The weeks after Australia pass like blurred photographs – nothing sharp enough to capture, nothing soft enough to hold. Just the flickers of circuits, the relentless thrum of engines and the thick silence between me and Oscar that stretches like a rubber band, ready to snap at either one of us.

We orbit each other in the paddock like twin stars locked in the same gravity well, never touching, never colliding. Oscar keeps his eyes on the screens, on the data, on the floor – anywhere but me. And yet, sometimes when the lights go out, when someone turns off a projector and the room dims briefly into shadow, his gaze flickers toward mine.

We sit in the same briefing room with empty chairs between us, like we are contagious and putting some distance in between is the only thing to keep us from being cross-contaminated. We are like the cheap version of "Five feet apart", because at least main characters in that movie were dealing with real serious disease.

We fly from this side of the world to the other, scenery passing through window. Language changed. Circuits blurred. The weather shifted. And through it all, inside me stays stuck in that dim lit driver's room where Oscar spilled his heart.

I meant it. I meant all of it to happen.

And I keep wondering over and over again, like a prayer, a curse or an unfulfilled wish – what would he have said if no one had interrupted us? Would he have reached for my face and my lips again? What was he holding back? What version of us almost existed?

I think about it in the hotel elevators. In my own car. In the hollow quiet after the engine shuts off.

I replay his confession until I can hear it in his voice in the back of my mind, until I can feel the truth surfacing right in front of my eyes. I try not to read too much into small things he does, but I notice everything – how he smiles, the way he slips his phone into his bag, the way his hair curls to the side whenever he stands up.

The longing in my heart is familiar. Like the moment before lights out – when your heart stalls, the world freezes and every decision you made could ruin you in a microsecond.

***

Miami is loud enough to drown thoughts. Neon lights bright enough to blind truths. The air tastes like ocean salt and sun-burnt rubber, as if the city wants to melt every secret you try to keep.

And somehow, a laugh from Oscar is everything I need to get back to life.

He stands near the McLaren garage with two mechanics, laughing at something I couldn't hear from distance. The sound of his laugh echoes in my head anyway – light, fleeting, slipping through my defensive walls like a thin thread of gold I'm not allowed to touch. He looks annoyingly good in this light.

I hate it. Not that I get jealousy over Oscar enjoying his life, but how does he get to enjoy his life while I'm here miserable about my life choices and about our situation?

Few weeks ago, his breath trembled against my skin, tried not to crack under the pressure of a confession. Now he's glowing under Miami sun as if the city was made for him.

Oscar moves toward the practice lane, not bother to spare me a look. I keep a respectable distance – or maybe the coward's distance – and pretend to be reviewing track notes on my phone but my eyes keep betraying me, sliding upward to find him again.

He bends down to adjust his boots, and I catch myself staring like an idiot, tracking the shifts of his shoulders, analyze how the fabric stretches to the end of his torso. I'm reading him like telemetry, looking for patterns, for signals, for the smallest flicker of meaning.

After all, I came to a conclusion – Oscar is avoiding me. Carefully, purposefully, like he's memorized the exact radius of my orbit and is determined to not cross it.

I don't know whether to hate him or myself for that. But what I do know for this moment I feel extremely annoyed for not getting close to him, the kind of annoyance that needs one more second, one more look, one more touch – to break open.

***

Qualifying in Miami feels like standing inside a pressure cooker. The air is thick with humidity and adrenaline, the kind that sticks to your neck and crawls beneath your tires like a reminder that you are no God, that you might lose right here, right now. Everyone is a little too hot, too reckless – including me myself and my dearest teammate over there in his own car.

By the time Q2 starts, my head is already full of frustration, the leftover tension from weeks of silence is shimmering underneath. Tom, my engineer, speaks up, cuts off my thoughts process "You are free to push on next lap. Oscar behind on similar strategy"

I keep driving on my own pace but the feeling of being watch isn't far away. Every time I brake, every corner angle I slide - he mirrors it. Like he can read me somehow, reads into my instinct before I even realize.

"Push window opens in 10. Keep it clean Lando" – my engineer warns through the channel.

I shift slightly to the left to open the way, Oscar shifts in the same direction. I breathe through my teeth, "Tell him to hold back" but Tom replies short with "We can't".

Turn 7 approaches. The one I have been practicing even in my sleep. A sharp, vicious and needy corner. I assume Oscar will abort. Oscar assumes I will hold the wider racing line for him to pass through.

We both assume wrong. We both choose the same goddamn line.

Our front tires kiss – a passionate one, I would say. My heart drops. I couldn't believe we just crashed into each other and left such a mess, wonder if our car could be used for the race tomorrow.

Oscar's voice bursts through the world feed, raw and furious, picked up by his open microphone. Everyone hears it, including me – "Fuck you Lando. What the fuck did you just do?"

And there is it, the last strain of guilt I got was now all gone. Embarrassment slowly crawls up to my spine, aching to be console.

