Work Text:
Monza, Italy — July.
The air above the racetrack shimmered like overheated metal, wavering and distorting the outlines of the distant grandstands. A thick, multilayered smell enveloped the space: the sharp ozone from a recent discharge of static electricity, the acrid stench of burning rubber, the pungent odor of kerosene — and then, unexpectedly, something sweet broke through this industrial symphony. Whether it was the scent of overripe peaches from a nearby market stall, someone's delicate perfume with soft notes of vanilla, or perhaps just an illusion born of the hot asphalt that seemed ready to melt off the track under the merciless July sun.
The crowd roared, but not like at a soccer match. It was an absolutely crazy sound. As if the air itself was trembling in time with the racing cars, with whistling coming from all sides. Every time the sports cars zoomed past at a speed that would make an ordinary person's blood run cold and heart stop for a moment, a wave of delight swept through the stands: shrieks, ecstatic yells, nervous laughter from those who had never been so close to this dangerous, intoxicating element.
Effie Trinket had never been to a car race before. And honestly, she would have been better off staying ignorant. The noise and the general madness gave her a headache.
She stood by the fence, clutching a paper cup of cold espresso in one hand — the coffee had long since turned into a bitter sludge, but she still brought it to her lips from time to time, as if it gave her confidence. In her other hand was a smartphone: the screen was invisible due to glare, the sun reflecting off the glossy surface so harshly that it was impossible to see anything. Effie automatically turned the device at a different angle, but it didn't help — another ray of light slashed across her eyes.
Nearby, Maisilee Donner, her friend and also colleague (both were makeup artists for one of the modeling agencies), was fidgeting. She was happily screaming somewhere into the distance, waving a homemade sign with crooked letters. The sign trembled in the wind, alternately covering and revealing Maisilee's face. She didn't care at all about her appearance: flushed, ecstatic, with smeared lipstick. Right now, she bore little resemblance to the cold, disciplined person she successfully pretended to be at work — especially when she and Effie were summoned by their boss, a most unpleasant woman named Drusilla, who desperately tried to look younger than her years, spewed venom at all her young competitors, and made plans to eliminate her ex-husband, who kept ruining her already far-from-perfect reputation.
Effie couldn't distinguish the names, couldn't catch the numbers, couldn't focus on the car numbers. She only saw blurs — orange, blue, black — smeared, flashing, merging into a single swirling mass. The roar of the engines filled everything, making her ears ring. The world seemed to have shrunk, leaving room only for this madness. She was only staying because of Donner.
"Do you even understand what's happening?!" Maisilee leaned toward her, almost shouting to be heard over the din. Her long blonde hair whipped Effie across the cheek.
Effie thought for a moment, watching as another car raced past — so close that for an instant she imagined she was behind the wheel, feeling the engine, hearing the screech of tires on asphalt. Then she slowly turned to her friend, gave a weak smile, and answered honestly:
"No. But the coffee here is terrible."
Maisilee burst out laughing, grabbed her hand. And somewhere very close by, an engine roared again — and the crowd exploded in applause.
Just then, the final lap came to an end — with a sharp screech and an explosion of jubilation. It seemed as if the stands themselves were shaking from the fans. The crowd seemed to lose its mind: some were weeping with joy, others laughing until they cried, and somewhere to the left, glass shattered — a bottle of prosecco had burst, spraying foam and shards onto the ground.
The winner — a red car with number twelve — surged ahead so fiercely that a chill ran down Effie's spine. The car stopped, still trembling, as if it were alive and catching its breath after an exhausting ordeal. Then the door opened, and the driver got out.
The young man slowly removed his helmet — and for a second, all the noise disappeared somewhere. Everyone's eyes were fixed on his sharp silhouette against the sunset sky. Light hair, wet with sweat, stuck to his forehead; dark streaks of dirt stood out on his cheekbones, like battle scars. His eyes — too blue for such a hot day — seemed almost transparent, like ice, and there was not a trace of a smile in them. He accepted congratulations as something inevitable: nodded briefly, shook hands, replied with a few words devoid of gratitude, as if the victory meant nothing to him. Just a clause in a contract, a formality to be ticked off.
Someone handed him a bottle of champagne. He took it without looking, drank greedily straight from the bottle, not caring about manners or the fact that he was celebrating his triumph so quickly. Drops ran down his chin, falling onto his racing suit. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and finally lifted his gaze — not toward the crowd, not toward the photographers, but somewhere into the distance, beyond reach, as if something more important than this victory awaited him beyond the horizon. Or maybe he was planning to go straight to his family, who couldn't be here?
"Who is that?" Effie asked, trying to shout over a man beside her whose ecstatic roar nearly drowned out the crowd's noise and worsened her headache.
Maisilee looked at her as if she were an alien. The expression on Donner's face was so eloquent that Effie might as well have admitted she'd never seen the sun.
