Double Sided Tracks

a fraction

The thing about heartbreak is that you're praying they feel the same pain, or even a fraction of what you are feeling. You wish that they're losing sleep just like you do, you wish that they're gasping for air like a dying fish out of water, or feel how heavy their chest is the way yours feel.

Something–you wish they felt something. Just, something, anything, some kind of twinge in their heart, a minute guilt, anything. Anything at all.

It's not because you want them to feel pain, it's because you need to know that it wasn't one sided. That it wasn't all imagination. It wasn't you making a big deal out of nothing. A reassurance that there was once something worth fighting for, and that it wasn't just imaginations run wild.

The fact is, Nora walking out of the burning house will all the pain, all the hurt, heart all mangled while Lewis stood there– "Well, Verstappen lost this time. I had her first."

Words run smoothly, not a single hitch.

The thing about break ups, if Nora can call it that, is that most of the time there are signs. How cold and distant they are all of a sudden, how careless they've become with your heart– but, there are no signs. They don't ask you to move in, that's for sure.

But, it wasn't supposed to be a break up. If Nora not "just Nora" there wouldn't be a breakup, there wouldn't be a burning house, though she knows, she has warnings– she warned herself, she–

"Nora?"

A voice startled her, and she looked up. Max has been staying for the past however many days she's been staying in this hotel. She lost track of days, she knew Max extended her room, even as far as answering some texts she's been getting from her parents.

It's humiliating, to feel this broken and helpless. Especially in front of the one person who pressed and pressed how Lewis is not this perfect, sweetheart, flawless person. But, Max just becomes a constant, he doesn't press her for information, he doesn't get in her way, he does snap her out of these vicious thoughts, but he does his own things– sits there beside her, while she's all quiet and just tries to exist.

Max quickly shaped himself to fit the space Nora created between her and the outside world.

"So, I was thinking–" he started, then handed her a cup of water and some kind of snack that he probably asked the kitchen made for them along with their breakfast. "You should stay with me– us, me and the cats." He quickly said, he stares at her, searching for an answer.

Nora took a sip of water, just because. She's buying herself some time. Their break is almost over, Nora really should go back to Qatar. But, the thought of getting on the plane, going back to her parents, where she knows they'd have so many questions for her– just made her want to cry.

"And you know, I have 2 guest rooms and I have space." He said, softly stroking her wrist of the hand that's holding the cup. "And you'll have your own space there, you won't have to share with me." He added jokingly, though Nora knows he's trying to seal the deal.

That's how she finds herself slumped in Max Verstappen's guest room, she felt bad with how Max excused himself to his sim room, exclaiming that he's due to be on the sim and streaming.

Before this, Max would show up very early in the morning with breakfast (if not, calling room service is the first thing he does) then leave very late at night, usually when Nora has fallen asleep. She felt bad now, how she had taken so much of him and returned so little.

Max had told her before he disappeared into his sim room to take anything she needs, and to explore the penthouse. He also introduced her to his cats, Jimmy and Sassy.