Epilogue
Lily
The roar of the Silverstone crowd was so loud it almost drowned out my engine.
I settled deeper into the seat, my fingers grabbing the steering wheel for dear life, as the mechanics made their final adjustments.
Through my visor, I could see the Union Jack flags rippling in the July wind, a sea of red, white, and blue stretching as far as the eye could see.
One full year since my gutting loss at Silverstone, and we were back with another pole position.
“Radio check, Lily.” My race engineer’s voice crackled in my ear.
“Loud and clear,” I replied, running through my mental pre-race checklist.
The championship standings flashed on the Jumbotron across from the large grandstand at the start of the race.
After twelve races, I led Henri by eighteen points—a comfortable margin, but not insurmountable.
Not with another fourteen races still to go.
Last year, he’d edged me out by two points in the final race in Abu Dhabi, his Hermes car crossing the line just ahead of my Rennen.
The trophy presentation had been bittersweet: pride at watching my boyfriend claim what he’d fought so hard for, mixed with the burning desire to be standing in his place.
This year, the script had flipped.
“One minute to formation lap,” Mark announced.
I glanced at the timing screen, finding Henri’s name in P3. He’d qualified brilliantly yesterday, but a mistake during Q3 had cost him the front row.
Just as well. After he won Monaco this year, I told him Silverstone was mine.
The formation lap began, and I fell into the familiar rhythm, weaving to heat the tires, testing the brakes, feeling for any inconsistencies in the car’s behavior.
Silverstone stretched out before me, every turn and apex etched into my muscle memory from countless laps over the years.
This circuit haunted my dreams, a victory here always just out of reach.
But not today.
The lights began their sequence, and time seemed to slow. Five red lights, each one illuminating with mechanical precision. Then lights out.
My car launched forward, the acceleration pressing me back into the seat.
Turn 1 approached fast, the pack bunching as we all fought for position.
I held my line, defending the inside, as the driver in P2 tried to dive up my left side through the turn, the high-speed complex that separated the truly brave from the merely fast.
Or, at least, that was what the commentators liked to say.
By lap ten, I’d pulled out a three-second gap to Georgia in P2, the car singing beneath me. Every input felt telepathic, the car responding to the slightest touch of the wheel. This was what I lived for, that perfect harmony between me and the car.
“Henri’s fastest lap,” my engineer informed me on lap twenty-three. “Purple in sectors one and two.”
I smiled inside my helmet. Of course he was pushing. That was Henri—never giving up, always finding another tenth of a second somewhere. Even now, after everything we’d been through, we were still racing each other with everything we had.
The pit stops came and went, a perfectly executed 2.3-second stop that maintained my lead. Henri had gone long on his first stint, trying an alternate strategy, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the pace advantage. By lap forty-five, with seven laps remaining, I had a twelve-second cushion.
“Manage the tires,” my engineer said. “We don’t need to push anymore.”
But I did push. Not because I needed to, but because this was Silverstone, and I was leading my home race with a handful of laps to go, and I wanted to savor every single second of it.
Three laps to go.
Two laps to go.
Final lap.
The crowd was on their feet now. I could see them in my peripheral vision, a blur of motion and color as I powered past the grandstands.
My throat felt tight, tears threatening behind my visor through each curve.
The checkered flag waved in the distance, and I crossed the line with my fist pumping the air.
“P1, Lily! P1! Silverstone winner! Brilliant drive!”
The radio erupted with cheers from the entire team, but I could barely hear them over the pounding of my heart. I did my cool-down lap in a daze, waving to the grandstands, letting the magnitude of it wash over me.
Silverstone. Winner. The two words I’d been chasing my entire career.
And this time, no ride height was going to take this from me. Felix had checked the margins himself.
I parked in the P1 spot, the number-one board waiting for me like a promise finally fulfilled. My hands shook as I disconnected my radio headphones from the steering wheel and hauled myself out of the cockpit. The moment my feet touched the ground, my knees nearly buckled.
The team swarmed me, hands slapping my helmet and my shoulders, voices shouting congratulations. I pulled off my helmet, gulping in the sweet English air, tasting victory on my tongue.
Then I saw him.
Henri was pushing through the crowd, still in his race suit, having apparently abandoned his own post-race obligations to get to me. With his helmet off, his hazel eyes were bright, that devastating smile breaking across his face as he closed the distance between us.
“You absolute maniac,” he said, breathless. “That defense through during lap thirty-two—”
“—was perfectly legal,” I shot back, grinning.
“Was brilliant,” he corrected.
Then his hands were cupping my face, and he was kissing me right there in front of everyone—the cameras, the team, the hundred thousand fans in the grandstands, the millions watching around the world.
I melted into him, wrapping my arms around his neck, the rest of the world fading to background noise.
When we finally broke apart, his forehead rested against mine. “Your home win,” he murmured. “You finally got it.”
“Our home,” I corrected softly. “We both live here now, remember?”
His smile widened, and there was no trace of the haunted look that had plagued him a year ago. Therapy had helped. Time had helped. Racing together, supporting each other through the highs and lows, had helped most of all.
“I don’t care how cute you look winning this race, I’m coming for you in Hungary.”
“I’m counting on it,” I replied.
Because that was the beauty of it, wasn’t it? We could love each other fiercely and still race each other harder. Could celebrate each other’s victories and mourn each other’s defeats. Be partners off the track and rivals on it, and somehow, impossibly, that made both parts stronger.
My media officer was frantically waving me toward the cool-down room, where the podium ceremony awaited. I kissed Henri once more, quick and fierce, then pulled away.
“See you up there.” I grinned.
As I jogged toward the cool-down room, my Silverstone win finally secured, the Championship lead building ever so slightly, I couldn’t stop smiling. But the World Driver’s Championship was far from over. The battles with Henri, on track and off, would continue.
And I wouldn’t have it any other way.