It’s almost 3 a.m. And she’s in my hoodie. Sitting on the floor. Back against the bed. Hair messy. Eyes glassy.

She let me in. Not with words—just a quiet nod when I showed up on her doorstep, soaking wet and scared out of my mind. Not scared of her. Scared of the silence between us. Scared that this would be the last time I ever got to stand in front of her and still call her mine in my head.

She hasn’t spoken in ten minutes.

And I haven’t moved.

Because if I move, I might fall apart.

“I can’t do this again,” she says, finally. Voice small. Wrecked. “Lando, I really, really can’t.”

I swallow. My chest feels like it’s bleeding.

“I know.”

“I’m tired of loving you in the dark. Of watching you leave, over and over again, while pretending I don’t care.”

“I know.”

She looks at me now, and it’s worse than anger. It’s emptiness. Like something sacred between us is already dying.

“So why are you here?” she whispers. “Why now?”

My hands are shaking. I don’t even try to hide it.

“Because you were right,” I say, barely breathing. “You were right about everything.”

She doesn’t move.

“I thought winning would make me feel whole. That being the best would make me feel enough. But every time I stood on a podium, I looked for you.”

My voice cracks. I let it.

“Every. Fucking. Time.”

She closes her eyes. And I know her heart is breaking all over again.

“I came back,” I whisper, “because I realized I don’t want any of it if you’re not there to come home to. The flights, the champagne, the interviews. I’d burn it all just to fall asleep next to you again.”

A tear slips down her cheek. Quiet. Devastating.

I kneel in front of her. Hands on her knees. Not grabbing. Just there. Like a question.

“I don’t want you to forgive me right now,” I say. “I don’t even want you to believe me.”

She opens her eyes. And it hurts. Because she’s looking at me like she wants to believe. But she can’t risk it.

So I say the one thing I’ve never said out loud.

“I was always going to love you. I just didn’t know how to stop running long enough to show it.”

She breaks.

She covers her mouth and starts to cry—really cry—the way you do when you’ve held something in for too long and it finally snaps.

And I just hold her. Not to fix it. Not to win.

Just to stay.

And when her breathing calms, when her body is trembling but her hands don’t pull away—I whisper the words I came here to say. The only thing that matters now.

“You are my once-in-a-lifetime. And if you let me… I’ll spend the rest of mine proving I’m not too late.”