"Are you kidding?" she exclaimed, throwing up her hands so abruptly she nearly dropped her sign. "You've really never heard of him? Haymitch Abernathy — one of the youngest and most promising racers in Europe! They call him 'The Thunder' — because he appears on the track suddenly, like a clap of thunder, and leaves everyone behind."
"Sounds pretentious," Effie said skeptically, involuntarily staring at the winner's figure.
And then, a few moments later, something happened that Maisilee would later call an "unplanned injury": Effie tried to take a step back to get out of the blinding sunlight and stepped on someone's foot. Specifically, on a foot in an expensive sneaker, which in an instant turned beige from dust and the imprint of her heel.
"Motherf***er," came a low, slightly hoarse voice from above, tinged with equal parts irritation and fatigue.
Effie looked up.
In front of her stood Haymitch Abernathy. He hadn't bothered to change out of his racing suit, which still bore a champagne stain. He smelled of sweat, gasoline, and something elusive — maybe adrenaline, though Effie knew perfectly well that adrenaline didn't have a smell.
Up close, he was nothing like a glossy magazine hero. Quite a careless style. She noticed his stubble, which gave his face a harsh, almost predatory expression, a chip in his left front tooth that he clearly wasn't in a hurry to fix, and a fresh bruise under his eye with a faint reddening along the edges.
"Sorry. Are you okay?" Effie asked, looking at her foot still resting on his sneaker, and quickly snapped out of her stupor, correcting her mistake.
"I just won a race," Haymitch said in a tone that suggested this explained everything in the world. "And now it's turning into some kind of… madhouse…" He paused, ran a quick, appraising glance over her from head to toe, "Who are you, anyway? Photographer? Journalist?"
"Makeup artist," Effie replied, shifting from foot to foot, trying not to notice how his eyes lingered on her lips for a moment. "You have a spot on your face."
She meant the dirt. The dark streak on his cheekbone, like a glove mark. Then Effie suddenly realized that this was an impolite remark. That's what a headache does... She, too, had forgotten her good manners. But to her surprise, Haymitch didn't take it as an insult. His brows drew together, but then a smirk appeared on his lips.
"Usually, girls tell me something different after a race," he smirked, and in that smirk there was so much fatigue and yet so much self-assurance that Effie suddenly found it funny.
"What exactly? Ask for a joyride or private driving lessons?" she retorted, raising an eyebrow.
Haymitch looked at her intently, again sizing her up from head to toe.
"Where did you even come from?" he asked, tilting his head slightly, as if trying to figure her out like a complex puzzle.
"From London. Arrived two days ago," Effie shrugged, trying to keep her composure. "Now excuse me, I need to find some decent coffee."
And she turned and walked away, leaving him standing in the middle of the rejoicing crowd. Haymitch froze for a moment, not quite believing that someone could just leave like that, without trying to linger next to the winner, and then slowly raised a glass of lemonade that some fan had handed him to his lips, but didn't drink. He just watched the retreating blonde, squinting against the aggressive assault of the sun's rays.
Maisilee found Effie thirteen minutes later, after Trinket had managed to send her a message in their chat telling her what had happened.
"You shot him down in first-class style!" she blurted out, grabbing Effie by the elbow. "You should have taken a picture of him at that moment! That macho racer probably isn't used to girls not caring about his person."
"He smells of motor oil," Effie replied calmly, adjusting her bag strap. "And he has no taste. White sneakers with a red racing suit — that's a fail."
Maisilee threw her head back and laughed loudly, and all around them it became noisy again: fans shouting, horns honking, photographers' ecstatic cries as they captured shots of the winners.
"What does it matter what he's wearing?" she lowered her voice, winking conspiratorially. "Effie, we've got more important things to do."
Effie just nodded, but something inside her gave a strange pang. Something like a premonition. She involuntarily glanced over her shoulder.
Haymitch was still standing there, surrounded by people, yet somehow separate from them. Someone patted him on the shoulder or handed him a phone for a selfie, but he just nodded, absently looking around, as if searching for someone. Their eyes met for a moment. He raised his glass in a strange, almost sarcastic toast. Effie quickly looked away.
"Let's get out of here," she said, quickening her pace and taking Donner's arm. "I still want some decent coffee. And maybe some ice cream."
"Ice cream? Did I hear that right?" Maisilee grinned slyly, obediently walking beside her. "You've finally decided to blow off your diet, Effie. And you know, I like it."
Effie said nothing. The premonition didn't go away. It pulsed somewhere beneath her ribs, like a reminder: this day, this race, this strange racer with the chipped tooth and bruised eye — all of it was just the beginning of something bigger.
Four days later. A gas station on the outskirts of Monza.
