**June 3, 2026**

I don’t even know where to start.

Maybe with the quiet. The kind that wraps around me when the engines stop, when the paddock clears out, and it’s just me and the hum of the city outside the window. Monaco never really sleeps, but right now, neither can I.

I bought groceries today. Strawberries, because you love them. Basil, because you make that pasta dish I can’t get enough of. A loaf of bread that’s probably stale by now because I left it sitting on the counter while I just... stood there. Thinking. Remembering the way you smile when you’re chopping vegetables, how you always nudge me out of the way when I try to “help” and end up making a mess. I can’t cook worth a damn, but I love watching you do it. There’s something about the way you move in the kitchen—like you’re exactly where you’re meant to be. I envy that.

I envy a lot of things about you, actually. The way you can walk into a room and make it feel like home. The way you laugh when I do something stupid, which, let’s be honest, is often. The way you still look at me like I’m something special, even after all these years.

I keep thinking about the first time I saw you. Not on the track—that came later—but in the pits at that karting championship when we were kids. You were covered in dirt, your helmet crooked, and you grinned at me like you already knew we’d end up here. I didn’t believe in fate then. I do now.

I don’t write in this thing often. I’m not good with words like this—never have been. But today, after the race, after the noise and the speed and the way my hands still shake when I think about how close I came to losing you last season... I needed to. Needed to remind myself of the things that matter. The way your voice sounds first thing in the morning. The way you fit against me when we’re both too tired to do anything but breathe.

I don’t know who’s going to read this, if anyone ever does. Maybe no one. Maybe you, someday, if I’m brave enough to let you. But for now, it’s just for me. A place to put all the things I don’t say out loud.

I love you. That’s the big one. The one that scares me the most, even now. I love you more than the track, more than the trophies, more than the roar of the crowd when we stand on that podium together. You’re my quiet place. My home.

And I think, if I had to choose between winning every race for the rest of my life or just... this—just you, just us, just the way you look at me like I’m your whole world—I’d choose this. Every time.