30

Marianna.

Here's something they don't tell you about going viral: it happens while you're asleep.

One minute you're a nobody—a Sports Performance Specialist (entry-level) at a Miami rehabilitation clinic, anonymous enough to walk through life without anyone caring what your face looks like—and the next minute you're awake at 4 AM Monaco time because your phone won't stop buzzing and Jill has sent you approximately 847 messages in all caps.

I squint at the cracked iPhone screen, still half-asleep, still wearing the Kinetic polo I was too exhausted to change out of.

Jill: MARIANNA.

Jill: MARIANNA WAKE UP.

Jill: WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME.

Jill: I HAD TO FIND OUT FROM T*****R.

Jill: T*****R MARIANNA.

Jill: LIKE A COMMON PEASANT.

What the fuck?

I scroll up, trying to find context. There's a link. I tap it with the coordination of someone who hasn't slept properly in three days.

And then I'm awake.

Very, very awake.

F1 DRIVER OLIVER HALE SPOTTED WITH MYSTERY WOMAN AT MONACO GP

The photo is grainy—clearly taken from a distance, probably someone's phone in the hospitality area—but it's unmistakably us. Oliver's lips on my forehead. My face turned up toward him, eyes closed, expression that could be interpreted as anything from "grateful colleague" to "woman being proposed to in a rom-com."

The internet, naturally, chose the latter interpretation.

I keep scrolling. There are more photos. Oliver's arm around my shoulder. Me laughing at something he said. The two of us walking through the paddock together, which happened approximately seventeen times because that's literally how paddocks work—you walk through them with other people.

But context, as they say, is for people who aren't desperate for engagement.

The comments section is... educational.

@f1girlboss: who is she??? she's cute actually.

@haleszn: Finally! Ollie deserves someone normal, not another model

@velocefan01: She works for Kinetic. Saw the polo. Probably just staff.

@racingwag: "just staff" don't get forehead kisses like that lol

@paddockinsider: She's been at every Alpine session this week. My source says Hale specifically requested her.

@meangirlsf1: I mean... she's okay I guess? He could do better

@formulaone_tea: she looks like a dollar store victoria justice im sorry but it's true ?

@olliesarmy: Leave her alone omg you people are so weird

@gridgossip: not to be mean but she looks like she works at a forever 21. girl get a stylist if you're gonna be a wag

@halestan2024: She's literally just existing?? Why are we so cruel to women

@f1paddockdrama: Plot twist what if she's dating BOTH Hale AND Richter? She was photographed near Veloce hospitality too ?

The last comment has 2,347 likes.

Dollar store Victoria Justice.

Forever 21 employee.

Cool. Great. Love that for me.

I scroll through more comments, the way you pick at a scab even though you know it's going to bleed. Some are nice—genuinely nice, defending a stranger they've never met against the casual cruelty of the internet. But the mean ones stick. They always do.

@wagsofthegrid: her face is giving "free with purchase."

@f1hotties: 4/10 at best. Oliver can do SO much better

@paddock_queen: The way she's clinging to him... very desperate energy

I want to die.

No, scratch that. I want to travel back in time, find fourteen-year-old me writing that stupid love letter, and shake her until she develops better coping mechanisms and also maybe a thicker skin.

I set my I*******m to private before I can see what's happening there. Probably nothing good. Probably people dissecting my every post, my every photo, finding evidence of my fundamental inadequacy in the curve of my smile or the brand of my clothes or whatever metric we're using today to determine a woman's worth.

My phone buzzes again. FaceTime from Jill.

I accept it, because apparently I'm a masochist.

"MARIANNA ELENA REYES."

Jill's face fills my screen, looking simultaneously furious and delighted, which is a combination only she can pull off. Behind her, I can see our Brooklyn apartment—the water stain on the ceiling, the IKEA bookshelf that's slowly collapsing under the weight of her romance novel collection.

"Hi, Jill."

"Don't you 'hi, Jill' me." She's pointing at the camera like she can physically poke me through the screen. "You went to MONACO. You got KISSED by an F1 DRIVER. You are TRENDING on T*****R. And I had to find out from a STAN ACCOUNT?"

"It wasn't a kiss kiss," I say weakly. "It was a forehead kiss. Like a... friendly forehead kiss. A colleague forehead kiss."

"Marianna. Babe. Bestie. Light of my life." Jill takes a deep breath. "Colleagues do not kiss each other's foreheads in the Monaco Grand Prix paddock surrounded by cameras while looking at each other like they're about to recite wedding vows."

"It wasn't like that—"

"Was there soft lighting?"

"It was sunset, so technically—"

"Was there romantic tension?"

"No! He was just excited about scoring points—"

"Was he hot?"

I open my mouth. Close it.

"That's not—"

"IT'S EXTREMELY RELEVANT." Jill is practically vibrating through the screen.

The flight from Nice to Miami is eleven hours of recycled air and existential dread.

I spend most of it alternating between dozing and refreshing my notifications, watching the discourse evolve in real-time. The story has been picked up by actual motorsport news sites now, which feels surreal—my face on Autosport, on The Race, on RaceFans, like I'm someone who matters instead of just a girl who happened to be standing next to a driver at the right wrong moment.

By the time I land, I've memorized every cruel comment and forgotten every kind one. That's how brains work, apparently. Negativity bias. The evolutionary remnant of a time when remembering threats kept you alive.

Now it just keeps you miserable.

It's 8 PM when I finally make it back to Duane's building. The lobby is empty, the elevator silent, the hallway stretching before me like a promise of solitude. He's not here. Won't be here for weeks. I have the whole apartment to myself—can walk around in my underwear, eat cereal for dinner, have loud FaceTime calls without worrying about being overheard.

Freedom.

The apartment is dark when the elevator opens. I flip on the lights, drop my bag by the door, and immediately call Jill back.

"You survived!" Her face appears on my screen, now framed by what looks like a face mask and a glass of wine. "I was worried the paparazzi would eat you alive."

"No paparazzi." I wander into the kitchen, propping the phone against the expensive coffee maker that I still don't know how to use. "Just eleven hours of recycled airplane air and a middle-aged man who kept trying to see what I was watching on my phone."

"Creepy."

"Very."

I grab a glass of water, settling onto one of the barstools at the kitchen island. The apartment feels different when you're alone in it—bigger, somehow, and quieter. All that grey marble absorbing sound like a tomb.

"So," Jill says, with the tone of someone about to begin an interrogation. "Now that you're safely on American soil and can't escape this conversation. Oliver Hale."