VIPER || Oscar Piastri

Chapter 137

[POV: Oscar Piastri]

I'm not sulking.

Yes, I kept my head down all week. I showed up at the sim, stayed longer than I had to, having nothing better to do except work. I went through onboard after onboard until my eyes burned. Then I'd wake up, go back again, and do it all over.

Speaking of...

At the hotel, I stayed in a single room for the first time in months.

For the first time since I'd known her, there wasn't a suitcase in the corner of the room that wasn't mine. There wasn't a big fat mess on the desk that wasn't mine. No hair ties left by the sink. I didn't even put the TV on, just incase it'd play the next episode of Friends we had lined up to watch.

It didn't feel normal in any way shape or form, so it was easier to just keep moving, and to ignore that not-normal feeling. If I stopped, even for a second, my brain went there. To her. To that door closing. To the way she looked at me and didn't say anything when I asked if she was fine with it.

So I filled the space. PR commitments? Suddenly I volunteered for extra. Media day? I answered everything by the book, and even started to find Lando funny. I scheduled more training sessions than usual. I assured everyone that yes, this was all necessary. Most days, I was the last person to leave.

Not in a dramatic, self-pitying way.

In a productive, mechanical, keep-the-engine-running kind of way.

Because I wasn't sulking.

I know it probably looked like I was sulking all week. Lando cornered me a few times, trying to pull something out of me. One night he accused me of hiding from everyone. But I wasn't — I was just not giving myself the chance to stop.

Because stopping meant remembering that she hadn't called.

It didn't come as much of a surprise, because... of course she didn't.

So I didn't wait for it.

All week, I kept moving, kept signing things and kept smiling when I needed to — albeit, probably a lot less than usual — but it all amounted and accumulated and amassed into this exact moment, Lando now had me slouched in the hospitality area, halfway through lunch I wasn't even eating, trying to pry out of me why I'd been so, in his words, "bloody miserable."

The room wasn't empty — drivers, engineers, and mechanics came and went, grabbing food or coffee — which meant every now and then, our conversation (or interrogation, as it seemed to me) would be cut short by someone ducking in to refill a mug, or leaning over to grab a plate, or pausing long enough to exchange a quick word with Lando before slipping back out.

Carlos sat for a while. Lando ignored me the whole time.

Then, when he left, Lando got back to it:

"You're not fine," he shot at me immediately. "You're—what's the word—brooding. That's it. You've been brooding. Don't laugh, it's true. Broody little Oscar."

I sighed, focused on the rice in front of me.

Maybe if I stay quiet, he'll get bored.

But he didn't. He leaned in, lowering his voice. "So what does the girlfriend think of all this, then? She encouraging you? She moody again? Listen, just because she has a very I-hate-everything way of doing things doesn't mean you have to copy her, you know. Be your own person. The world doesn't need two—"