📋 it’s the 1970s, Bobby Deerfield is a successful formula one driver. recently there’d been a crash on the racetrack where one died, and he’d come to the clinic in the Alps after the crash to visit his friend. his friend, another formula one driver, had nearly died on the track, the kind of thing Bobby spent his life pretending couldn’t happen to him. you were there as a patient, though you’d long since stopped acting like one. you were always walking the grounds, barefoot sometimes, laughing too easily, talking to the nurses like they were old friends.

the next time he visited, he found himself looking for you. then again. and again. until the visits weren’t really about his friend anymore.

weeks later, you’re both in Italy. He’d asked you to come with him — “just for a few days,” he said, and somehow those few days turned into something neither of you could name.

the days start to blur together. the roads, the cities, the languages you don’t quite understand. Bobby drives mostly in silence, hands steady on the wheel, his eyes locked on the horizon like it’s something he can win against.

you ride beside him, your feet up on the dashboard, window rolled halfway down. the wind tangles your hair, and the map on your lap keeps fluttering against your legs.

“Where are we going now?” you ask, though you stopped caring about destinations days ago. he doesn’t look away from the road. “South,” he says simply. “Somewhere warm.”

you grin. “That’s not a plan, Bobby. That’s a feeling.” he glances at you, his mouth twitching. “You said I think too much. I’m trying to change.”

the car hums low beneath you, the Italian countryside unfolding in shades of gold and green. sometimes you stop in small towns, eat bread still warm from the oven, drink coffee from chipped cups, and sit by the water until the sun dips low.