VIPER || Oscar Piastri

Chapter 100

[POV: Narrator]

The taxi ride was silent.

Andi leaned her head against the window, eyes half-closed, watching the streetlights smear across the glass. Her vision was thick, like she was looking through water, the colors bleeding together and splitting apart. Her hands were clutched in her lap — thumb worrying the cut on her wrist.

The car swayed slightly with each turn; a subtle motion that made her stomach twist and her head pound harder. Every bump and jolt felt magnified tenfold, sending little shocks through her body, rattling the thin paper towels still wrapped around her wrist that weren't doing anything helpful.

She kept blinking, trying to clear her vision, but the spinning didn't stop. Her thoughts stumbled around her mind in a painful jumble, unable to form a full one to save her life. Everything was jagged.

The driver's occasional glances in the rearview mirror felt more like jabbing judgments than distant disturbances, but when her building came into view, a tall shape against the night sky, she felt a brief flicker of relief.

She stepped out into the biting wind, the cold biting through her. The slick streets were glossed over with dampness, every streetlight scattered across the wet pavement. The glare of oncoming headlights hit her eyes sharp and sudden, forcing her to raise a hand to shield her vision — the hand. The hurt one.

She fumbled with keys when she finally got inside, and at her door, her fingers shook as she struggled to slide the key into the lock.

She barely managed a few turns before the door swung open from the other side.

Oscar stood there, framed by the dim light of the hallway, eyes wide and searching. He looked like he'd been waiting — no, more than that — like he'd been pacing, worrying himself sick. His hair was a mess, strands sticking up from where he'd run his hand through it a dozen times, impatience and panic etched into every line on his face.

He had taken a seat at the dining table, and hadn't moved for hours. He was leaning forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped tight. His foot tapped sporadically.

He kept glancing at the door.

It had been hours.

Even if she didn't realize it happened, instant relief flooded through her. Overwhelming, it hit her like a sudden, breathless surge. She'd been craving familiarity and she hadn't even known it. Even if it was just a thin thread of it, it was enough to steady her shaking hands, to slow the frantic beating of her heart, if only for a moment.

The way he looked at her made her chest curl — like he was afraid of what was in front of him, but unwilling to look away. His eyes darted quickly from her face to her toes. The lines of her body spoke for her. Oscar barely caught a glimpse of her face — blotchy, red, worn out — before his chest caved in.

She kept her wrist tucked close, hidden.

She made sure he didn't see it.

Because if he did, he might have stopped her. He might have resisted her when exhaustion took over and she leaned forward, almost collapsing into his chest.

His arms went around her without hesitation, and for a long moment, she just rested there — forehead against him.

And then — like she'd wanted to do the whole time — she wrapped her arms around him. Not tentative. Not unsure. Fully. And he hugged back harder. Like he'd been waiting to be let in again. Her body trembled, not from the cold, but from the sudden rush of emotion she'd been bottling up for hours. Relief mixed with sorrow, confusion with shame, and all of it wrapped itself around her now.