i forget you aren't mine - lando norris - Chapter 3: Chapter 3

"every time we talk, we understate / how i know we both could die"
he doesn't mean to text her.
really. he doesn't.
it's one of those nights.
too quiet. hotel room too sterile. walls too white. his reflection in the mirror across the room looks like someone else. someone tired. someone lost.
he scrolls mindlessly, trying to distract himself, but every scroll lands on a photo that looks just enough like her.
a soft profile. a familiar laugh. even a voice in the background of someone's story that makes him sit up straight like he's been hit.
he types you up? and stares at it.
doesn't send it.
sends it.
regrets it.
waits.
when she replies — i am now — something in him clicks and breaks all at once.
she still answers.
even after all this time.
after all the ways he didn't show up. after all the things he said wrong, or didn't say at all.
more than i should, he tells her when she asks if he still thinks of her.
and that's the most honest thing he's said in weeks.
he wants to say i never stopped.
but he doesn't.
after the messages stop, he lies in bed staring at the ceiling like it might offer some kind of answer. it doesn't.
he replays her words over and over in his head. what are we doing. you're not supposed to be talking to me.
she's right.
and still, he'd do it again.
because no matter how far she goes, part of her lives in him.
he's tried to replace it. fill it. forget it.
but it's like trying to cover a burn with a bandaid. it always seeps through.
the next morning, he opens her instagram.
she hasn't posted in weeks.
same black and white story of a lamppost.
same old highlight covers.
no sign of anyone new.
no sign of him either, obviously.
he scrolls down to the buried pictures.
the ones they never deleted even when they probably should've.
there's one of her in his hoodie, sitting cross-legged on a hotel balcony, blurry with the city lights behind her. caption just says: home is a person.
he almost likes it.
pulls his thumb back just in time.
daniel catches him staring at the screen too long later that day.
"mate," he says with a look, "you okay?"
lando lies. "yeah. just tired."
daniel doesn't push. he never does.
just pats his shoulder. "well, if tired looks like heartbreak, maybe take a nap before press."
lando scrolls again that night.
doesn't text her. doesn't like anything. doesn't save anything either.
but he does read a caption she wrote once.
months ago.
probably not even about him.
it's the weirdest kind of missing. like grief, but you're still breathing.
and god, if that doesn't say it all.
there's a picture in his camera roll he refuses to delete.
they're lying in bed, her face tucked under his jaw, her hand on his chest. his eyes are closed but he remembers the exact way she smelled — like vanilla and something warmer. something he still can't name.
he looks at it sometimes when he's halfway between dreaming and waking.
when his chest feels too tight and his ribs ache in that invisible way.
he wonders if she still has any pictures of him.
if she looks at them when it's raining.
if she thinks of that weekend in monaco, the one where they couldn't stop touching each other like the world might end if they let go.
they both said space like it would solve something.
like they were being noble.
like distance wasn't just another word for unfinished.
she said she needed room to figure things out.
he said okay.
but he never meant it. not really.
he just wanted her to come back.
and now? now he's not sure if she will. or if he deserves it.
on sunday, he stares at his phone for hours.
doesn't call.
doesn't text.
but he almost does.
just to say:
i still feel you when i wake up.
i still hear your laugh in every quiet room.
i still love you.
but he doesn't.
because he's afraid.
because what if she doesn't reply this time?
daniel throws him a look during dinner.
"still thinking about her?"
lando freezes. then shrugs. "how'd you know?"
"you've been stirring that pasta for twenty minutes and haven't eaten a bite."
lando drops the spoon.
"i texted her last week."
daniel nods, like he figured.
"and?"
"she answered. but it felt worse."
"because it reminded you what you lost."
lando nods.
"you love her?"
"i never stopped."
daniel sighs. "then do something about it. or let it go. but don't sit here hoping she reads your mind."
lando looks at him.
"what if she doesn't want me anymore?"
daniel shrugs. "what if she does?"
later that night, he opens their thread.
the messages still sit there, soft and glowing.
just lonely.
missed you.
you answered anyway.
he wants to say something. anything.
but the cursor just blinks back at him.
instead, he goes to notes and types:
i still think of that morning in paris.
the sun was too bright and we were late for everything and you were wearing my shirt with no makeup on and i couldn't stop looking at you.
you caught me staring and just smiled like you knew i was done for.
i think i knew then, too.
he doesn't send it.
but he doesn't delete it either.
at 2:11am, he lies awake staring at the ceiling again.
and wonders:
does she still think of me too?