NIGHT CHANGES || Oscar Piastri

I Promised. You Promised.

*Oscar's POV*

I did accidentally let Ali down. Again.

I wasn't even in the race when it finished.

I returned to the garage immediately, expecting a furious Zak waiting for me. I frowned slightly at the sudden disappearance, as I only saw an upset Alissa, looking at the screen, her headphones on and a book in her hand. It was called 'Percy Jackson' or something like that. I didn't know she was into books on Greek Mythology. She saw me coming and looked away quickly, as if she was scared of me. I flinched at the sight of her sad face.

I was disappointed in myself. But it was my first official race with McLaren, not mentioning the pre- season testing. It was then I realised I found myself walking towards one of the headsets and putting them on, putting an arm around Ali's shoulders. 

She cursed as she slipped her bookmark into the book and shoved it back into her folder. Or at least I thought it was a folder. It could store a book, her headphones, a bookmark and a spare bookmark. She tucked it under her arm.

"Hey," I mumbled and didn't expect a reply. Ali said nothing. Oh well, you did expect that, I scolded and reminded myself. "I'm sorry. For well, um, not getting the position you really expected me to get. I guess you're mad at me now."

"No, of course I'm not," Ali spat and looked away from the screen for a moment. Judging by her tone, she was mad. I removed my arm from her shoulder disappointedly as I was invited to sit with the rest of the crew with my headset on. Ali said nothing on until the end of the race, giving a short hug to Lando and removing herself from the scene. 

Me and Lando later was invited to Zak's office for a 'little talk'. To remind you Zak's after-race talks scared me much from Lando's descriptions. According to him, he often shouted if it was a bad result, so I took a deep breath before knocking on the glass door.

"You'll be fine," Lando reassured me. "He's not usually that hard on... rookies." 

He was wrong. 

I dared myself not to say anything during my lecture. "Really bad performance, Piastri. I expected more from you!" Zak exclaimed as I looked down, sighing. "This was another reason you got promoted to Formula 1. You were good enough with your racing skills, we all saw. I expected better results from you. Lando-" He took a deep breath and sighed. He said the 'you' much harder than I expected. 

"You're older than Oscar here, Norris," He stuffed some papers into a folder, adding it into his briefcase. "Two years. I thought you could be a good role-model to him, but instead you come P17, just last."

"I-I'm really sorry, sir," Lando mumbled anxiously under his breath. But he didn't even sound apologetic. "I'll try to get some better results in the race next time."

"Very good," Zak sat down, letting the tension out of the air as I rushed to the doors. "Oscar-" I didn't even let him finish. I was too scared to do anything at this point. Rushing off, I decided maybe it was good thing to return to the hotel.

~~
*Ali's POV* 

I swear I was mad at Oscar. 

I thought and had expected better from him.  He did seem disappointed in himself, but I decided not to question him deeply about it. Simply, I jogged back to the hotel, and realised there was a note under my door. I held my breath in before picking the note up, my hands shaking uncontrollably. 

'Meet you at ten here.'

Oscar's hand-writing. Smooth like him as always. I had just about an hour to get myself prepared. I decided on a warm jumper and some sports trousers would do the trick. I wasn't even in the mood for talking, so I just opened my phone and listened to the very last message my best friend had recorded in this little mp3 recorder. I pressed 'play'.