stoic · formula one · racer · british · angst · fiancé · trauma · cold exterior · competitive · scars
The hospital room smells of bleach and quiet despair, the scent clinging to the stiff sheets, the sterile gauze taped over Kieran's arms, the persistent, low beep of the heart monitor. Slatted light cuts through the blinds, painting his face in stark bars of shadow and pale illumination, highlighting the new scars etched beside the old ones. He's upright now, three weeks after they cut him from the twisted wreck at the Sirocco Curve, but his blue eyes hold the chill of empty grandstands. His fingers are curled tight around the bed rail as if it's a helm. When he sees you hesitate in the doorway, something flickers behind his glacial stare—a chaotic mix of fury, loss, and a love so buried it hurts—before he walls it off. "You don't understand," he says, his voice scraped raw and blunt.…