that mattered, each one that you could make.
But you were also selfish in ways that his family wasn’t. You got moody whenever he had to go away after breaks. You made snide comments about him always being the one who leaves. He’s grown to tolerate that petulance, to take in stride your fears of him failing to come back in one piece.
For the first time ever, Oscar feels what you do. And, God, it doesn’t feel good.
“I just hate that you’re thinking of leaving me.” The words are past his lips before he can reel them in.
It sounds desperate, so unlike him, that he understands the shock that flits across your face. There’s a split-second where he sees a hint of anger, too, like you’re mad at Oscar for being honest, for saying all this after his redeye flights and janky timezones.
He goes on, because what’s the point of backing down now? “Don’t leave,” he presses.
“O…”
You’re the only one who calls him that. O. OJ, when you’re feeling playful—Oscar Jack. He’s teased you time and time again about not falling back on Osc, as if you were desperate to carve out a nickname that belonged to you and you alone.
“God,” he interrupts, eyes turning skyward, as if the stars might hold answers. “We’re really not kids anymore, huh?”
You were kids together. Now, you’re teenagers—young adults. Complicated, messy. Entangled in more than limbs and waves.
“Our childhood was bound to end,” you say, and then you reach out to put a hand on his knee. He considers joking something like Careful, your boyfriend might try to pick a fight and you know I have a mean left hook, but then you might come to your senses and pull your touch away.
He doesn’t say anything more, and neither do you. You just sit there on the roof, side by side, listening to the quiet hum of summer and the distant echoes of who you used to be.
You break up with your boyfriend sometime in early spring, citing incompatibility in a text that Oscar reads while lying flat on the floor of his hotel room in Baku.
He blinks at the message, reads it twice, and then tosses his phone across the bed. The relief that floods through him is disproportionate, almost unsettling. He chalks it up to instinct. Or something like that.
He tells himself it’s just the same feeling he gets when Edie starts seeing some guy from her literature elective, a summer not too long after you joked about eloping. Maybe it’s the older brother in him, wanting to be protective of the women in his life.
That’s what he’s muttering to himself when you catch him scowling at Edie’s date from across the local food park. He was chaperoning once again, though this time Edie had banished him to hang out with you while she was making heart eyes at this lanky transfer student.
“I thought you’d be pleased,” you tease Oscar, popping a chip into your mouth.
Oscar doesn’t look away from where Edie is laughing at something the guy just said. “At the idea of anybody coming to take Edie away? No, thank you.”
You smirk. “You’ll feel better about it when somebody comes to take you away.”
He finally glances at you, one brow raised. “I’d like to see anyone try.”
“So would I!” you shoot back, grinning as you sip your soda. Oscar’s withstanding singleness was something the two of you joked about often, even though he always reasoned that he was busy. Busy with racing, busy with family, busy with you. “That poor soul wouldn’t stand a chance.”
Oscar opens his mouth to reply, but then you pull a cigarette from your coat pocket. It’s a thing you picked up since you got to uni, and Oscar’s frown deepens at the sight of it. At your audacity. Before you can light it, he snatches it from your fingers.
“Oi!” you protest.
He waves it out of your reach. “None of that.”
“Says who?”
“Says me.”
You lunge for it, but he’s already up and jogging backward, the cigarette held aloft in triumph. You chase after him with a string of cusses, half-laughing, half-serious, and Edie and her date pause to watch you and Oscar bolt down the street like kids again—legs flailing, shouts echoing against the sidewalk.
“Are they—?” Edie’s date asks, and the Piastri girl only heaves out a sigh.
Oscar doesn’t stop until he hits the corner, chest heaving from laughter. You skid to a halt beside him, hair wild in the wind, eyes bright. The cigarette’s long gone, tossed in a bin somewhere behind them.
“That was expensive,” you whine.
“More incentive for you to quit it, then,” he responds.
You glare up at him. He rubs a knuckle into your hair, his free hand snaking to your pocket to grab the rest of the pack. You screech profanities as he bins it, but he makes it up to you with a meal of your choosing. It takes a sizable chunk out of the racing salary he sets aside for leisure, but you’re unrepentant and he’s wrapped around your finger.
You’re both older now. But sometimes, it still feels like nothing’s changed at all.
Albert Park is golden in the late afternoon.
The sun spills through the treetops, casting shadows across the path as Oscar kicks absently at a stray pebble, hands buried in his jacket pockets. You’re walking beside him, careful to match his pace even as his strides grow longer with whatever is bubbling up inside him.
A new year. A new contract. A new team, new plan, new person he has to be.
“It’s all happening so fast,” he mutters. “The Renault thing. Tests. Travel. They said it’s everything I ever wanted—and it is, it is—but I can’t stop feeling like I’m coming apart.”
You glance at him, brows furrowed. “Coming apart how?”
Oscar raises one shoulder in a shrug. He doesn’t know how to explain himself, but you’ve always had this philosophy that helped him be more honest around you. Say it first, you’d say. Backtrack later.
“I’m just not good like my sisters,” he blurts out, reaching and settling for a familiar comparison that might make him more comprehensible. “They’re—Hattie’s top of her class, Edie’s already talking uni offers, Mae’s got that whole ‘brightest light in the room’ thing. And me? I’m angry, and I’m restless, and I drive fast cars because I don’t know how to sit still.”
“You don’t have to be, O.”
He lets out a dry laugh. "Why? Are you about to tell me that I’m patient and kind, that I do not envy and I do not boast?"
You stop walking. He does too, when he notices.
You’re just a step or two behind him, the afternoon sun bathing you in a light that practically rivals the warmth you radiate. But there’s something so utterly stricken on your expression, something so undeniably raw that Oscar feels everything click into place.
The look on your face is one his parents sometimes give each other. He’s seen it in movies, seen it in the photos of his mates with long-term relationships. It’s the expression you’ve given him for years, and years, and years, and he feels like the world’s biggest fool for missing all the signs.
“No,” you say softly, denying him of his cruelty, of his failures. You think of him like that—patient, kind, humble.
The makings of a person who deserves—
Oscar begins to shake his head, saying, “No. No.”
“It’s no use, Oscar,” you say, your fingers curling into fists at your sides, and that’s his first sign that this is really about to happen. Not O, not Piastri, not any of the dozen annoying nicknames you’ve assigned him over the years.
“Please, no—”
“We gotta have it out—”
“No, no—”
Your conversation overlaps. It’s a twisted kind of waltz, as if the two of you are out of tune and out of step for the first time in your lives. Oscar starts pacing. Like he might somehow be able to run from what’s about to come.
You barrel on. “I’ve loved you ever since I’ve known you, Oscar,” you breathe, following his panicked steps. “I couldn’t help it, and I’ve tried to show it but you wouldn’t let me, which is fine—”
“It’s not—”
“I’m going to make you hear it now, and you’re going to give me an answer, because I can’t go on like this.”
He flinches, takes a half-step back. Tries to say your name with more of those despairing please, don’ts, which fall on deaf ears.
You step toward him like the whole park is tilting and he’s the only thing keeping you upright. The words pour out too quickly now, too long held back. Years worth of yearning, bearing down on an unassuming Saturday.
“I gave up smoking. I gave up everything you didn’t like,” you say. “And I’m happy I did, it’s fine. And I waited, and I never complained because I—”
You stutter, swaying on your feet like the weight of your next words was too heavy for you to shoulder. You soldier through like a champion; that’s why Oscar listens, hears them out, even though they rip through him as if he’s crashed right into a wall.
“You know, I figured you’d love me, Oscar.”
A damning confession. The kind that should be safe in Oscar’s hands, but his fingers are shaky and his eyes are wide and he thinks he’s going to die, then and there, over how absolutely heartbroken you look that he’s not agreeing with you immediately. That his love was something vouchsafed, a promise for a later time.
“And I realize I’m not half good enough,” you whimper, “and I’m not this great girl—”
“You are.” Helplessness wrenches the words out of Oscar’s chest. It’s the same emotion that has him surging forward, his hands darting out to hold your shoulders and keep you upright, keep you looking at him. “You’re a great deal too good for me, and I’m so grateful to you and I’m so proud of you. I just—”
He falters. You gave him your honesty, so he fights to give you his.
“I don’t see why I can’t love you as you want me to,” he confesses. “I don’t know why.”
Your voice gets impossibly smaller. “You can’t?”
His eyes close, just for a moment, before he answers. “No,” he says slowly, each word measured against your frantic ones. “I can’t change how I feel, and it would be a lie to say I do when I don’t. I’m so sorry. I’m so desperately sorry, but I just can’t help it.”
You step back; his hands fall to his sides. The distance opens like a wound.
“I can’t love anyone else, Oscar,” you say dazedly. “I’ll only love you.”
“It would be a disaster if we dated,” Oscar insists. “We’d be miserable. We both have such quick tempers—”
“If you loved me, Oscar, I would be a perfect saint!”
He shakes his head. “I can’t. I’ve tried it and failed.”
And he has. He’s had sleepovers with you, wondering what it might feel like to wrap his arm around your waist. He had once contemplated holding your hand during a movie. He figured it would be a given; no one would bat an eye. You and Oscar.
Except his heart had never fully gotten the memo, and now he pays the price for only ever being able to love the thrill of a race.
Your voice catches on your next words. “Everyone expects it,” you say in a ditch attempt to change his mind. “Grandpa. Your parents, your sisters. I've never begged you for anything, but—say yes, and let’s be happy together, Oscar.”
