Racing Hearts: Lights, Engine... Love!

CHAPTER 1: The future they hold

I never believed those who said that certain people change your life as soon as they enter your orbit.
It seemed to me an interview phrase, a glossy cover phrase, like people who needed to make sense of the chaos.
I, on the other hand, gave it a sense of chaos on my own.
I dominated it.
I was bending it.
I exceeded it at three hundred and twenty per hour.

Namtan
The first thing I heard that morning was the dry sound of my preparer's alarm clock vibrating on the marble table in the suite.
The second was my voice, hoarse with sleep.
«If you don't turn it off within three seconds, I swear I'll throw it off the balcony.»
A laugh came from the other room.
«You can't, champion. It costs more than your sense of patience.»
I opened one eye and stared at the ceiling.
Five stars, cream-coloured curtains, skyline that could be seen beyond the very high windows, fresh sheets and the satisfying weight of those who had won again the day before.
Another race.
Another podium.
Another article about me.
Namtan Tipnaree Bianchi, twenty-three years old, the youngest ruler of Formula One, unbeaten since the beginning of the season, arrogant enough to be hated, good enough to force everyone to shut up.
And above all: unattainable.
That term followed me everywhere. On the track, in interviews, at gala dinners, in paddocks.
Ir-rag-giun-gi-bi-le.
Which was quite ironic, considering how many people tried to reach me anyway.
I sat up, my brown hair in a mess on my shoulders, a black tank top and the team's shorts on. I looked at the phone on the bedside table.
Ninety-seven notifications.
Twenty-one messages.
Three invitations to private parties.
Two requests for extra interviews.
A Swedish model who wrote to me: «You still owe me breakfast, pilot.» -I barely smiled, I would never answer.
Emi, my athletic trainer, came in from the other room, with a coffee in her hand and the face of someone who had already been practising for two hours just to make me feel guilty.
«Stand up.»
«What a military tone. Is it because you miss the army or because you like to see me suffer?»
«All of them.»
I took coffee and took a sip. «Program?»
«Training, briefing, simulator, meeting with sponsors, dinner.»
«And the time to breathe?»
«Not expected.»
I grimaced. «What a toxic regime.»
«Said by one who yesterday smiled in the room and then demolished a seven-time champion in turn five.»
«I didn't demolish it. I humiliated him with grace.»
Emi laughed, shaking her head. «You're unbearable.»
«Yes, but I win.»
That ended the discussion, as always.
I got out of bed and went to the window. Below me the city was already alive, sparkling in its ostentatious luxury, with shiny black cars, mirrored facades and people too well dressed to be honest. An elegant, precise, almost sterile world.
I loved places like that just because of the contrast they created with me. Because I was disciplined, yes.
But also instinct.
Noise.
Danger.
And lately, according to the internet, also a giant red flag. It was enough for me to open a news story to read it again. Namtan Bianchi, pure talent and unmanageable heart: too many situationships, zero feelings. The models pass, she stays.
I rolled my eyes. «Is it still writing crap about me?» Emi asked from behind.
«It depends. Do you count as bullshit if they say I'm an emotional threat?»
«No. That's a diagnosis.»
I threw her a pillow. She took it on the fly.
«Anyway,» she said, «tonight there is also an event with an international cast. Cinema, fashion, luxury sponsors, photographers, the whole circus. Try not to flirt with anyone.»
«You know I never promise the fake.»
«Namtan.»
«Emi.»
She looked at me in silence. I drank another sip of coffee. «I'll do my worst.»
To tell the truth, I didn't really care what they said.
Not quite. When you win so much, soon and without asking anyone's permission, people need to reduce you to something simple. The bitch. The privileged. The pretty face with talent. The man-eater, or in my case whatever the correct feminine of that word was.
The truth, however, was less spectacular.
I didn't play with anyone's feelings.
I just didn't stop long enough for them to become a problem.
The track had taught me that hesitation makes you lose tenths.
Life had taught me that sometimes it makes you lose a lot more. That's why I ran.
Always.
Even outside the passenger compartment.
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Film
The thing I hated most about people was their confidence in believing they knew me.
