With flying colours

Post-concert wounds

(Y/N POV)

The applause felt like it belonged to someone else.

Even hours after the crowd had screamed my name, after the lights dimmed and the stage was stripped bare, I still felt detached from everything.
Like I was walking underwater.
Like the cheering was echoing for a girl who didn't exist anymore.

I pulled my hood up as I walked through the backstage corridor, boots sticking to glitter and spilled drinks. Max walked beside me, quiet. Too quiet.
He wasn't normally silent.
Not with me.

"You did well," he said eventually, his voice gentle but strained. "Really well."

I nodded, though the words slid off me like water off glass. "Thanks."

He watched me carefully. He'd learned to read me in ways I wished he couldn't—ever since he adopted me after the crash that took the last pieces of my family.
My mother years ago.
My father and brother a year and a half ago.

No one else in the paddock knew.
Not Lando.
Not Charles.
Not George.
Not Daniel.
Not anyone.
Only Max.

To everyone else, I was just moody. Or intense. Or quiet. Or strange. Or unpredictable.

A mystery they didn't understand.
A mystery they didn't try to.
Sometimes I preferred it that way. Sometimes it hurt.
Mostly it left me alone in my own head.

"Are you hungry?" Max asked softly. "We can grab something before the hotel."

My stomach twisted. "No."
He nodded. Didn't push.
Only he knew which topics were landmines.

But even he had been distant lately.
Distracted.
Secretive.
Because of her.

Kelly.
A name whispered behind hands.
A name no one dared bring up to me.
A name Max hadn't said even once.

The hotel lobby was warm and bright, but I still felt cold.
Lando spotted me instantly.

"Y/N!" he yelled, bounding toward me with that unstoppable, golden-retriever energy that used to make me smile every time.

He picked me up, spinning me once. "Superstar! You absolutely killed it!"
I felt a faint warmth beneath the fog, but it was muted. Far away.

"Put me down," I murmured, though I didn't really mean it.
"No," he said proudly. "I'm showing off."

Behind me, Max shook his head. "He cried."
"I did not," Lando snapped, placing me on my feet. "I had emotional dust in my eye."

Emma-dust? Emotion-dust? I didn't know. I couldn't even laugh at it properly.

Lando leaned close, brushing a kiss against my cheek before lowering his voice.
"You look tired... you okay?"

There it was.
That question.
I shook my head lightly. "I'm fine."

Lando didn't believe me—his eyes softened with worry—but he didn't push. He never knew where my cracks actually were. He didn't know the story.
None of them did.

They only saw the symptoms.
The mood swings.
The emptiness.
The days I felt too much.
And the days I felt absolutely nothing.

None of them understood why.
Not even Lando.

"Don't keep her up too late," Max said, father-mode switching on instantly.

Lando rolled his eyes. "Go be old somewhere else."
"What does that mean?" Max frowned.
"It means your bedtime is in like ten minutes." Lando chuckled to himself.

Max muttered something in Dutch that definitely would have gotten him in trouble with the FIA if it was recorded.

I tried to smile. But the edges of my vision were starting to blur from exhaustion, emotion, something nameless.

Upstairs, Lando sprawled on the bed while I sat at the edge.
"So," he said, stretching his arms over his head, "tell me how it actually felt. First concert. First. Ever. Concert. Oh my god—"

"It didn't feel real," I whispered.
Lando's expression shifted. "Is that bad or...?"

I shrugged. I didn't know. I couldn't figure out if tonight was good or overwhelming or nothing at all.

Sometimes my emotions felt too big.
Sometimes they felt like they didn't exist.
Tonight I felt... glitchy. Disconnected.
"I'm proud of you," Lando said softly.

I swallowed hard.
"I don't know what's wrong with me," I whispered before I could stop myself.

His face fell. His body stilled. "Y/N..."

"I feel like I'm missing something," I said. "Or like I'm... wrong. Like I'm not reacting the way I should."

He didn't understand.
He tried.
But he didn't know the story behind the scars he never asked about.

He didn't know the crash.
The screams.
The loss.
The guilt.
The emptiness that came after.
The way grief rewired me into someone unfamiliar even to myself.
Only Max knew.

Before Lando could respond, there was a knock on the door.
Max's voice. "Y/N?"

Lando groaned into a pillow. "HE HAS SIXTH SENSE. THIS IS NOT NORMAL."

I forced myself to stand. "I'll be back."
I opened the door.
Max looked exhausted. And nervous.
That was new.

"Can I talk to you?" he asked quietly.
My stomach dropped.

The hallway lights buzzed faintly. Too loud. Too sharp. Too bright.
Max waited until the door closed behind me before he spoke.

"You know I love you," he said, voice low. "More than anything."

Fear stabbed under my ribs.
"And I'd never leave you," he continued. "I need you to know that before I tell you something."

"Tell me what?" My voice wobbled.
He inhaled.
Exhaled slowly.

"There's someone I've been seeing."
The words hit harder than I expected.
Harder than they should.

"Her name is Kelly."
My stomach twisted painfully.
He kept talking, but it all blurred.

"I didn't want to worry you. I was going to tell you after Silverstone. I didn't want you to feel replaced. You're still my priority."

Replaced.
My chest tightened.
"I'm not angry," I whispered.
And I wasn't.
I was terrified.

The last time someone I loved got distracted, got distant, got secretive
they didn't come home.
Max stepped toward me. "Are you okay?"
I nodded.
He frowned. "Y/N..."

"I'm fine," I whispered.
My voice cracked.
He heard it.
I felt it.

When I returned, Lando sat upright immediately.
"What happened?" he asked.
"Max has... a girlfriend." I replied breaking.

"Oh." Lando blinked, confused. "But... that's not a bad thing, right?"

To him, it wasn't.
To him, parents didn't disappear.
Family didn't vanish.
Love didn't cost lives.
He didn't understand.
None of them understood.

"I feel like..." My voice shook. "I feel like he's slipping away from me."

Lando froze, then crossed the room quickly, pulling me into his arms.
"Hey. Hey. No. He's not. You're not losing anyone. You're not."

But he didn't know the truth.
He didn't know I'd lost everyone before.
He didn't know how easy it was for people to disappear.
And he didn't know how terrified I was it would happen again.

Silverstone was coming.
And for the first time since Max adopted me, I felt the ground tilting under my feet—
fast, sharp, unstoppable.

Like another crash waiting to happen.