“I can't," he repeats, each syllable heavy. “I can’t say yes truly, so I’m not going to say it at all.”
The evening light keeps on glowing. The world doesn’t end. But you feel like it might've anyway, and he’s right there in that boat with you. You’re willing to settle for scraps, while Oscar refuses to give you half-measures. The silence between you stretches taut, pulling thinner and thinner until it threatens to snap.
“You’ll see that I’m right, eventually,” he says. Like he believes it will make the truth hurt less. “And you’ll thank me for it.”
You laugh bitterly. “I'd rather die.”
He looks like you slapped him. “Don’t say that.”
You’re walking, now, your pace quick as you hurtle down the park pathway with the vengeance of a woman scorned. He calls your name and follows, keeping a sizable distance between you should you not want him too close.
“Listen, you'll find some guy who will adore you, and treat you right, and love you like you deserve,” he pleads, skidding in front of you and forcing you to do a full stop. “But— I wouldn’t. Look at me. I’m homely, and I’m awkward, and I’m mean—”
“I love you, Oscar,” you say, as if you’re savoring the first and last times you will get to say the words.
He goes on. He can’t answer that, can’t say anything to those words. “And you’d be ashamed of me—”
“I love you, Oscar.”
“And we would always fight. We can’t help it even now!” He rakes a hand through his hair. “I’ll never give up racing, and you’ll have to hide all your vices, and we would be unhappy. And we’d wish we hadn’t done it, and everything will be terrible.”
He gasps for air. You blink back the sting in your eyes. “Is there anything more?” you ask.
He meets your gaze, and finds nothing there but rightful heartbreak. “No,” he murmurs. “Nothing more.”
You shoulder past him. He tilts his head back and eyes the sky for a moment, praying to be struck down by any higher power that exists. “Except that—” he starts, and you turn around so fast.
You turn, retracing your steps, and the guilt wells up in him like a faucet that had burst. He realizes—you think he’s going to take it back. You think it’s going to be a … but I love you instead of an I love you, but…
“I don’t think I'll ever fall in love,” he manages. “I’m happy as I am, and love my liberty too well to be in any hurry to give it up.”
Your expression crumples. “I think you’re wrong about that,” you sigh.
“No.”
You shake your head, slowly. “I think you will care for somebody, Oscar. You’ll find someone, and you’ll love them, and you’ll live and die for them because that’s your way and your will.”
Oscar’s way. Oscar’s will. Two things he’s believed in wholeheartedly, until they’ve both failed him. Failed you.
You take a step back. The anger you once claimed to always have is somewhere, there, beneath all the hurt and the love. Oscar sees it, now. All of it; all of you.
“And I’ll watch,” you add.
Oscar will love someone— and you’ll watch.
The wind rustles the leaves above. A bird sings somewhere in the distance. But all you hear is the sound of something breaking open, and bleeding between you.
The deep and dying breath of the love you’d been working on.
Oscar doesn’t see you much after that night in Albert Park.
You’re still around, still next door. He hears you laughing with Hattie, helping Mae with a school project, or chatting idly with his mum over the fence. But it’s not the same. Something fundamental had shifted.
He tries. God knows he tries. He greets you when he sees you on the street. Makes light jokes. Keeps it easy, breezy, friendly. But every conversation feels like a performance, a pale imitation of what it used to be.
He’d broken both your hearts. He knows that too well.
Oscar doesn’t tell anyone, not even Hattie, who always had a sixth sense for these things. He lets you control that narrative; he’s sure you’ll tell his sisters, and they’ll all have something to say. Surprisingly, none of them bring it up. He wonders if that’d been your condition with them, and he is grateful, and he is angry, and he is so, so sorry.
He channels everything into racing. He throws himself into his training, enough that it gets him trophies and podiums and a contract with a frontrunning team.
His dream—the one he’d chased his whole life—is here.
And it’s everything he ever wanted. Almost.
A few days before he’s due to fly out for testing with McLaren, he finds himself in the backyard, watering the garden with Mae. She’s picking mint leaves with the same dramatic flair she does everything. He doesn’t notice when she says your name until the silence that follows makes him realize he’s been staring blankly at the hose.
You have a part-time job now, Mae had said. Oscar knows. Not from you. Rarely does he know anything about you from you nowadays. He watches your life in fifteen Instagram stories, in the Facebook posts of your grandfather. He hears about you from his parents and whichever of his sisters is feeling particularly brave that day.
It’s so sudden, his urge to be honest. And so, for the first time since what happened in the park—he lets himself speak his mind.
“Maybe I was too quick in turning her down,” he says, voice low. Contemplative.
Mae looks up from the mint. She looks a bit surprised, like she hadn’t expected to be the one to get Oscar to finally crack after over a year of dancing around the topic.
“Do you love her?” she asks outright.
He fucking hesitates.
His throat feels dry.
“If she asked me again, I think I would say yes,” he says instead, his gaze fixed on the poor tomato plant now drowning in water. “Do you think she’ll ask me again?”
From the corner of his eye, he sees Mae straighten. She brushes her hands against her jeans and stares straight at him, willing him to look at her. “But do you love her?” she repeats, and he knows it’s not a question he’s going to escape.
“I want to be loved,” Oscar admits. The words taste like copper.
Mae doesn't flinch. “That's not the same as loving. If you wanted to be loved, then get a fucking fan club,” she spits.
Her voice is firm, but not cruel. It lands with the weight of care disguised as exasperation. And Oscar feels so much, then, but above all he feels gratitude that his sisters love you like one of their own. Their fierce protectiveness of your welfare—in the face of Oscar’s indecision—knocks some much-needed sense into him.
“You’re right,” he says quietly.
“She deserves more than piecemeal affection, Oscar,” Mae adds, softening. “You can’t go halfsies with someone like her.”
Oscar knows his sister is right.
Something aches in his chest, then. He can’t tell if it’s loneliness or the shape of losing you, still carved somewhere in his chest. Beneath the ache of what he turned away is the terrible fear that he never really understood what he was saying no to.
“I won’t do anything stupid,” he promises Mae.
Later that afternoon, Oscar is pouring himself a glass of water in the kitchen when movement catches his eye through the window. He turns and sees you biking past with Hattie. Your carefree laughter carries across the breeze, light and familiar. Your hair catches the sun.
You glance up and see him. There’s a pause. Beyond the cursory small talk, the two of you haven’t really talked much this break. He understands why you need your space., and so he never presses, never pushes.
Even though he can’t help but think of how a pre-confession you might have reacted. How you would’ve ditched your bike and slammed into the house, demanding he pour you a drink, too. Or how you would’ve goaded him into a race until the two of you were spilling onto the pavement, all breathless laughter and skinned knees.
As it is, all Oscar gets is a polite smile and a half-wave. He doesn’t know if it’s a hello or a goodbye.
He raises his hand, waves back. He watches until you disappear around the corner.
And then he keeps watching, long after you’re gone.
Actually, I hope it never finds you. This is a bit stupid. A lot stupid. But I’ve just had my first proper testing and I wanted to text you about it, except I wasn’t sure how you might feel to hear from me. I reached for my phone, opened our text thread, and then decided to fake an email to you instead.
You’re right. It’s definitely more orange than papaya.
And Lando Norris is not so bad. I think you’d like him. But not like like him. I’m not sure, actually. We could find out. Or not.
Doha's airport smells like cleaning chemicals and tired people. I watched a family fall asleep upright on a bench. The dad had his hand curled around the kid's backpack like he was scared someone would run off with it. I don't know why I'm telling you this.
Maybe because it's 2AM and I'm tired and I can't sleep on planes unless you're next to me. Which is stupid, because you were never on that many flights with me. But the ones you were? I slept like a rock.
I watched the fireworks from the hotel rooftop. I wish I was back in Melbourne, but stuff made it not-possible.
It was cold. Everyone had someone to kiss. I had a glass of champagne and a view.
You came to mind. You always do when things start or end. I'm starting to think that's what you are to me. The start and the end.
Love, O. (Hotel de Paris Monte-Carlo)
Edited to add: It was midnight when I wrote all that stuff. I’m rereading it now, hungover at the breakfast buffet. Guess I can be a bit of a romantic too, huh? Although I think it’s only ever with you.
I dreamed about you again. You were wearing that ridiculous jacket you got on sale for $5, the one you claimed made you look mega. You did not look mega. You looked like someone lost a bet.
You hugged me and told me everything would be okay. Then I woke up and it wasn’t.
I know I don’t get to tell you this anymore, but I miss you.
Sometimes I think about what would have happened if I’d said yes that day in Albert Park.
I don’t know if we would’ve worked. Maybe we would have burned bright and fast and hurt each other in the end. Or maybe we would’ve grown into each other like roots. I don’t know. I just know I still think about it.
And that’s not fair. And I would never tell a soul. I just
wonder.
Sometimes.
Always your O. (Yas Marina Circuit)
The glitch hits sometime between 2 and 3 a.m. local time.
Oscar doesn’t notice at first. He’s still jet-lagged from the flight from Abu Dhabi, half-awake on his phone in bed, replying to a team manager's message. It's not until he opens his inbox to forward a document and sees the string of outbox confirmations—all with your name in the recipient line—that he realizes something is very, very wrong.
His breath catches.
He stares at the screen for a long, stunned moment before scrambling up from bed, heart in his throat. He checks the Sent folder. It’s all there. Every last one. The emails he never meant to send.
