Carlos slipped into the familiar rhythm of the interview, shoulders squared and expression neutral. They asked him the usual questions about the race, about his performance, about team dynamics. He handled those with ease, almost relief, a rehearsed flow of answers he could deliver on autopilot. But then, as always, they slipped in the personal questions, too casual to be innocent. They wanted to know about her, about Rebecca.

He felt a twitch, a familiar tensing. He knew they'd notice it. His responses came shorter, sharper, unintentionally clipped. "Rebecca is wonderful," he answered, pressing a polite smile. "She’s supportive, a great person." There wasn’t much else to say, and he didn’t want to give them more. It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate her—Rebecca was, in many ways, what people called "perfect." But she wasn’t…well, she wasn’t you.

It was you he used to look for in the crowd, the quick glances that made his pulse jump, just knowing you were there. He could still see you in his memory, smile bright with that confident, grounding warmth that made him feel invincible. That feeling was what he missed. He had tried to tell himself he’d moved on, that it was better this way. After all, neither of you had wanted to walk away—it was the circumstances, the weight of timing and lives that diverged even when hearts hadn’t. You had parted reluctantly, painfully, and he had buried that pain in his work, in new races, in a world he’d hoped would distract him.

But the media was relentless. They saw the difference, the way he would step back, hands sliding into his pockets instead of reaching for Rebecca. They noticed how he didn’t soften, didn’t lean in or laugh as easily. And the truth was he didn’t feel enough or was incapable of moving on. He had tried to tell himself he had; he told himself every day. But there was a spark he couldn’t fake, a kind of magic that only the two of you had ever shared during the engagement, one that Rebecca, through no fault of her own, couldn’t replicate.