A winglet snaps off one of our cars – maybe his, maybe mine – I can't tell through the plume of carbon dust. The radio crackles with panic voices from our team principles, engineers.

"Box, box, box! BOX NOW!"

"Inspect damage needed. Come back"

"WHAT - WAS THAT GUYS?" – Zak shouts louder than anyone on the pit, I could feel his anger all the way from here through my radio.

Sweat slides down my temple, the scariness spreads all over my chest. Because I know why it happened.

We didn't just collide physically. We collide because we think the same, we match at everything we did. His instinct are mine, mine are his.

I feel sick how right it feels – like I could predict him even in my sleep.

In parc fermé, we climb out of our cars at the same time. Oscar rips off his gloves, jaw clenched so hard it looks painful. I throw my gloves onto the halo, frustration burn through my chest like a fuse. He storms toward me before I come closer.

"You should have stayed wide" – he snaps, the anger can't be hidden – "You always stay wide there!"

I fire back before I can stop myself, "You always abort when it's that tight. Did you do that on purpose?"

"Not when you slow up like that. Fuck you Lando, what were you even thinking?"

"Maybe I wouldn't slow up if you weren't glued to my rear-wing like a fucking ghost"

We're breathing fast, too loudly, too individually for two people who supposedly "not speaking". A mechanic runs over to intervene, shouting about a broken wing and "now it's not the time". I overhear someone whispers behind our back, saying "their styles are too similar", "they're basically the same", "that's why we have this accident".

The nausea hits me like a mother-fucker. The more I think about him, the more I drive like him. We are bleeding into each other's instincts.

Zak Brown's footsteps are approaching us from afar.

You can always tell when Zak is angry. There's a rhythm to it. Heavy, fast, purposeful – like a storm coming in expensive shoes. He doesn't even slow down as he barrels to each, just starts to shout loud enough for the whole cockpit to hear.

"NO. NO. ABSOLUTELY NOT!"

Oscar and I freeze on instinct. Zak looks from me to Oscar, then back at the broken wings being carried past us by our mechanics. He drags a hand down his face.

"What – was all of that?" – I swear Zak is so close to lose it.

Oscar opens his mouth. I open mine at the same second. We both start speaking at once:
"He was in the way – "
"He cut across – "

Zak stares as he's watching two toddlers argue over a single chicken nugget, and not even the tasty one. His face twitches in anger, as if he could kill us right here, right now. Sure as hell I will run over to William's and get Alex to cover my back. Not sure where Oscar would go though.

Perhaps Zak notices how zone out I am, so he continues with his shouting – "You two are walking like depressed raccoons, and now you are crashing into each other? Has any of you look at that eyebags of yours?"

A mechanic snorts. An engineer pretends to cough to hide his laugh. Oscar stiffens right next to me and I have to put on a guilty face for show.

Zak continues, waving aggressively at the cracked front wing – "I could handle Mercedes cars faster than us. I could handle rivals. I could even handle you two being best friends or full of hatred to each other". He points at us, eyes wild – "But I cannot, CANNOT handle whatever this is"

Oscar chimes in, barely audible, ".... The qualifying?"

Zak basically combusts. "NO! This zombie silent treatment, this miserable energy and how you have been tortured PR team for weeks".

I would have laughed so hard if I weren't the one he's scolding.

"FIX IT. NOW."

Oscar blinks, still has the audacity to ask him back, ".... fix what exactly?"

Zak throws his arms up in the air, face still burning red – "EVERYTHING. The vibe. The telepathy. The crashing. Pick one. No, pick all!"

Before either of us can protest, he grabs both of our sleeves and physically drags us across the garage like two poorly behaved cats. Mechanics, cameras and half of the paddock looks at us in horror. I swear some of the drivers even peak out of their garage, whistle as they see us walking together like a prisoner.

Zak mutters the whole way, but loud enough for both of us to hear. "Unbelievable. There's no first or second driver in this team. You two are both fucking talented and now you are jeopardizing your whole career and our jobs for fucking what?"

He shoves us into a small meeting room just right outside of the garage. Zak plants a hand on the door, his other hand on the lock. Oscar and me turn around just a second too late.

"Zak – don't you dare –"

CLICK. The door locked. From the other side of the door, Zak shouts loudly, "Nobody leaves until you talk like functioning adults"

Oscar and I stare at each other. I whisper, horrified "No, he didn't just do that". Oscar whispers right back, "He did. Typical American behavior". We both nod, because that explains everything.

I glare at the window, Oscar snorts under his breath when we hear Zak warns from the outside, telling me no matter how fast I am, I couldn't escape without a key. There goes my plan with the window.

If this is not the most ridiculous thing in my whole Formula 1 career, I don't know what is – being locked in a tiny room, full of sweat, frustration and enough unresolved tension to power the whole Miami grid for days.