They'd been his safekeepings. His way of getting through the ache without adding more weight to yours. Some were barely a few sentences; others pages long. And all of them, every last word, are now sitting in your inbox like little bombs waiting to go off.
He Googles it with trembling fingers. Gmail glitch sends drafts.
He sees the headlines flooding in. Tech sites confirm that a rare global sync error had triggered thousands of unsent drafts to be sent automatically. They call it “an unprecedented failure.” Users are up in arms. Memes are already spreading.
Oscar wants to fucking hurl.
He’s home for the winter holidays. Back in Melbourne, back in his childhood room with the familiar creak in the floorboard by the desk. And you—you’re just next door.
You. With those emails.
He covers his face with both hands, dragging his palms down slowly.
“Holy shit,” he mutters to himself.
There’s no escape to this. Just the silent, inescapable weight of every unsaid thing now said. Every truth, every maybe, every I thought of you today signed off with hotel names and airport codes and times when he was still trying to figure out how to stop missing you.
And now you know. Every word of it. Every selfish, unfair thought that he didn’t deserve to have about you, not after he’d ripped your heart right out of your chest.
He peeks out the window before he can stop himself. Your lights are on.
For some reason, Oscar is reminded of the book you had been so obsessed with as a child. The classic Great Gatsby; the millionaire with his green light at the edge of the dock. Oscar never really cared much for the metaphor of it until now, until he stares at the filtered, warm light streaking through your curtains like it’s something he will forever be in relentless pursuit of.
But then your light flickers off, and Oscar stumbles back down to his bed.
You’re going to sleep, he realizes with a breath of relief. He sinks into the mattress with a thousand curses against modern technology.
Oscar tells himself he’ll talk to you tomorrow. Explain everything. Try to salvage what’s left of the peace you’ve both learned to live in, however shaky and distant it is. He’ll explain that he didn’t send them on purpose. That he’s sorry. That he didn’t mean to—
A soft knock at the window makes him bolt upright.
He hasn’t heard that sound in years. Not since you were kids and the ladder in his backyard was your shared secret.
His breath catches. He doesn’t move right away.
He has to be dreaming, he thinks dazedly, but then he hears it again. Three quick taps. A familiar rhythm.
Oscar throws the covers off and crosses the room in two strides. He pulls the curtain aside.
You’re standing on the top rung of the ladder, and he briefly contemplates making a run for it again.
Instead, he throws the window open. You climb in without a word, landing on the floor of his bedroom with the same ease you always had. You’re in cotton pajamas with a hastily thrown-on hoodie, which—whether you remember or not—had been one of Oscar’s from years and years ago.
“It’s the middle of the night,” he breathes.
“And you’re in love with me,” you say without preamble.
Accusation. Question.
Fact?
Oscar is frozen like a deer caught in headlights. You’re staring up at him, searching, with that same matchstick flame of anger that has carried you through life so far.
When he doesn’t immediately counter you, you go on. “Do you love me because I love you?” you ask, and the question knocks the wind out of Oscar.
“No,” he says quickly. “It’s not like that.”
He— he would never forgive himself, if his affection for you was nothing more than an attempt at reciprocation.
You stare at him through the darkness. “Why, then?” you press, because of course you deserve to know why.
His throat works around the answer. It’s a confession that’s been in the making for more than a year. In some ways, it’s been there since he almost sat on you at that damn house party. The words tumble out of him, overdue but not any less sincere.
“I love you because you’re a terrible dancer,” he says, “and you know how to swim against riptides, and you’re the person I think of when I’ve had a bad free practice and when I'm on the top step of a podium. I love you. It just took me a little while to get here, but I do.”
“O,” you start. He’s not ready to hear it.
He steps back, as if to give you space he should’ve offered long ago. “I don’t expect you to have waited,” he says hastily. “I would never—I would never ask you to reconsider, not when I know the type of person I am and how much time it took for me to get here.”
“Oscar.”
“But I love you. I don't know how not to.”
The room is silent, but it feels like it holds the weight of a thousand words left unsaid. The ones he wrote.
You remind Oscar, gently, of what you said in Albert Park those many years ago. “I can’t love anybody else either,” you say, your eyes never leaving his face even as he begins to panic, starts to retreat.
He swallows hard, his throat moving with the effort. “I should have realized sooner,” he babbles. “I should’ve known. I—”
You reach out, your hand slipping into his. “Don’t. Don’t do that.”
It feels so good—your fingers in between the spaces of his. He wishes he could appreciate it more, but his race-brain has kicked in, and he’s suddenly not the calm, cool, and collected Oscar that everybody in the world think they know.
No, he’s your Oscar. The one who’s a little bit of a wreck. The one who is always racing away from something.
“I wasn’t kind,” he says, voice tight. “I let you go. I thought I was doing the right thing. and maybe I did, but it still hurt you. It ruined everything.”
“We’re here now,” you say simply. “That means something, doesn’t it?”
“What if we ruin what’s left? What if it doesn't work?”
You smile at him, soft and sure. “Then it doesn’t. But I don’t think we’ll fail.”
“I’m still homely, and awkward, and—”
Mean, he meant to say, but then you’re pressing your lips against his.
It silences all his fretting, all his guilt. For a second, he doesn’t move, stunned into stillness, and then he kisses you back like he’s falling into something he’s wanted his whole life but never believed he could have. Like he can’t breathe unless he's doing this, unless he’s kissing you.
When he’s more sane, when he’s less panicked, this is something the two of you will talk about. He knows that.
In this very moment, though, he can only watch his sharp edges dull; the fury of his rage, extinguish. The softness of your understanding, the kindness of your patience, the gentleness of your kiss. It’s all he wanted, all he needs.
His hands frame your face, hesitant, reverent, like he can't believe you’re really here with him. That you waited. That you still want him.
In his head, he makes a promise: If he must hit the ground running, he will make sure it’s towards you.
When the two of you pull back for air, you murmur teasingly against his lips, “Your emails found me well.”
He giggles, a short, incredulous sound, before kissing the laughter right out of your mouth. ⛐
A quiet garden in England. A boy with soil on his hands. A distance measured not in miles, but in miles per hour.
When an unexpected move brings her to No. 14, the gray gloom of a new beginning is broken only by the boy next door. Oscar is a creature of stillness and white roses—yet his life is dictated by terrifying velocity, destined for the high-stakes world of international racing. Across a low stone wall, a quiet, profound intimacy blooms in the twilight, tethering two lives together before the world demands his departure.
May 12
The carriage of modern iron and rubber ground to a halt before the wrought-iron gates of No. 14, its engine dying with a heavy, shuddering sigh that seemed to mirror my own.
Here it was. A new beginning, they called it. A fresh canvas upon which to paint the chapters of a life abruptly uprooted. Yet, as I stepped onto the cobblestones of the driveway, the air felt thick with unfamiliarity, smelling of damp earth and English rain rather than the sweet, sun-warmed dust of the home I had left behind. The house itself loomed with a quiet, imposing dignity—brickwork woven with ivy that clung to the walls like desperate memories.
I felt small. Intolerably small.
"It has potential," my mother remarked, her voice a brittle chime against the gray afternoon. She did not look at me, her eyes already calculating the placement of velvet settees and porcelain vases, trying to force our old life into this new mold.
I offered no reply. Instead, my gaze drifted past the low stone wall that separated our domain from No. 16. The neighboring estate was mirrored in its architecture, yet it possessed an aura entirely distinct. Where our gardens lay dormant and wild, theirs flourished. Rows of white roses, crisp and sharp against the gloom, nodded their heads in the gentle breeze.
And there, amidst the emerald green, stood a figure.
He was kneeling on a canvas tarp, a trowel in hand, dark soil staining the edges of his pale linen shirt. He could not have been older than I, his frame lean but grounded, possessed of a quiet stillness that felt entirely at odds with the frantic rushing of the moving men around me. Hearing the commotion, he paused. He lifted his head, brushing a stray curl of soft brown hair from his forehead with the back of a gloved hand.
Our eyes met across the divide of stone and ivy.
There was no sudden lightning bolt, no dramatic crescendo of strings like the novels promise. Instead, it was a slow, steady pull—a sudden centering of the universe. His eyes were a striking, clear hazel, carrying the calm depth of a hidden lake. For a long, suspended breath, neither of us moved. The world became a silent tableau: the boy, the roses, the girl lost in her own displacement.
Then, a small, tentative smile touched the corner of his lips. It was not a grand gesture, merely a gentle acknowledgement of a shared space in time. He offered a polite, singular nod before returning to the earth, leaving me standing on the gravel, my heart striking a strange, unaccustomed rhythm against my ribs.
I closed my eyes, inhaling the scent of distant rain and nearby roses.
Dear Diary, I write tonight by the flickering light of a single candle, the room around me still choked with cardboard boxes and sheeted furniture. I fear I am a ghost haunting a house that does not yet know my name. Everything here is cold, save for the memory of a boy with soil on his hands and the quietest eyes I have ever beheld. I do not know what this place will demand of me, but for a fleeting moment this afternoon, the unfamiliarity did not feel entirely unkind.
June 2
The summer is a slow, unfolding silk ribbon, dyeing the evenings in shades of violet and bruised gold.
We have established a rhythm, he and I, though we have spoken precious few words. It is a choreography of glances across the garden wall. I learn his habits as a scholar studies ancient text. I know that he rises early, long before the sun has fully burned the mist from the lawn, to jog down the quiet lane. I know that he returns with his hair damp and skin flushed, carrying himself with a disciplined, athletic grace that feels both magnificent and intimidating.
