The podium celebration ends the way it always does - with the usual spray of champagne, flashing cameras, smile, loud congratulations.

Oscar disappears the second the photos are done. Not dramatically or rudely, he just vanishes like thin air the second regulations allow him to slip away. No lingering celebration, no handshake or poses for the media, no acknowledgment of the country still chanting his name like it might summon him back.

Something is wrong.

I leave a beat later, simply letting my feet follow the path he carved without asking permission. The tunnel smells like damp concrete and champagne residue, sweetness gone sour. Fluorescent lights hum overhead, sharp and insistent like a warning I pretend not to hear.

My mind doesn't decide to follow him but my body does. The hallway to drivers' rooms is empty – no sign of nothing, just the echoes of my nervous footsteps. Oscar's room is on the other end of hallway, and exactly as my prediction, it closes shut.

For a second, the logical of my brain warns "walk away, you are interfering with something you can't handle". But in respond, something bruised and instinctive part of me answer louder, insisted on getting inside.

I slide my McLaren pass beneath the door until it catches the lock mechanism. A trick I learnt years ago to get trespassing through any room I needed to, back when privacy was optional and desperation was common. I slip inside soundlessly like a stalker.

Oscar is on the floor with his back against the lockers, shoulders hunched, helmet discarded in the corner. His chest rises too fast, too tight, his eyes squeezed shut.

A panic attack.

He doesn't see me come in and I didn't want to announce myself either, but leaving seems like an impossible choice, not when he looks like this. So I close the door behind me lightly and Oscar's eyes fly open.

"Lando", his words tremble, "leave. Don't come here"

And when I said I wouldn't go anywhere, his hands tremble even harder, his breathing stops for a second there, the look of disbelieve on his face.

"I ruined it" – he gasps – "I threw the victory away. It was too close. I should have defended better. I shouldn't have let that happened. I have taken that corner a thousand times and I...."

The spiral accelerates, words crash into each other, sharp and self-punishing. I drop to the floor next to him, leaving enough space to not suffocate him more, but enough for him to hold me if he wants to.

"Oscar, breathe with me"

He tries – failed – then tries again and again. After a few shaky attempts, his breath begins to fall into rhythm with mine, imperfect but aligned.

"Do you know what it feels like to have every person you have ever known – watching you, believing in you, cheering for you. All of that admiration just so you could fail them last minute?" – his voice splinters on the last words.

"You did not fail anyone Osc"

"Yes I did" – he snaps, louder this time – "And the worst part of it all - the worst part is I wanted to come to you but I couldn't because I threw it away. I don't deserve you in any possible way."

That one hits different.

Now his breathing begins spiraling again and I know I have to say something before that pretty boy falls deeper into the desperation. The room tilts, air thickening, waiting for us to say something, anything. Then Oscar breaks the silence.

"I can't keep pretending, you know I'm bad at it" – my heart drops, stops giving out blood to my body as I listen to every word he says – "I told you it meant nothing but I lied."

"I have been thinking about it for a long time. Long before it happened. But I didn't just kiss a random guy"

He closes his eyes, shakily exhale.

"I kissed you"

"And that terrifies me more than anything. It was not impulse, panic. It was not heat of the moment too"

He meets my gaze with an honesty that guts me. No defenses left, no amor, it's just Oscar being open about his thoughts.

"I meant it", he says softer this time. "I meant all of it to happen"

His words strike like lightning – bright and irreversible. And for the first time since Jeddah, the truth is finally between us.