Driven to you - OP81

Between the lines and the pages

By the time they were sixteen, everyone assumed they were a couple — not because of PDA or declarations, but because they moved like two parts of one equation.

He waited for her after exams.
She pressed oranges into his hands before long study days.
He kissed her forehead in the quiet hallways.
She leaned her head on his shoulder in the common room.

Giovanni once said they weren't dating — they were orbiting.

Camilla joked that it was like watching two spies fall in love — subtle, intense, and obvious to anyone paying attention.

They celebrated small victories together:

Oscar's first junior podium — with Cocco crying through a grainy livestream on her laptop.
Cocco's first published essay in a youth legal journal — with Oscar printing it and taping it to his dorm wall.

......

They were seventeen when the conversation about marriage happened — not out of desperation, but out of clarity. They were studying for exams on the floor of Camilla's apartment, drinking terrible tea, the window open to spring air.

"I don't know what kind of people we'll be in ten years," Cocco said.

Oscar just looked at her, calm and sure. "I hope we're still us."

She paused. "You think we'll really stay together?"

He blinked. "We already are."

She kissed him, and wrote something in the Dreambook that night without showing him.

Years later, after they were married, he found it.

"If I ever forget why we got married so young, let me remember this night. The tea, the light, the quiet, the way he looked at me like I was something he found, not something he had to chase."

.....

They still filled pages of the Dreambook, though now the dreams were more real:

Cocco wrote:

"Start law school in London. Keep my name and take his heart."

Oscar wrote:

"Win the Formula Renault championship. Marry the girl who never missed a test, but always missed my race calls."

Even when he was racing in Europe, even when she was drowning in mock trials and legal essays, they always returned to that notebook — like it held the version of them that never got lost in time zones or pressure.

......

They were eighteen, in Cocco's childhood bedroom in Turin, when the conversation happened.

It wasn't planned. It was late, and they were tired. She was wearing one of his old shirts, curled under a blanket. He was lying on the floor, flipping through the Dreambook.

He said, quietly:

"What if we just did it?"

She looked over. "What?"

"Got married. When school's done."

She didn't even hesitate.

"Okay."

They told their families a few weeks later. Camilla teared up. Giovanni didn't say anything at first, but eventually muttered, "Yeah, I figured." Edoardo grilled Oscar for two hours over espresso in the kitchen and then pulled him into a hug so hard it cracked his back.