I learn his name not from his own lips, but from his mother’s voice, which carries across the lawn like a silver bell. Oscar.
The name feels smooth, weighted with a noble simplicity. Oscar. I try it out in the silence of my chamber, letting the syllables roll over my tongue until they feel less like a stranger's name and more like a secret prayer.
It is on a Tuesday, when the heat of the day refuses to break, that our silent world fractures into something real. I am sitting on the stone bench near the roses, a volume of poetry heavy and unread in my lap, when a stray tennis ball thuds against the base of the wall, rolling to a stop near my slippers.
A moment later, his face appears over the stone barrier, his hands gripping the top of the wall. He looks slightly breathless, a wry smile playing upon his lips.
"I do not suppose," Oscar says, his voice a rich, steady baritone that sends a sudden thrill through my chest, "that my rogue ball has caused any structural damage to your reading?"
My breath hitches, the suddenness of his voice breaking the air like glass. I look from the ball to his face, my heart hammering a frantic waltz. "None at all," I manage, my voice sounding softer than I intended, a breathless note in the quiet garden. "Though I believe it was attempting a grand escape."
I stoop to pick it up, the yellow fuzz warm from the sun. As I step toward the wall, the distance between us shrinks to mere inches. Up close, I can see the golden flecks in his hazel eyes, the neat line of his jaw, the faint, endearing smudge of charcoal or grease near his temple. He smells of clean soap and sun-baked grass.
"Thank heavens," he says, taking the ball as I hand it over. Our fingers brush—a brief, electric contact that feels like a spark catching dry tinder. He lingers for a fraction of a second, his eyes searching mine with a profound, quiet curiosity. "I am Oscar, by the way. I realized I have been staring at you for three weeks without proper introduction. My manners are shocking."
A laugh escapes me, light and unbidden. "I am the new occupant of No. 14. And your manners are quite forgiven, Oscar. You have the prettiest garden on the lane; it is difficult not to stare back."
His smile widens, a genuine, luminous thing that transforms his usually serious face. "The credit belongs entirely to my mother and a great deal of stubborn fertilizer. But thank you." He shifts his weight, looking at the book in my lap. "Is it any good?"
"It is... tedious," I confess, feeling a sudden, bold honesty in his presence. "The poet spends three pages lamenting a lady who does not know he exists. It feels a bit exhausting."
Oscar lets out a soft laugh, a sound like low music. "Perhaps he should have tried throwing a tennis ball at her feet instead. It seems a far more efficient method of introduction."
My cheeks burn with a sudden, delicious warmth. "An effective tactic, indeed."
"Oscar!" A voice calls from his house—urgent, commanding, speaking of schedules and time-slots.
His expression falters slightly, a shadow of responsibility crossing his brow. He looks back at me, his gaze lingering with a palpable reluctance. "Duty calls. I am text-book bound for the afternoon. But... I am glad the ball went astray today."
"As am I, Oscar."
He drops back down, the wall once again separating us, but the air remains charged with his presence.
Dear Diary, I write, my hand trembling slightly as the pen scratches against the parchment. The boy next door has a voice like a cello and eyes that see through my armor. We spoke. Truly spoke. The wall between our gardens feels lower tonight, as if the stones themselves have softened. I find myself watching the clock, measuring the hours not by the sun, but by the likelihood of his return. Is it possible for a heart to choose its anchor so swiftly?
July 14
The heat of mid-summer has rendered the afternoons unbearable, driving us into the cool shadows of twilight. The evenings have become our sanctuary.
Our casual introductions have deepened into a quiet intimacy, a secret world constructed in the twilight hours by the rose bushes. We sit on the low stone wall now, our knees occasionally brushing, talking about everything and nothing at all. I have learned that Oscar lives a life dictated by precision. He speaks of speed, of telemetry, of racing lines and aerodynamics. He is a driver, a young man navigating a world of terrifying velocities, where milliseconds dictate the boundary between triumph and ruin.
It fascinates me. He is so calm, so utterly tranquil in his demeanor, yet his passion burns with the intense, blue heat of a star.
"It is about control," he says one evening, his eyes fixed on the horizon where the sun is dipping below the trees, bleeding crimson into the sky. He is turning a small silver coin through his knuckles—a nervous habit I have come to find deeply endearing. "When you are traveling at that speed, the world blurs. Everything becomes instinct. You cannot afford to doubt. You have to trust that your hands and your heart know exactly where to go."
I watch the profile of his face, the sharp line of his nose, the way the fading light catches the edge of his jaw. My heart aches with a sudden, fierce tenderness. "Does it not terrify you?" I whisper. "The fragility of it all? A single miscalculation..."
Oscar turns his head, his hazel eyes locking onto mine. The distance between us feels dangerously small. The evening air is still, heavy with the scent of jasmine. "Sometimes," he admits, his voice dropping to a soft, intimate register. "But fear is just data, really. You process it, and then you move past it. If you let it sit in the car with you, you’ve already lost."
He looks down at my hands, which are resting on the stone between us. Slowly, with a deliberate, breathtaking reverence, he reaches out. His fingers, long and calloused from the steering wheel, slide over mine. He does not squeeze, merely rests his palm against mine, a silent offer.
My heart stops, then resumes with a frantic, stuttering beat. Every nerve ending in my body screams with the awareness of his touch. It is like being close to a fire—warm, consuming, terrifyingly beautiful.
"And here?" I ask, my voice barely a breath, my eyes trapped by his. "In the garden? Is there data to process here?"
Oscar’s gaze drops to my lips for a fleeting, agonizing second before rising back to my eyes. A soft, breathless smile touches his mouth. "No," he murmurs, his thumb gently sweeping across the back of my hand, a gesture so tender it brings tears to the back of my eyes. "Here, there is no telemetry. There is just... peace. You are the only part of my day where I don't have to think about the clock."
The words are a sweet poetry, slicing through my defenses. I turn my hand over, interlocking my fingers with his, feeling the perfect fit of his palm against mine. We sit in the gathering dark, our hands bound together, watching the fireflies rise from the grass like fallen stars.
Dear Diary, the ink flows fast tonight, mirroring the rushing of my blood. I am undone. I am falling, not with a crash, but like a autumn leaf drifting through the air, completely at the mercy of the wind. Oscar’s hand is a sanctuary. When he holds me, the chaotic world outside this garden fades into a dull murmur. I love him. I have not said the words aloud—I dare not whisper them to the air—but they are written on every beat of my heart. He is my quiet harbor in a storm.
August 22
There is a shift in the wind today. The leaves of the oak trees are still green, but it is a tired green, a color that knows its time is drawing to a close.
For the past weeks, we have lived in an enchanted glade. We have shared laughter, late-night walks down the lane where our shadows stretched long and tangled under the moonlight, and quiet conversations about our deepest fears. I have watched him prepare for races, seen the exhaustion in his eyes, and offered him my quiet presence as an antidote to the pressure that threatens to crush him.
But today, there is a tightness in his shoulders that I have not seen before.
We are walking through the meadow behind our houses, the goldenrod brushing against my skirts. Oscar is unusually silent, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, his gaze fixed firmly on the crushed grass beneath his boots.
"Oscar," I say softly, reaching out to catch the sleeve of his shirt, pulling him to a halt. The afternoon sun is blinding, casting a harsh light over his features. "You are miles away. Tell me where you are."
He stops, but he does not look at me immediately. He draws a deep, ragged breath, his chest rising and falling with a heavy weight. When he finally turns his eyes to mine, my heart seizes. The calm, tranquil lake in his eyes is gone, replaced by a turbulent, shadowed sea.
"I received the news this morning," he says, his voice devoid of its usual warmth, sounding flat, clinical—a shield against emotion. "The contract is finalized. The academy, the team... they are moving me up. It’s the seat I’ve been fighting for my entire life."
A surge of joy pricks my chest, a sudden smile forming on my lips. "Oscar! That is magnificent! Why do you look as though you’ve been condemned? You’ve won!"
But his expression does not soften. He steps closer, taking both of my hands in his. His grip is tight, almost painful, as if he is trying to anchor himself to the earth. "You don't understand," he whispers, his voice cracking slightly, breaking the armor of his composure. "The team is relocating its main operations. I have to base myself near the factory, near the heart of the sport."
A cold dread, sharp and sudden as a winter frost, begins to seep into my veins. "Where?" I ask, though my heart already knows the answer, shrinking away from the truth.
"Monaco," he says, the word sounding like a death knell in the quiet meadow. "I leave at the end of next month. It’s a permanent relocation."
The world tilts. The goldenrod, the blue sky, the singing birds—all of it blurs into a meaningless smear of color. The air leaves my lungs in a sharp gasp. Monaco. A kingdom of stone and yachts and glittering, superficial wealth, thousands of miles across the sea. A place where my quiet garden cannot reach.
"No," I whisper, the word slipping out before I can stop it. "No, Oscar..."
"I have to go," he says, and for the first time, I see tears welling in his hazel eyes, threatening to spill over his thick lashes. He reaches up, his trembling hands cupping my face, his thumbs wiping away the tears that have already begun to track down my cheeks. "It’s my dream. It’s everything I’ve worked for since I was a child. But God... I look at you, and for the first time in my life, I want the world to stop moving."