They looked at me on the red carpet, on the covers, in the movie trailers, the beauty campaigns, and they immediately decided what I was.
Beautiful.
Cold.
Snobby.
Unattainable.
A woman built so well that she no longer has anything human.
The funny part was that almost no one noticed the tiny tremor that took my hands before an important interview.
Or how much it bothered me to take off my heels as soon as I returned to the room and finally stay alone, in silence, with makeup that was starting to give way and the real face that came back to the surface.
«Movie, come down in twenty minutes.»
My assistant's voice came from the door of the suite.
«I know.»
I was sitting in front of the mirror, wearing an ivory-coloured silk robe and a makeup artist staring at my face with an almost religious concentration.
«Don't move,» he told me.
«I'm barely breathing.»
«Breathe less.»
«I love working with reasonable people.»
The makeup artist smiled. Not my assistant.
Bonnie, my assistant, almost never smiled during events. She had the sacred mission to protect me from the world and from my instinct to want to escape from everything five minutes before appearing perfect.
Bonnie was reading me the program of the evening with the same delicacy as a judgement.
«Red carpet at eight. Interview with Vogue Asia. Then panel with the director, the brand director and—»
«And an unspecified number of people convinced that I'm nice only if I smile with my teeth.»
«Film.»
«Bonnie.»
«No scenes tonight.»
I turned slowly on the chair, meeting his gaze in the mirror.
«I don't make scenes. It's the others who stir in my presence.»
The make-up artist laughed softly, then immediately tried to hold back. May sighed.
«Did you sleep?»
The question came to me with an annoying precision. Enough to make me look away.
«Yes.»
«How many hours?»
«Whole time.»
«Film.»
«Three.»
Bonnie didn't say anything for a few seconds. It was her way of making me feel all the weight of what she didn't want to say in front of others.
Three hours.
Three hours broken by a nervous sleep, by fast images, lights that cut through the darkness, wet asphalt, hands clenched too hard on the steering wheel, my voice rising, his breaking, then the void.
There was not a night, since then, in which the memory did not find a way to return.
Sometimes it came like a flash.
Others like a smell.
Gasoline, rain, cold skin.
And I stopped breathing properly.
«I'm fine,» I said, looking back at myself in the mirror.
It was the lie that came out best for me.
Bonnie approached and barely lowered her voice. «If you want to skip the party later, I'll invent something.»
I shook my head. «No. If I stay alone I think about it more.»
She already knew that sentence. It was my worst and favourite strategy: to keep moving until the body gave way before the head.
«As you wish,» she said.
Then she took the tablet and added, with a more neutral tone: «Ah, tonight there will also be the new Formula One star. Namtan Bianchi.»
The makeup artist made a half-interested sound. «The one everyone is talking about?»
«The one who always wins,» Bonnie confirmed.
I took a lipstick from the table and looked at it without really looking at it. «I know her.»
Bonnie raised an eyebrow. «Really?»
«Not personally. But it's impossible not to see her somewhere. It's on every cover, every interview, every feed. He has that face of a person who knows he's always right.»
The makeup artist smiled again. «And if she really had it?»
I put down the lipstick. «Worse. People like that are unbearable.»
Bonnie still saw the program. «It seems that she is brilliant, chaotic, cheeky. The brand loves her.»
«The brand loves those who generate attention. It's not the same thing.»
«On the internet they paint it as a red flag.»
At that point I snorted a laugh.
«The Internet paints anyone who has a little freedom as a red flag. Especially if it's a woman and doesn't apologise.» Bonnie studied me in silence.
«Don't tell me you're defending her.»
«I'm not defending her. I'm saying that the principle irritates me.»
But in reality it was something else, more subtle.
Perhaps the fact that certain types of women are recognised from afar.
Those that the world misreads on purpose because they are easier to hate than to understand.

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AUTHOR ANGLE:
Hi guyssss this is my first storyyyy! I had this idea from a lot and it came out, it's for now just a random thinggg but let me know what you think about it, if i can continue it and hope y'all will like ittt!!
Se you soon!!