Hot off the Press | Charles Leclerc | F1

s e v e n t e e n

It was Wednesday afternoon on race week, and Fia was heading to the airport to pick Sadie up. She'd borrowed Claudia's metallic red Mazda Mx-5 coupé cabriolet and was enjoying driving with the roof down.

She had already decided that Melbourne was her new favourite city. She and Adam had been staying with Claudia's family for the past week, and her camera roll was filled with colourful snaps from every tourist trap in the area. They'd spent their days working and their evenings exploring, from the Botanic Gardens to the Melbourne Skydeck and all the art galleries they could find in between.

Fia felt refreshed, which was precisely what she needed. It helped that Claudia's mum ran a spiritual wellness retreat, which she'd set up after leaving her job as the CFO of a tech company. Although Fia didn't believe in crystals or auras, she had to admit that seven days of meditation and massages had left her head feeling clear and her body relaxed.

It was a short drive to Melbourne Airport – just thirty minutes until she'd be reunited with her best friend. Although she was excited, she couldn't help but feel nervous, too. This was the longest they'd gone without seeing each other since they met. She kept worrying that things might have changed, the physical distance between them creating an emotional rift that would only get wider with time. It was hard to keep friends as an adult; everyone knew that.

She pulled into a space in the short-stay car park and turned the music up to drown out her thoughts. It was a warm day, with a few wispy clouds scudding across the sky. When Fia looked at her hands on the steering wheel, she noticed how tanned she was getting from all the sun. It was the same on her face, where little freckles had appeared across her nose and cheeks. She glanced at herself in the rearview mirror, wondering if it was possible that she looked as different as she felt. Her shoulder-length hair, usually mousy brown, was a few shades lighter from the sun, and her green eyes seemed less murky than usual – less like pond water and more like emerald – though she was sure it was the sunlight playing tricks.

Fia's phone pinged, startling her.

Sadie: Just got through passport security!

She climbed out of the car and headed to arrivals, looking for a flash of red hair among the crowd streaming through the automatic doors. When she didn't immediately spot her friend, she pulled out her phone to compose a text.

That's when she felt a pair of arms around her.

"Surprise!" Sadie shouted, pulling Fia into a tight bear hug.

Fia inhaled a lungful of her friend's familiar scent and felt dizzy with relief and happiness. It was like the missing piece of a puzzle had finally slotted into place. They stayed like that, holding each other tightly until an old man nearly ran into them with his suitcase trolley and shouted for them to get out of the way.

They stepped apart, trying not to laugh.

"You look good, Fia," said Sadie with a big smile. "I missed you."

Fia blinked, surprised that the stresses of the past few weeks hadn't somehow worked themselves into the contours of her face. Claudia's mum really must have performed miracles. For a second, she wasn't sure what to say as she stared at her best friend, matching the sight of her with the image she'd been carrying around in her mind. It was always jarring, she thought, seeing someone you were close to after a long time apart—reacquainting yourself with the minute details of their appearance and realising your memory of them was imperfect all along.