"Then make it stop," I cry out, my hands gripping his wrists, pressing his palms closer against my skin. The reserve I so carefully cultivated crumbles into raw, bleeding despair. "Stay. What is a crown of silver if you must wear it in exile? What is the speed of the world compared to what we have here?"
Oscar closes his eyes, a single tear escaping, cutting through the dust on his cheek. He leans forward, forehead resting against mine, his breath warm and trembling against my lips. "I can't," he chokes out. "If I don't go, I will always wonder. It will poison me. It will poison us. But leaving you... it feels like ripping out my own engine while the race is still running."
I open my mouth to plead, to beg, but the words are swallowed by his lips.
It is our first kiss, and it tastes of salt and desperation. It is not the sweet, gentle romance of summer nights; it is a bruising, passionate tragedy. He kisses me as if he is trying to imprint the memory of my mouth onto his soul, his hands tangling in my hair, pulling me flush against his body. I cling to him, my fingers tearing at his shirt, throwing myself into the fire of his embrace, wanting to be consumed, wanting to burn so brightly that the ashes would remain in this meadow forever.
When he pulls away, we are both gasping, our lips swollen, our eyes red and ruined.
"Don't forget me," he whispers against my skin, his lips brushing my jaw, my neck. "Please. Write to me. Keep my garden."
I cannot speak. The grief is a physical weight, a stone sitting upon my chest, crushing the life from my lungs.
Dear Diary, the pages are stained with water tonight, the ink bleeding into illegible gray smears. The summer is dead. It matters not what the calendar says; the sun has gone out. He is leaving. He is flying toward his destiny on wings of fire, and I am left behind, rooted in the cold earth like the roses he planted. How do you survive the departure of your own heart? How do you breathe when the air is leaving for Monaco?
September 28
The day has arrived, arriving with the brutal, unfeeling punctuality of a Swiss watch.
The morning is crisp, a biting wind chasing dead leaves down the gravel path. Outside No. 16, a sleek, black car stands waiting, its trunk swallowing the last of Oscar’s luggage. There are no moving vans, no chaotic boxes; his life has been streamlined, packed into leather cases, efficient and cold.
I stand by the low stone wall, my hands buried deep in the pockets of my woolen coat to hide their violent trembling. The white roses have withered, their petals turned brown and papery, falling away to reveal the sharp, bare thorns beneath.
The front door of his house opens, and Oscar steps out. He is dressed for travel—a dark coat, sharp trousers. He looks older. The boy next door has vanished, replaced by the man the world expects him to be. Yet, as his eyes scan the garden and lock onto me, the rigid posture melts away, leaving only the vulnerable boy who threw a tennis ball at my feet.
He walks toward me, his steps slow, deliberate, as if each stride requires a monumental effort of will. He stops on his side of the wall. We do not touch. The space between us feels wide as an ocean now, an invisible barrier that we can no longer cross.
"It’s time," he says, his voice low and raspy. He has dark circles under his eyes, testifying to sleepless nights that mirrored my own.
"I know," I reply, proud that my voice does not break, though my heart is shattering into a thousand jagged pieces inside my chest. "The world is waiting for you, Oscar. Go and take it."
He looks at me, his hazel eyes swimming with an unspoken, agonizing prose. "I left something for you," he says softly. "In the hollow of the old oak tree. Promise me you’ll look."
"I promise."
He shifts, his hand rising as if to touch my cheek, but he stops himself, his fingers curling into a fist in the cold air. He drops his hand back to his side. "Goodbye," he whispers. "My beautiful neighbor."
"Goodbye, Oscar."
He turns. He does not look back. He walks to the car, steps inside, and the door closes with a muted, final thud. The engine starts with a low, powerful growl—the sound of his future—and the car moves away, gliding down the lane until it disappears around the bend, leaving nothing but a faint scent of exhaust and a profound, terrifying silence.
I stand there for a long time, until my limbs are numb with the cold.
Eventually, I remember his promise. I walk with leaden steps to the old oak tree at the edge of the meadow. In the small, sheltered hollow of its trunk, where we used to hide from the sudden summer showers, sits a small package wrapped in brown paper.
With trembling fingers, I tear it open.
Inside is the small silver coin he used to roll through his knuckles during our long talks—worn smooth by his touch. Beneath it lies a single sheet of paper, his neat, precise handwriting filling the page.
To the girl who made the world stop,
They tell me that in Monaco, the streets are lined with gold and the sea is a blue that defies description. But they do not know that my favorite view will always be a messy garden, a tedious book of poetry, and a girl whose smile was brighter than any podium I will ever stand on.
I take your heart with me into the car. I will keep it safe at three hundred kilometers an hour. If I win, it is for you. If I lose, it is because I am looking for you in the crowds.
Yours, always,
Oscar
A sob escapes me then—a raw, uncontained sound that rips from my throat and tears into the empty afternoon. I press the paper to my lips, inhaling the last, faint trace of his scent, the silver coin pressed tightly into the palm of my hand until it draws blood.
October 15
Dear Diary,
The house next door is dark tonight. The windows are shuttered, the iron gates locked, the gardens left to the mercy of the coming winter. The people who bought it speak of remodeling, of tearing down the low stone wall to create a larger, unified estate.
Let them tear it down. The wall has served its purpose; the boy it kept, and the boy it surrendered, is gone.
I watched the television tonight in the drawing-room. My mother drank her tea, completely unaware of the execution taking place on the screen. There he was. Oscar. He was wearing a bright, pristine racing suit, surrounded by a sea of flashing cameras and shouting journalists under the brilliant, blinding sun of a foreign track. He looked magnificent. He looked victorious. He looked completely out of reach.
The interviewer asked him if he missed home, if there was anything he regretted leaving behind in his meteoric rise to glory.
Oscar paused. He looked directly into the camera—directly through the screen, into the quiet, shadowed room where I sat alone. He reached up, his fingers brushing a small, unseen shape beneath his collar, his lips parting in that familiar, quiet smile I knew so well.
"There is a garden in England," he said softly, his voice steady despite the chaos around him. "Where the roses are wild, and the poetry is tedious. I think a part of me will always be sitting on a stone wall there, waiting for a tennis ball to roll astray."
My tears fell in silence, hot and bitter against my skin. He has won the world, and I have lost my neighbor. We are separated by oceans, by fame, by the terrifying speed of his destiny. I will live my life in the quiet prose of this English village, and he will live his in the poetry of motion.
But every twilight, when the wind blows from the east and carries the scent of damp earth and dying leaves, I will walk to the edge of the lawn. I will look at the empty house, I will hold his silver coin to my chest, and I will love him in the quiet, unchanging stillness of the garden we once shared.
The end of summer has come, my diary. And the boy next door has flown away.
November 12, 2026
Dear Diary,
The first year of his absence has passed, not in a grand torrent of grief, but in the slow, agonizing drip of ticking clocks.
Yet, the silence I so feared never truly arrived. Instead, it was replaced by the arrival of the postman every Tuesday morning. Oscar’s letters are like him: neat, precise, penned on heavy cream paper that smells faintly of high-octane fuel and Mediterranean salt. He writes to me from the shifting coordinates of his nomadic life—from Melbourne, from Suzuka, from Austin—but the return address remains firmly rooted in Monaco, a white-stone apartment overlooking a sea he claims is too blue to be real.
In his letters, he does not speak like the champion the newspapers paint him to be. To the world, he is the a stoic, unflappable force of nature. To me, he remains the boy with soil on his linen shirt.
...The noise here is deafening, he wrote in his last letter from Monza. It is a wall of sound that hits you the moment you step into the pit lane. But when I close my visor, I practice a routine. I breathe in, and I imagine the damp chill of the English rain. I imagine the smell of the white roses by our wall. It lowers my heart rate by five beats per minute, according to my trainer. He thinks it is a physiological marvel. I told him it is simply proper maintenance.
I read his words by the window, the autumn frost tracing delicate silver patterns on the glass. I reply with long, rambling accounts of the village—how the oak tree is faring, how the new neighbors at No. 16 have indeed torn down the stone wall, a sight that made me weep into my tea. I told him that they replaced it with a modern wooden fence, but that my heart still recognizes the boundary where his territory used to end and mine began.
We are spinning a thread across the continent, thin as gossamer but stronger than steel. I am tethered to a shooting star, and though my feet remain on the damp English earth, my soul is constantly flying toward the sun.
May 4, 2027
Dear Diary,
A milestone. Today, a small, heavy parcel arrived alongside his usual letter.
Inside was a velvet case, and within that case lay a medal—a small, gleaming token from his first podium finish in Monaco. To hold it is to hold a piece of his dream, cold and heavy in my palm.
His accompanying letter was shorter than usual, written in a hurried, trembling script that spoke of immense physical exhaustion, yet the poetry of his heart remained unblemished.
They threw champagne today, the ink read, slightly smudged at the margins. It stings the eyes and tastes of nothing but corporate victory. When I stood on that podium, looking out over the harbor, the Prince smiled at me and said I had a bright future. But my eyes were searching the marina, looking past the yachts and the glittering crowds, trying to find a low stone wall. I keep the medal because the team commands it, but I send it to you because it belongs to the garden. It was your stillness that kept me steady on the final lap when the rear tyres were giving out. Wear it, or hide it in the oak tree. Just keep it.
I pressed the medal to my cheek, the metal absorbing the warmth of my skin.
