Page 58 of Red Flagged
I lifted my head. My face in the mirror looked alien, beautiful and wrong. The kind of woman who looked worshiped, not discarded. The kind of woman who would never be this stupid.
My eyes caught on the counter. His razor. My lipstick. Two toothbrushes in the same glass. The lavender salve we both used like a lifeline now.
A domestic altar to a life that might not exist by tomorrow. A space, split between us.
It hit me all at once, how much of this was temporary. How easily love could turn into a memory. How every piece of him I’d let touch me might soon belong to the past tense. And suddenly, I didn’t know how much of it was real. How much of this version of us—our rituals, our rhythm, our future—was mine to hold on to. Or how much of it he was already quietly letting go.
A knock broke through the silence. “Baby?” Callum’s voice was soft. Cautious. “You alright?”
My eyes burned. I stared at my reflection again, the woman who looked like she had it all under control. I gave her a smile. The kind I gave to the cameras, even when I felt like I was dying inside but no one was allowed to know.
“I’m fine,” I said, steady this time. “Ça va.”
The lie settled in my chest like cement. I reached for my perfume and spritzed it on my pulse points just to give my hands something to do. The scent of lavender and citrus filled the air, a ghost of comfort that felt like home when Callum didn’t now.
I straightened my shoulders, the way I always did before a race. The world didn’t need to see me bleed, only that I could keep driving. And now he was going to get the version of me everyone else did.
Then I opened the door. He was standing there, leaning against the wall like he was afraid to come closer. His eyes searched mine for an answer he couldn’t name.
I didn’t give him one.
Maybe this was what he meant. Protecting me from the inside out, even if it meant breaking me open first.
“I’m ready to go,” was all I offered, voice smooth as glass.
And I walked right past him, the way you walk past a closed door you know you’ll never open again.
I thought we were stronger than this. After everything—every crash, every kiss, every whisperedI’ve got you, I love you—I thought we were unbreakable.
But maybe that was the real lie. Because right now… I don’t think I’ve ever truly been safe.
The moment Aurélie excused herself,I knew something had broken. Not in the dramatic, cinematic kind of way. Not a plate smashing or a scream echoing off the walls.
No, this was the kind of break you didn’t hear until it was too late; the kind that split right through your ribcage without warning.
The soft closing of a door was louder than it should’ve been, cutting through the low hum of the suite’s air conditioning and the faint chatter from the hallway.
I’d hurt her. I didn’t know how bad yet. But I could feel it, like gravity between us had shifted.
Everyone else stayed frozen in place, maybe sensing the same thing, maybe not. Marco had stopped pacing. Kimi stared at the door like he expected it to burst open again. Ivy just pressed her hand to her lips like she’d witnessed the aftermath of a car wreck no one had been fast enough to stop.
But I followed Aurélie into the room without thinking. The silence that met me was heavy, carved out of something brittle. She wasn’t here. I glanced over and saw the bathroom door was closed.
I stood there for what felt like forever, watching the seam of the door like it might reveal something. I didn’t know what I was hoping for. That she’d come out laughing? That she’d say she understood? That she wasn’t hurt the way I feared and I was reading into this way too much?
The air in the room felt stale, too warm. Her perfume still hung in the air—lavender, citrus, a note of skin and salt. It smelled like her nerves had been here.
So I knocked once, gently. “Baby?”
No answer, but I couldn’t move, not until I heard her voice from behind the door.
My voice cracked. “You alright?”
“I’m fine.” Soft, steady, not a hitch in it. And I knew, in the deepest, most instinctive part of me, that she was lying. Not to them or to protect anyone else. She was lying tome.
She didn’t speak again for a long time. And when she finally did, it was in French this time. “Ça va.”
But it wasn’t. God, it wasn’t. She opened the door a moment later, and for a second, the sight of her hit me so hard I forgot how to breathe. She was glowing, regal, untouchable. Every inch of her looked controlled. Her eyes, her lips, the firm set of her shoulders. Like a woman created from frost and fire.
