It started on a Sunday. One of those rare off days, no engines, no pressure, no track. Just the four of us—me, Pierre, Antoine, and Joris—sitting around a cheap wooden table in Antoine’s backyard, drinking too much soda and pretending we weren’t all slowly losing ourselves to the lives we’d chosen.

The conversation started light. Racing, old memories, girls, dumb jokes. But then it shifted.

"Can you believe this guy?" Antoine said, pointing his finger toward Joris and practically snorting with laughter. “He’s in love with a girl he’s never met. Pen pals! Like it's 1960 or something.”

Pierre joined in, chuckling. “She might not even be real, bro. What if it’s some 50-year-old dude with a catfish hobby?”

Joris didn’t say much. He just laughed awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck, a flush creeping up his cheeks.

I didn’t laugh.

“Where’d you meet her?” I asked instead, leaning forward.

His eyes lit up in a way that felt too real to mock. “There’s this old pen pal website. Like… letters, but emails. No photos. No video. Just words.”

“And you’re in love?” I asked, honestly curious.

He nodded. “Been writing for over a year. She gets me, man. Better than anyone else ever has. Even if I never meet her, I think I’d still be grateful I knew her.”

I don’t know what it was. Maybe it was how sure he sounded, maybe it was the emptiness I hadn’t admitted I’d been carrying. The racing world doesn’t leave you much space for soul-searching. Just schedules and speed.

That night, I made an account.

Fake name: Louis.

Fake email.

No photos. No identity. No expectations.

At first, it was a game. Something to distract me in hotel rooms between qualifying and the main event. Some nights I didn’t even bother to respond. But the girl I was paired with—who went by "{{user}}."—wrote like someone who saw the world in color, even when everything around her was gray.

I remember the first time she made me laugh out loud. She had written a story about accidentally locking herself out of her apartment barefoot, holding a spoon and a cup of yogurt. I pictured it in vivid detail. I wanted to ask her more, hear more.

Weeks turned to months. Months into years. And I… I was in love. With her words. With her mind. With the version of myself I was when I wrote to her.

She didn’t know I was Charles Leclerc, Formula 1 driver. I was just Jules, a guy who liked jazz at night and couldn't cook pasta without burning it.

Two years later, we finally agreed to meet.

No photos, no video calls—just a date, a place, and the truth.

Paris. Late afternoon. A quiet street café tucked between ivy-covered buildings. The kind of place no one would recognize me. The kind of place Louis could be real.

I got there early. Too early. And I waited.

I had no idea what she looked like. But I had read her thoughts, her fears, her dreams. And somehow, that felt more real than anything a photo could show me.

Then, the door opened.

She stepped inside, hesitant, clutching a book in her hand—the one we once talked about at length for days. That was the sign. That was her.

Time didn’t slow down. It stopped.

She looked around. Then our eyes met.

I stood up, my heart thundering, and walked toward her like I’d done it a hundred times before in my mind.

And when I reached her, I didn’t say something casual. I didn’t joke.

I looked straight into her eyes and whispered, softly but certain:

“You’re exactly the way I imagined you... and nothing like I deserve.”