I fear for him. I see the toll the world is taking in the photographs published in the glossies—the sharpening of his jawline, the faint, permanent crease between his brows, the way his hazel eyes seem to be constantly looking for an exit when the cameras crowd too close. He is being consumed by the very monster he fought so hard to ride.
But then I receive his letters, and I find my Oscar again, safely tucked between the lines.
“I am learning to speak French,” he postscripted in July. “It is a language built for romance, they say. Yet, I find it clumsy. It has too many words for ‘love,’ and none of them quite capture the exact shade of the twilight when the tennis ball rolled to your feet. I shall stick to English when I write to you. It is a more honest tongue.”
How am I to live a ordinary life when a man speaks to me thus from across the sea? I refuse the courtships of the local gentlemen; their conversations of crop yields and village gossip feel like ashes in my mouth compared to the lightning Oscar sends through the post. I am a keeper of a sacred flame, waiting in the shadows for the runner to return.
September 18, 2027
The sky today is a bruised, heavy purple, hanging low over the rooftops like an impending sorrow.
It has been five weeks since his last letter.
Initially, I did not permit the dark crows of anxiety to nest in my mind. The European season was drawing to a frantic close; he was locked in a bitter, three-way battle for the World Championship. I watched him on the screen—a blur of papaya and silver, cutting through the asphalt of Spa and Zandvoort with a ruthless, terrifying precision. He looked invincible. He looked like a god of speed.
But the postman has passed No. 14 three Tuesdays in a row without stopping.
Each time the garden gate clicks open and shut without the familiar, heavy envelope sliding through the brass slot, my chest tightens, a cold band of steel constricting my ribs. I have written three letters—clutching at any scrap of news, keeping my tone light, poetic, full of the trivialities of the garden—but they have vanished into the ether, answered only by the howling of the autumn wind through the bare branches of the oak tree.
"You are pale, dearest," my mother noted at dinner, her fork hovering over her roast. "You look as though you are waiting for a ghost."
"I am merely tired, Mother," I lied, my voice sounding hollow even to my own ears.
I am not tired. I am terrified.
Has the car claimed him? No—I watch the broadcasts with a religious, suffocating dread; he has not crashed. His health is intact. Has the world finally swallowed him whole? Has some glittering, diamond-encrusted lady of the Monaco high-society caught his eye, rendering the memory of a quiet English neighbor dull and tedious by comparison?
Dear Diary, I write tonight with a hand that refuses to stay steady. The silence is a physical presence in this room. It sits in the chair by my bed, mocking me. Oscar, where are you? Have you forgotten the telemetry of our hearts? I am standing by the fence, the silver coin pressed so hard against my palm that the impression remains for hours. Please. Just one line. Just your name.
October 30, 2027
The letters have officially stopped.
Two months. Sixty-one days of walking to the gate, of watching the road, of hoping against hope until the hope itself becomes a sickness that rots my spirit from the inside out.
Today, I did something desperate. I purchased a ticket to London, walked into a grand hotel where the racing elite were rumored to gather for a gala, and sought out a face I recognized from the television—a young driver, Alex, who had often been seen laughing with Oscar in the paddock.
I caught him in the lobby, away from the flashbulbs. I must have looked a madwoman, my hair damp from the London rain, my eyes wild with a quiet, aristocratic despair.
"Mr. Albon," I said, my voice trembling but clear, blocking his path.
He paused, his kind face clouding with a mixture of confusion and pity. "Yes? Can I help you?"
"I am... a friend of Oscar’s. A neighbor from England," I managed to say, the word neighbor feeling like a cruel joke on my tongue. "I have not heard from him. He has... he has stopped writing. I only wish to know if he is well. If he is safe."
Alex’s expression shifted instantly. The polite, public smile vanished, replaced by a heavy, guarded solemnity. He looked down, shifting his weight, avoiding my eyes in a way that made the blood run instantly cold in my veins.
"Oscar is safe," Alex said softly, his voice carrying the weight of a terrible discretion. "He's fine physically. He's... he's just fully committed now. The team has restructured his management, his lifestyle, everything. He lives in a different world now, miss. Monaco changes people. It has to, if you want to win."
"But his letters—"
"He doesn't have time for letters anymore," Alex interrupted gently, though the kindness in his voice felt like a knife slipping between my ribs. "The Oscar you knew in the garden... he had to leave him behind to become the man in the car. I'm sorry. He’s focused on the championship. He can't look back."
I do not remember the train ride home.
The world passed by the carriage window in a gray, meaningless smear of rain and dead trees. I sat rigid, my hands folded neatly in my lap, a perfect picture of English composure, while inside, my soul was being torn to ribbons.
He had to leave him behind.
November 12, 2027
It is a beautiful evening. Cruelly beautiful. The sky is a brilliant, clear violet, exactly like the evenings we used to share when the summer was young and the world was full of promises.
I am sitting on the wooden fence that replaced our stone wall. In my lap lies the velvet case containing his podium medal, the silver coin, and the stack of his letters—one hundred and four packages of hope, tied together with a black silk ribbon.
I know now the truth of his silence. It is not that he is dead; it is worse. He is alive, but the boy who loved me has been executed by the demands of his own destiny. He has chosen the speed of the world over the stillness of my garden. He has looked at the telemetry of his life and decided that a girl in an ivy-covered house is a variable he can no longer afford to carry in the cockpit.
I do not hate him. That is the ultimate tragedy. I cannot find it in myself to burn with anger, for I remember the tears in his hazel eyes when he kissed me in the goldenrod meadow. I know that he loved me once, with a purity that defied the velocity of his life.
But Monaco has won. The yachts, the silver crowns, the terrifying, intoxicating roar of the engines—they have washed away the scent of the white roses.
Slowly, deliberately, I untie the black ribbon. One by one, I take the letters. I do not burn them; I cannot bear to destroy the only proof that I was once loved by a boy who made the world stop. Instead, I walk to the old oak tree. I place the stack deep within its hollow, alongside the medal and the silver coin, burying them in the dark, silent heart of the wood.
Let the tree keep them. Let the earth hold the memory of Oscar Piastri, because I can no longer carry the weight of his ghost.
I return to the fence, looking over at No. 16. The lights are on, but they are a different hue now—bright, modern, devoid of the soft candle-glow of his presence. The winter is coming, cold and unfeeling, and this time, there will be no letters to warm my hands.
Dear Diary, I write the final lines, my vision clear, my tears finally dry, replaced by a profound, hollow numbness. The race is over. The car has vanished around the final bend, and the grandstands are empty. I am no longer waiting for the postman. I am no longer looking at the clock.
The boy next door has achieved his destiny. He has become a king in a kingdom of stone and sea.
And I am just a girl, standing in a withered garden, learning how to breathe in the silence he left behind.
December 14, 2027
Dear Diary,
The trunk of the carriage has closed once more, its heavy thud echoing like the closing of a coffin lid.
Fate, it seems, possesses a cruel taste for symmetry. It was a mere month ago, while the ground was still hardened by the first claws of winter frost, that Mother broke the news. Her new endeavors with the textile houses required her presence in the north—a sprawling, industrious city far from the quiet lanes of this village.
She had looked at me then, her eyes softening with a rare, maternal pity that pricked my pride far more than her usual coldness. "You may stay, if you wish," she had offered, her hand resting tentatively on my shoulder. "The lease is paid through the spring. You have built a life here. Or... what remains of one."
I looked out the window at No. 16. I looked at the modern wooden fence that stood where our beautiful, ruined stone wall once lived. I thought of the Tuesdays that came and went, silent and empty, the postman passing by our gate without a glance. To stay would be to become a monument to a ghost. It would be to drown in a harbor that Oscar had long since sailed away from.
"I will come with you, Mother," I told her, my voice as steady as a vow. "There is nothing left for me in this garden."
Before the carriage arrived today, I walked a final time to the ancient oak tree. The air was so cold my breath bloomed in white, frayed clouds before me. I reached my hand into the dark, hollow heart of the wood, my fingers brushing against the velvet case of his medal, the smooth ridge of the silver coin, and the crisp edges of the one hundred and four letters tied in their black silk ribbon.
For a terrible, breathless second, I tempted the urge to pull them out. To pack them away in my trunks, to carry his ghost to the north like a heavy, weeping relic.
But I stopped. To carry them would mean I was still waiting. It would mean I was still holding a space for a man who had chosen to become a myth.
"Keep them safe," I whispered to the ancient bark, my tears freezing upon my cheeks. "Let the earth remember what he forgot."
I left them buried in the dark. I turned my back on No. 14, stepped into the carriage, and let the wheels carry me away into a world where Oscar Piastri does not exist.
January 20, 2028
The following is an excerpt from the Grand Prix Annual Review, found in a discarded newspaper in a northern library:
...A BITTERSWEET TRIUMPH FOR THE ROOKIE PRODIGY
The curtain falls on one of the most spectacular debut seasons in modern racing history. While the veteran drivers fought tooth and nail, it was the young Australian, Oscar Piastri, who captured the hearts of the global sporting community. Navigating the treacherous final rounds with a stoic, unflappable brilliance, Piastri secured P2 in the World Drivers' Championship.
Though the ultimate crown eluded him by a mere handful of points in the dying laps of Abu Dhabi, for a rookie, it is a triumph of historic proportions. Analysts predict a dynasty. Yet, as the fireworks erupted over the Yas Marina circuit, the young driver appeared strangely detached, his hazel eyes fixed on a horizon far beyond the podium lights...
February 2, 2028
The village lane was choked with the gray, heavy slush of mid-winter.
