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ꫂ᭪݁Oscar Ziegler is seventeen in ten days.
He won't make it.
But before that - before lap twelve of a race in April, before his heart decides it's done - there are three years of cold English mornings, karting circuits, and a girl with pink hair who beats him in qualifying the first day they meet and never quite lets him forget it.
Elaine Wallace didn't come to England to make friends. She came to race. She's Egyptian-German, she's fierce, she's the kind of driver people underestimate exactly once, and she has no idea what to do with a boy who looks at her like she's a problem he hasn't solved yet.
Oscar is Australian, analytical, and running from more things than he'll ever admit. He has ADHD he's learned to weaponize, a heart condition he's chosen to ignore, and a father whose version of love left marks that don't show on the outside. He doesn't talk much. When he does, he means it.
They're rivals first. Then something adjacent to friends. Then something neither of them has a word for yet.
Love With an Expiry Date is told from both their perspectives across three years - 2013 to 2016 - through karting seasons and school hallways, through first fights and almost-moments, through the slow and stubborn process of two very guarded people deciding to trust each other.
It is a love story. It just doesn't end the way love stories are supposed to.
Inspired by real events in motorsport. Featuring themes of domestic violence, chronic illness, racism, and grief. Please read the full warnings before starting.⋆˚꩜。
COPYING AND/OR ADAPTATION PROHIBITED