Tangled in Trophies- Lando Norris

4. Empty Apartments and bright phone screens

Evangeline hadn't expected the thought of watching Formula One to actually stick with her. It was a suggestion she'd brushed off at the studio, but now, as she sank into her sofa with a mug of tea and her cat filo at her side, her mind kept drifting back to Lando Norris. She typed his name into the search bar, feeling a tinge of reluctance as she hit enter.

Search results flooded her screen: video highlights, race recaps, interviews, and—of course—his social media profiles. She clicked on his Instagram, curiosity getting the better of her. The screen filled with snapshots of his life, curated into a seamless gallery of candid smiles, race-day intensity, and glimpses of his travels. In one photo, he was laughing with his team by the track; in another, he leaned on a sleek McLaren, dressed casually but exuding a natural confidence. He had that effortlessly cool look that seemed to draw people to him, and Evangeline found herself somewhat fascinated by it. She found herself staring too long at photos where he was the only one in the frame, admiring the brown curls on his head and his intense but warm gaze.

After very little scrolling Lando Norris's personal life unraveled before her, stories about his parents, his relationships, friendships with drivers, his friends outside of formula one. To the online world it seemed like Lando Norris was an open book.

She clicked through his posts, victories, losses, lunches, candid photos. Lando Norris seemed to exuded the perfect casual but determined athlete persona. Fans filled the comments with praise and excitement, and he occasionally replied, lightheartedly joking with them or thanking them for their support. It was strange, she thought, how he could be so open when she herself barely used social media, let alone connected with fans. Each of her own posts felt calculated, carefully managed by her team to minimize any controversy.

But the deeper she scrolled, the more she began to notice things beneath the surface. Among the celebratory shots and grinning selfies, there were moments when he seemed quieter, reflective even. In one post, a simple close-up of his helmet sitting on the ground next to his racing shoes, he'd captioned it: The price of this life isn't always obvious. It wasn't what she expected—he seemed almost too human for the confident racer she'd met a few hours prior.

Curiosity took hold, and she turned to his recent race footage. A video recapping his last season filled the screen, the roar of engines blending with the commentary. She watched as he raced around tracks she barely recognized, his focus absolute, his hands quick and steady on the wheel. She could see why he was popular; there was something infectious in his energy, the way he threw himself into the sport. Watching him navigate a particularly sharp corner, she found herself holding her breath.

This definitely wasn't boring, she thought to herself. Maybe she would actually watch the F1 season this year, a few relaxed Sundays couldn't hurt the her.

After she finished watching some of his race footage her phone panned to a post-race interview, where he was asked about the pressures of his growing success. "I think, yeah, there's always pressure," he answered, his expression shifting to something more serious. "It's part of the job. But sometimes I just want to race, you know? No fanfare, no drama. Just the track and the car." He smiled through the statement, sweat dripping down his forehead as he stared off past the interviewer.

His voice softened, and for the briefest moment, she saw something vulnerable in his eyes—a flicker of the kind of exhaustion she knew too well. And yet, when the question turned lighthearted, he flipped right back into his grinning, boyish charm, disarming the reporters with ease. Watching him, she couldn't help but feel the strange stirrings of sympathy for someone who seemed, on the surface, to be her opposite.

She returned to her own profile afterward, her most recent posts a stream of trophy lifts and tournament victories, each one pristine and flawless, each a little lonelier than the last. She wished people could see her private profile, her true self or some of it anyway. She often debated talking to Clara about making her private profile public or combining th two accounts so that fans could get a glimpse of what her life was like outside of the sport. But before she would suggest it a feeling of doubt would always take over, she told herself that no one would really care about her outside of her sport, her dad convinced her of that. Maybe she'd judged Lando too quickly—maybe the public image he put on was only one part of his story. However quick her thoughts arose she discarded them even quicker, Lando Norris was most likely some stuck up rich boy who just happened to manage to make his way into high profile sport. She had dealt with his kind before, she was never able to truly connect with athletes like him, or anyone in general. She vowed to not let her connections with people get in the way of her career, a vow she had broken once before and something she would never allow to happen again.  Before putting her phone down she decided to post an instagram story of her TV, capturing a moment where Lando raced around a corner.