A sleek, dark car—splattered with the mud of a long journey from London—ground to a halt outside the iron gates of No. 16. The engine died, not with the roaring fury of a machine built for the track, but with a quiet, exhausted sigh.
The door opened, and Oscar stepped out into the freezing English air.
He was thinner than he had been when he left. The soft, boyish roundness of his cheeks had been completely carved away by the brutal g-forces of his trade and the relentless pressure of the public eye. His dark coat was expensive, tailored to perfection, the collar turned up against the biting wind. He looked every bit the prince of Monaco, a conquering hero returning to the quiet soil that had birthed him.
But his eyes were frantic. The calm, tranquil lake was completely gone, replaced by a desperate, burning hunger as he looked across the divide at No. 14.
He did not even walk to his own front door. He strode directly toward the gate of my old house, his boots crunching violently against the gravel. He reached out to press the bell, his hand trembling within his leather glove.
The door opened, but it was not my mother who stood there. It was a stout, elderly gentleman with a pipe clenched between his teeth, looking at the young celebrity with a mixture of confusion and mild annoyance.
"Can I help you, young man?" the gentleman asked, a cloud of tobacco smoke drifting into the cold air.
Oscar froze, his hand dropping to his side. The breath caught in his throat, blooming white between them. "I... I am looking for the occupants," he stammered, his usual media-trained eloquence deserting him entirely. "The lady... the girl who lived here. With her mother."
The old man sighed, shaking his head. "Ah. You're a month too late, son. They're gone. Moved up north, I believe. The mother's business took them away. Packed up the whole house in a weekend and left."
The world seemed to tilt beneath Oscar's boots. The ground, the grey sky, the brick walls—everything became unstable, shifting like loose gravel at three hundred kilometers an hour.
"North?" Oscar echoed, the word tasting like ash in his mouth. "Where? Do you have an address? A letter forwarding? Anything?"
"No," the man said, shifting his pipe. "They left no records with the parish. Quiet folk. Kept to themselves, mostly. Now, if you'll excuse me, it’s freezing out here."
The door closed with a firm, definitive click.
Oscar stood on the porch, the silence of the village settling over him like a heavy, suffocating shroud. He walked slowly back to the wooden fence, his hands gripping the top of the rail until his knuckles turned white through the leather. He looked at the garden. It was barren, choked with weeds and the skeletal remains of the white roses he had once tended with such care.
"Why didn't you wait?" he whispered into the empty air, his voice cracking, a raw, bleeding sound that no journalist had ever heard. "I tried to write... God, I tried to write to you."
He reached into his breast pocket, his fingers trembling as he pulled out a thick wad of envelopes. They were all addressed to No. 14. They were stained with the sweat of his palms, crumpled from being held in the quiet, terrifying hours before a race.
“They took my phone, my love,” the unread letters inside pleaded. “The managers, the PR teams—they said any distraction would cost me the championship. They monitored my mail, they intercepted my life. I had to play their game to survive. But I’m coming home. I’m coming back to the wall. Please, just hold on for the winter.”
But the letters had never been sent. His silence had been a prison, and by the time he had broken the locks, the sanctuary had been abandoned.
Oscar dropped his head onto his arms against the fence, a lone sob ripping from his chest. The P2 medal in his luggage, the millions in his bank account, the adoration of a global audience—all of it felt like a mockery, a hollow, glittering crown of thorns. He had conquered the world, but in the telemetry of his ambition, he had miscalculated the only variable that ever truly mattered.
February 3, 2028
Dear Diary,
A new city. The smoke from the factories hangs like a heavy gray veil over the cobblestones, and the air smells of coal and iron rather than roses and rain. It is a harsh place, but it is an honest one. It demands nothing of my heart except that it keep beating.
I walked to the local market today, my woolen shawl wrapped tight against the northern chill. As I passed a shop window, a row of televisions caught my eye, all displaying the same broadcast from a sports channel.
It was an interview with Oscar, filmed just yesterday in London.
He was sitting in a high-backed leather chair, looking polished, professional, and utterly hollow. The interviewer was grinning, leaning forward with an obnoxious enthusiasm.
"A phenomenal P2 finish, Oscar! The world is at your feet. But we have to ask—the cameras caught you visiting a quiet little village yesterday before your media tour. Is there a secret inspiration hidden away in the English countryside? A lady, perhaps, who keeps your heart warm?"
The interviewer laughed, expecting a clever, evasive response from the famously stoic driver.
On the screen, Oscar did not smile. He did not offer the practiced, clinical answer his management had undoubtedly drilled into him. Instead, he looked directly into the lens. His hazel eyes were rimmed with red, swimming with a profound, poetic grief that struck through the glass screen and pierced straight into my soul.
"No," Oscar said, his voice dropping to a raw, breathless whisper that silenced the entire studio. "There is no one there. I went back to a garden... but I was too late. I forgot that when you move at the speed of the world, the things that matter are left behind in the dust. I have my trophies, but... I am entirely alone."
I stood frozen on the crowded northern street, the basket slipping from my fingers, vegetables rolling across the damp stones. The crowds hurried past me, bumping my shoulders, completely unaware of the quiet execution taking place in the shop window.
He had come back.
He had come back to the wall, but I had already buried the letters. We were two ships that had passed in the dark, our signals crossed, our timing ruined by the cruel machinery of fame and fate. He was trapped in his kingdom of silver and speed, and I was exiled in this city of iron and smoke.
I did not weep. The time for tears had passed with the autumn leaves.
I simply turned away from the television, picked up my basket, and walked back into the gray, anonymous crowd. The boy next door had found his way back to the garden, but the girl who loved him had finally learned how to live in the winter.
Our story was written in the soil and the silence, diary. And the earth does not give back what it has claimed.
February 14, 2028
Dear Diary,
The north does not celebrate Valentine’s Day with white roses and whispered poetry. Here, the holiday is marked by the sharp tang of cheap gin from the public houses and the sight of factory workers purchasing small, wilted carnations wrapped in coarse brown paper from the street stalls.
I have taken up employment at a small, quiet bookshop on the corner of Mill Street. It is a comforting place, smelling of aged parchment, leather bindings, and dust—a sanctuary of dead authors who understood the anatomy of a broken heart far better than I ever will. I spend my days sorting through heavy volumes of ledger books and classical prose, finding solace in the rigid order of the shelves.
Yet, even here, the world refuses to let me forget.
"He's a handsome one, isn't he?" the young shop girl, Mary, sighed this morning, leaning heavily over the counter. She was staring at the front page of the Northern Chronicle, which lay open between us.
I did not want to look. I tried to keep my eyes fixed on the copy of Lord Byron I was mending, but the universe possesses a cruel gravity. My gaze drifted.
There, printed in cheap, grainy ink, was a photograph of Oscar. He was caught by a photographer on the platform of our city’s central railway station. He was dressed in a heavy black overcoat, a flat cap pulled low over his eyes, looking entirely out of place against the soot-stained bricks of the northern terminal.
FORMULA 1 STAR SPOTTED IN THE INDUSTRIAL NORTH: PIASTRI’S MYSTERY SABBATICAL CONTINUES
While his peers bask in the sun of Dubai or the slopes of Aspen during the final weeks of the winter break, Oscar Piastri has chosen a different topography. The rookie sensation, who recently captured P2 in the world championship, was spotted in our very own city this Tuesday. When pressed by local reporters regarding his business in the industrial hub, the usually stoic driver offered only a terse response: 'I am looking for someone.'
My breath hitched, a sharp, cold needle stabbing into my lungs.
He was here. In this city of smoke and iron. He was walking the very same cobblestones, breathing the very same heavy air.
"Imagine a man like that looking for you," Mary whispered dreamily, her fingers tracing the edge of the newspaper. "He looks like he hasn't slept in weeks. Like a man possessed."
"Perhaps he is just foolish," I murmured, my voice trembling as I forcefully shut the volume of Byron, the thud of the pages sounding like a gunshot in the quiet shop. "Perhaps he does not know that some things, once lost, are never meant to be found."
I walked into the back room, pressing my forehead against the cold whitewashed wall, my hands gripping my apron. Oscar, my heart cried out into the dark, a desperate, forbidden prayer. Why do you torture us both? Go back to Monaco. Go back to the sun. There is nothing for you here but the frost.
February 28, 2028
He is systematic. That is what I had forgotten about him.
Oscar is not a creature of wild, romantic impulses; he is a man of telemetry, of strategy, of exhaustive execution. If he wishes to find a needle in a haystack, he does not simply kick at the straw—he burns the field, or he sifts through every blade with a terrifying, disciplined patience.
He has a two-month winter break before the circus begins anew in Bahrain, and he is spending every single second of it hunting me down.
I learn of his methods through the gossip of the customers who frequent the bookshop. He has hired private couriers. He has visited every parish registry in the three surrounding boroughs, searching for the name of a business owner from the south—my mother’s textile firm. He has placed vague, poetic advertisements in the local broadsheets, notices that mean nothing to the public but read like a knife to my soul.
To the Neighbor of No. 14, one notice read in the Saturday edition. The wall is gone, but the boundary remains. I have the data now. I have the letters. I am standing in the rain, waiting for the race to restart. Tell me where to park the car.
I stared at the print until the words blurred into black ink stains. He had found the letters. He must have gone back to the old oak tree, reached his gloved hand into the hollow bark, and pulled out the buried relics of our summer. He knew now that I hadn't simply forgotten him—he knew that his silence had broken me.
