VIPER || Oscar Piastri

Chapter 24

[POV: Narrator]

"So— Okay, wait. This is all happening because you were staring at a big picture of me?" Oscar asked, shocked, pointing at himself and turning to fully face Andi (who was trying to drive).

Before now, Andi had felt increasingly guilty about causing Oscar to yell, so she decided - as one would - to give him a complete rundown of what happened up until this point. — With no provocation from Oscar, by the way. This was purely Andi feeling bad. — And Oscar had listened diligently for a while, since there was nothing much else to do on a two hour drive, until Andi had revealed the simple fact of: "You were on the big screen, and they saw me looking."

"No!" She blurted out, her instinct being to defend herself. She then remembered that she promised to tell the truth at all times. "...Yes."

Oscar pressed his lips together, trying not to laugh. He turned his head away from Andi, who glanced at him and saw his smirk.

"Hey! It's not my fault that they came over to me at that exact moment! It could've been anyone on the screen."

"Was I really that mesmerising?" He asked out of nowhere, making Andi scoff.

"What?! No! You—"

"Well, I must've been at least a little mesmerising, since you were staring—"

"Oh my god. No. It's because—" She went silent. She stared ahead at the road, contemplating how she should phrase her next sentence. Having decided it was too embarrassing, she asked a question instead.  "Do you... take anything?"

"What?"

"Like, do you take, like, medicine? Or... drugs...?"

"Drugs?! What're you—"

"No! Not like, hard drugs. Stuff like..." Her voice trailed off. She took one hand off of her steering wheel to scratch her neck. "... Xanax...?" she said and shrugged, as if it was a random thought.

Andi looked at him for a split second. "Do I take Xanax?" He asked, his voice clearly conveying puzzlement. "Why're you asking me if I take drugs?!"

"Because!" Andi snapped, "You're literally always so calm! All the time! Even if you've just had a shit race - no offence - you're as calm as anything! I just thought, maybe, you take— stuff..." She awkwardly trailed off again, before having something to add. "Do you?..." She flashed her eyes at him quickly, still wanting to know the answer to her question (that she'd been wanting to ask for ages) even if she was incredibly embarrassed. "...Take... stuff?"

"No!" He screeched, dumbfounded that she even had to ask.

"Okay! I was just wondering, jeez." She fixed her hair. "And, anyway, that's why I was watching you on the big screen."

Oscar paused, trying to figure out if she was actually serious. "You were watching me... because you thought I was on drugs...?"

Andi inhaled, her head leaning back slightly as she did so. As she exhaled, she admitted: "Yes."

"And so, when Charles asked who you were seeing... you picked the guy on drugs?!"

"That's not exactly what happened, but, for the sake of the argument, in a way, I suppose I did, yes."

Oscar stared at the girl with a judging expression.

After a silence that felt like an eternity, Andi checked to see if he was still dumbfounded. He was.

"What! You're not on drugs though, remember?! So no harm no foul." She told Oscar - and herself a little, since she was only just accepting the fact that he was this way naturally.