driving and detriment; norris

. 11 silverstone's sorrys

Bad blood
Taylor Swift

The hours after the crash are a blur. It doesn't register that Checo wins the race, and that his half of the garage errupts in loud cheers.

Her mind's too busy on processing what happened. She doesn't understand why Max kissed her. That somehow, she misinterpreted their whole conversation. And while at it, she even gave him the wrong signals. 

The feeling of guilt is consuming her. 

The second the checkered flag waves, she sprints out of the garage. The skin on her knuckles is close to splitting with how hard she's banging on Max' door, praying that he'll let her in.

There's no sign of life coming from the other side of the door, though. Either he's not in there, or he just doesn't want to see her. Defeated, she lets her hand fall back to her side. Accompanied by a loud sigh, she walks away from the door.

A few hours later, she's in a car back to the hotel. She doesn't really recall how she got here, or how she managed to get through the rest of her workday. Frantically, she's been calling Max about every ten minutes. She's left a lot of voicemails, apologizing over and over again, and sent even more text messages.

But they all remain unanswered.

The second the car stops in front of the hotel, she hurries upstares to Max' floor. Running over, she finds his room and starts knocking on the door. Her hands hit the wood in desperation, the sound echos through the empty hallway. 

Her hope spikes when she hears a faint sound of footsteps coming her way. The thumps get louder and louder, until she turns around an realizes it's Daniel rounding the corner.

The Aussie looks at her with surprise written on his face. It makes her take herself in,  she's frantically knocking on a random door, the remains of earlier tears still drying up on her cheeks. She has to admit, it's not a great look. 

"Hey Meads, what's wrong?" 

He crosses the remaining distance, rushing to her side to comfort her. 

"You know Max is okay, right?" he says, petting her shoulder, "Why are you so upset?"

It only takes one sympathetic smile of her friend, for her to burst out crying again. Through her sobs, she tries to explain herself to Daniel. Though he can't make out anything, because she interrupts herself with frantic breaths after every word.

The Australian takes her into his arms and leads them to his room at the end of the hallway. Sitting down on the bed, he hugs her in an almost brotherly comfort. In an attempt to calm her down, he rubs his hands up and down her arms. 

"Shh, it's okay," he whispers.

Still shaking violently in his embrace, she tries her best to calm down. Hiccups keep escaping from her throat, much to her frustration.

"Please, Meads. What happened?"

Her glossy eyes round up to her friend, but when she begins to explain everything for the second time, she has to shut them. She doesn't want to see the look of dissapointment on his face when she tells him that Max' crash was completely her fault.

"Right before the race, Max, eh, said he needed to talk to me," she pauses to take a deep breath,  "So we went to his room and he started talking about the pictures, but I didn't get it and then he said the pictures from baku and he asked if I cared and I said I didn't and," Meadow stops because she's out of breat, choking on her words. 

"Whoa, whoa, slow down," Daniel gives her shoulders a squeeze, "He asked about the pap's pics?"

She nods, a new set of tears pooling in her eyes.