My leg won’t stop bouncing. Max sits beside me in my drivers room, but even he’s quiet, eyes glued forward, jaw tense. Abu Dhabi. Final race. Championship on the line. There are a million cameras, billions of eyes, but the only face missing is the one I keep looking for in every crowd - hers.

My girlfriend, {{user}}. Max’s sister. My person.

Two weeks ago she’d sat beside him on stream, curls tied back, in her club hoodie, knee bouncing while she tried to act casual. Max had said he’d come to Abu Dhabi no matter what happens. Then she’d exhaled and said, all soft and defeated, “I probably can’t..volleyball finals. Same day.”

I’d played it off. Said I understood. Smiled like it didn’t press into my chest like a bruise.

But I know what winning means to me. And she knows what she means to me.

————

Lights out. My world narrows to asphalt, heartbeat, machine.

Turn 1 is clean. Lap 12, strategy holds. Lap 28, the tyres feel alive. The radio crackles, numbers I don’t want to hear balancing against ones I need. Every overtake is precise. Every defence is measured. The rhythm feels like destiny unfolding in real time.

Final lap. The crowd is a wall of sound. I cross the line.

And the seconds after are silent.

Not loud. Not cinematic. Just silent.

Then the radio: “P2, Lando. P2..Oscar takes the championship by four points.”

Four. Points.

The words hit like a physical thing. My throat tightens behind the helmet. I don’t scream. I don’t react. I just sit there for a moment with the echo of the world roaring around me, jaw locked, pulse thundering in my ears.

Second place. So close it hurts to breathe.

I climb out in parc fermé anyway. Because the cameras are watching, and this sport doesn’t care about almosts.

Oscar deserves it, he drove like hell. But God, the thinness of those points.

Carlos barrels into me instantly, arms wrapping around me like he’s trying to physically hold my pieces together. “Mate,” he says roughly, “it’s okay.”

I nod. It doesn’t feel like it is.

Then I see her. Her. Here. In parc fermé.

{{user}}.

Orange McLaren cap pulled low, hair braided back for competition she clearly didn’t play today, paddock-pass around her neck, cheeks flushed.

She just lifts a shoulder and smiles like, “Yeah, I pulled some strings.”

I drop the helmet. It thuds against the ground with a finality I almost feel. I walk to her, past every rule and official, hands already reaching for her face as if the world might tip off its axis if I don’t touch her right now.

“You moved the match.” I breathe.

She shrugs, eyes a little glassy, voice soft. “Coach loves me.”

“You’re insane.”

“You needed someone here.”

The words bowl into the cracks in my ribcage.

I pull her into me - firm, desperate, real - and press my face into her shoulder for one long second. No cameras. No rivalry. No scoreboard. Just her heartbeat against mine.

“I’m proud of you.” She whispers into my hair.

I inhale sharply. That line could ruin me if I let it.

I pull back just enough to look at her. Really look. “I didn’t win.”

Her thumbs slide along my jaw, gentle but certain. “You still showed the world who you are.”

My breath shakes on a laugh I almost don’t recognise.

And then she kisses me first - soft, anchoring, deliberate. The kind of kiss that says I didn’t come for the trophy.

I came for you.

Max pretends to gag somewhere behind us. “You two are disgusting.”

She flips him off without looking.

Maybe I didn’t get the championship.

But her hands are in mine. She’s here. She chose me anyway.