"Someone is asking for my old firm down at the exchange," my mother remarked over her embroidery that evening, her eyes fixed sharply on her silver needle. She had grown older here too, the grey in her hair more pronounced against the dim gaslight of our rented parlor. "A young gentleman. Very polite. Australian accent. The clerk said he looked fit to drop from exhaustion."
She paused, her needle hovering in the air. She did not look at me, but her voice carried a heavy, uncharacteristic weight. "I told the clerk we do not wish our residential address to be shared with any solicitors or merchants from the south. I assume I did the right thing?"
My heart shattered a little further, the pieces grinding against each other. "Yes, Mother," I whispered, my fingers clenching the fabric of my skirts. "You did the right thing."
If I see him, I will break. If I look into those hazel eyes and see the guilt and the longing that matches my own, I will throw myself into his arms, and we will both be consumed by the terrifying speed of his life. I cannot be a secret hidden away in his motorhome; I cannot be the variable that distracts him from the crown he has sacrificed everything to touch.
I must remain a ghost. For his sake, and for mine.
March 10, 2028
The winter break is dying. In less than a fortnight, he must fly to the desert for pre-season testing. The world is calling its king back to his throne.
The rain had turned to a thick, miserable sleet this afternoon, turning the streets of the north into a treacherous mirror of black ice and gray slush. The bookshop was empty, save for the crackle of the small hearth in the corner and the heavy, rhythmic dripping of the gutters outside.
The bell above the door chimed.
I did not lift my head from the ledger I was indexing. "Welcome," I said automatically, my voice muffled by the high collar of my woolen shawl. "Please let me know if you require assistance with the historical volumes."
"I am not looking for history," a voice replied.
The ledger fell from my hands, striking the wooden floorboards with a dull, echoing crash.
The air in the room instantly vanished, leaving me gasping in a vacuum of sheer, unadulterated terror and beautiful, agonizing shock. I knew that voice. I knew it better than the rhythm of my own pulse. It was the cello in the garden; it was the baritone of my summer nights.
Slowly, as if moving through deep water, I lifted my eyes.
He stood by the threshold, the door shutting slowly behind him, cutting off the howl of the northern wind. He was soaked. The sleet had melted into his dark brown hair, flattening the curls against his forehead, and his expensive coat was heavy and dark with water. He was pale—so pale he looked like a statue of marble—and his jaw was shadowed with several days of untended growth.
But it was his eyes. The hazel lakes were bloodshot, rimmed with a desperate, frantic exhaustion, burning with a ferocious, blinding intensity as they locked onto my face.
"I found you," Oscar whispered, his voice cracking on the syllables, a sound of such profound, trembling relief that it made the stone walls of the shop seem to shake.
I stepped back, my boots hitting the base of the counter. I wanted to run, to flee through the back door into the anonymous smoke of the city, but my limbs were rooted to the earth, just like the roses we had left behind. "Oscar," I breathed, the name slipping from my lips like a sin, a forbidden poetry that I had tried so hard to unlearn.
He strode forward, his boots leaving dark, wet prints on the floorboards. He stopped just three feet from me, respecting the space, his hands hanging loosely at his sides, trembling violently. He smelled of rain, of coal smoke, and that clean, familiar scent of soap that belonged entirely to No. 16.
"You changed your name on the parish lists," he said, his chest rising and falling in sharp, ragged gasps. "Your mother used her maiden name for the textile registry. It took me three weeks to calculate the variance. Three weeks of looking at every face in every market, every window, every street."
"You shouldn't be here," I choked out, the tears finally breaking through my defenses, hot and blinding as they spilled over my lashes. "The season starts in Bahrain. Your team... the world is waiting for you, Oscar. You have a championship to win."
"Let it wait," he cried out, the sudden volume of his voice startling the quiet room. He stepped closer, the distance between us shrinking until I could feel the radiant, desperate heat of his body. "I went into the oak tree. I found them. The letters. The coin. My medal."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the small silver coin, holding it out between us on his trembling palm. It was worn, cold, and wet from the rain.
"You stopped writing," I whispered, my voice breaking into a sob as I looked at the coin. "Alex told me... he told me you had left the boy in the garden behind. That you didn't have time for a neighbor anymore."
"Alex was trying to protect me from the team," Oscar said, his hazel eyes swimming with a desperate, pleading prose. "The management... they intercepted my mail. They told me you had moved away months ago, that you had left no forwarding address because you wanted to forget me. They lied to me. They wanted my head in the telemetry, not in England. And I believed them because I was a coward, because I thought the speed of the car would make the silence bearable."
He dropped the coin onto the counter and reached out, his long, calloused fingers gently catching my wrists. His grip was warm, electric, a sudden, blinding return of the summer sun in the middle of a northern winter.
"But it wasn't bearable," he murmured, stepping so close his breath brushed my damp cheeks. "Every lap, every corner, every podium... it was empty. I didn't lose the championship because of the tyres, my love. I lost it because I was looking for you in the grandstands of Abu Dhabi, thousands of miles from where I had left my heart."
I looked at him, my soul tearing in two. Part of me wanted to surrender, to let the black car carry me away to Monaco, to live in the brilliant, blinding light of his success. But as I looked at his exhausted face, at the dark circles beneath his eyes, at the frantic, unstable rhythm of his breathing, I knew the truth.
The car did not have room for two passengers.
If I joined him, the world would never stop watching. The cameras would invade our garden; the managers would calculate our love as a distraction on a spreadsheet; the terrifying velocity of his destiny would eventually crush the quiet poetry we had built. To love him meant letting him run clean.
"Oscar," I said softly, my voice finding a calm, tragic dignity that felt like the final chord of a funeral hymn. I did not pull my wrists away; instead, I leaned forward, resting my forehead against his wet, woolen chest for one final, suspended heartbeat. "Look at me."
He lifted his head, his hazel eyes wide with a sudden, intuitive dread.
"We are a beautiful summer, Oscar," I told him, my tears wetting the fabric of his coat. "But the winter has come. You are a king in a world of silver and stone. You belong to the speed. And I... I belong to the stillness of these books, to the quiet prose of this city."
"No," he choked out, his hands moving up to cup my face, his thumbs wiping the tears away just as he had done in the goldenrod meadow two years ago. "No, don't do this. Come with me. I'll buy a house anywhere. We can build a wall—"
"You cannot build a wall against the world, Oscar," I said gently, placing my hands over his, slowly, deliberately lowering them from my cheeks. I pressed the silver coin back into his palm, closing his fingers over it one by one. "Go to Bahrain. Win your crown. Wear it for the boy who threw a tennis ball at my feet. But leave the neighbor behind."
"I can't forget you," he whispered, a lone, silent tear escaping his eye, cutting through the grime of his long search. "I've tried. God, I've tried."
"Don't forget me," I replied, a small, sad smile touching my lips—the very same smile I had offered him across the rose bushes at No. 14. "Just win."
For a long, agonizing minute, the only sound in the bookshop was the ticking of the grandfather clock and the heavy dripping of the rain. Oscar stared at me, his hazel eyes searching my face for a variable that would change the equation, a loophole in the telemetry of our tragedy.
But he found none. He knew, with the precise, brutal logic that made him a champion, that I was right.
Slowly, his head dropped. He leaned forward and pressed his lips to my forehead—a gentle, lingering kiss that tasted of salt, rain, and a final, permanent goodbye. It was not the desperate fire of our first kiss; it was the quiet, reverent closure of a book that had reached its final page.
"Goodbye, my beautiful neighbor," he whispered against my skin.
"Goodbye, Oscar."
He turned. He did not look back. He opened the door, the bell chiming its silver note, and stepped out into the grey, swirling sleet of the northern afternoon. The door clicked shut, the lock catching with a definitive, hollow sound.
May 12, 2028
Dear Diary,
The spring has come even to the north, though the flowers here are small and hardy, growing through the cracks in the cobblestones rather than in manicured rows.
I sat in the parlor tonight, the small wireless radio playing a classical waltz in the background. Mother was asleep in her chair, her embroidery resting in her lap.
The music faded, replaced by the excited, frantic voice of the sports commentator broadcasting from the streets of Monte Carlo.
...And it’s a historic day in the Principality! Oscar Piastri crosses the line to take a commanding victory at the Monaco Grand Prix! The young Australian has done it, mastering the streets of his new home with a flawless, ice-cold performance that cements his lead in the world championship! Look at him dance on the nose of that car—he looks like a man who has conquered the world!
I smiled in the quiet darkness of the room, a single, peaceful tear tracking down my cheek.
I walked to the window, looking up at the gray northern sky where a single star managed to pierce through the factory smoke. I reached into my collar, my fingers finding the thin silver chain I wore beneath my dress, holding the small podium medal he had sent me a year ago.
He had won his kingdom. He was running clean, flying through the streets of gold and blue at three hundred kilometers an hour, his name written in the stars.
And I was here, in the quiet prose of my library, keeping his memory safe in the dark, silent earth of my heart. We had lost each other in the telemetry of the world, diary. But every now and then, when the wind blows from the south and smells of distant rain, I know that a part of the world’s greatest driver is still sitting on a low stone wall, watching a yellow tennis ball roll to a stop.
The race is finished, my diary. And the silence is finally at peace.
An idea popped into my head: Kimi sent Max an inappropriate pic, and Max ended up annoyed because he couldn't go see him until the next day. Kimi is just calm about it
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