Effie stood by her rented Fiat 500 and felt like a complete idiot. The map she'd bought at the gas station turned out to be in Italian — not a single familiar word, just mysterious city names and winding road lines. The GPS on her phone had died exactly when she needed the turn for Genoa, and the gas gauge was almost on empty — the red zone winked threateningly, reminding her of reality. But that was the least of her problems. At least she could fill up now and solve one problem.
She had already walked around the gas station twice, asked "Dov'è l'uscita?" three times to different employees, each time getting different answers, and once nearly burst into tears from the sudden feeling that her long-awaited freedom had suddenly turned into total loneliness. Everywhere, August reigned, full of promises and the taste of lingering summer, and she stood here, helpless, with a useless map in her hands.
"Tourist?"
She recognized the voice before the face.
Haymitch Abernathy stood two meters away, leaning against a black Porsche Cayman that undoubtedly cost more than her yearly salary. He wore simple jeans, a gray T-shirt, and those same white sneakers — no longer snow-white, but ivory-colored, with barely visible scratches on the toes. Without the racing suit and helmet, he looked younger. And at the same time — more dangerous. In his relaxed posture, the casual tilt of his head, there was some hidden strength, as if he always knew what would happen next.
"Are you stalking me?" Effie asked, trying to sound confident and not betray her confusion.
"I live around here," he said, nodding toward a narrow road leading off into an olive grove. "Well, not here, but about ten minutes away. And you look lost."
"I'm not lost," Effie lifted her chin. "I'm studying alternative routes."
He smirked. But he definitely wasn't laughing at her. There was something almost friendly in that quick movement of his lips.
"Give me the map," he said, holding out his hand.
She didn't want to give it to him. But he already took it from her hands, spread it out on the hood of her little car, and ran his finger along the route, as if he weren't studying a map but reading an old friend's messages.
"You're going to Genoa? Then you should have turned right at the traffic light, not left," he explained. "Now you'll have to take a detour through Savona. Not fatal, if you're not afraid of winding roads."
"I'm not afraid," Effie said, trying to sound firm.
"You should be," Haymitch replied without looking up. His finger stopped on a winding road hugging the coast. "Some of those turns have no guardrails. One mistake, and you're in the sea."
She looked at his hands. Long fingers, weathered knuckles, an old callus on his palm. All clear evidence of countless hours of training behind the wheel. He even held the map as if it were a steering wheel: confidently, with a barely noticeable tension in his wrists, as if ready at any moment to turn sharply or accelerate.
"Why are you helping me?" Effie asked, surprised at how easily the question came out.
Haymitch finally looked up. His eyes were gray — not blue, as they had seemed in the sun, but definitely gray, with a dark ring around the iris, and in them was such weariness that for a second Effie wanted to touch his cheek, to cheer him up, to erase that shadow that seemed to have been in him for years, taking root.
"Because you didn't ask for a selfie with me," Haymitch smirked again. "But seriously — just the way things turned out. I don't believe in fate, but it's interesting that we've run into each other again. By the way, what's your name?"
"Effie Trinket," she replied.
"So formal," Haymitch tilted his head slightly.
They stood at the gas station under the Italian sun, and somewhere behind Haymitch, speakers were playing an old Patty Pravo song. The melody was familiar yet elusive, like a childhood memory. And Effie suddenly realized she didn't want to leave right now. She didn't want to unfold that useless map again and wander unfamiliar roads alone.
"You said you live around here," she said, trying to sound casual. "I mean, here — in this town?"
"I mean, I'm renting a house on a villa that has a coffee maker," he smirked, and Effie looked at him in surprise. He remembered her words. That was unexpected. "And if you're as good with coffee as you hinted, you can prove it."
"I wasn't hinting," Effie frowned, but the corners of her mouth involuntarily almost formed a smile. "I've tried different kinds and been to many coffee shops."
"Words won't prove it," Haymitch shrugged, and something like a challenge flickered in his eyes. "Come on, show me in practice, blonde."
The last phrase made her think. Maybe she should refuse? She didn't know Haymitch at all. After all, Effie had a plan, a route, a hostel reservation, a habit of not staying, not getting attached, not giving herself a chance for anything more than fleeting encounters. But the sun was beating down on the back of her neck, the shadows were growing longer, and he no longer smelled of motor oil, but of something else — ordinary soap, the sea, perhaps just the approaching evening, saturated with the scent of flowering oleanders and salt.
"Alright," Effie said, taking a step back, trying not to notice the pleasant flutter in her chest. "But if the coffee is bad, I'll write a post about it on Instagram, and your reputation will suffer."
"I don't have Instagram, princess — it exists for glamorous types like you," Haymitch replied and got into his car, throwing her a quick glance over his shoulder. "Follow me. Don't fall behind."
She started the engine. Her Fiat coughed, cleared its throat, and obediently rolled after him, shuddering over the uneven asphalt like a puppy on its first walk. Haymitch glanced in the rearview mirror, smirked, and smoothly pulled away. Effie took a deep breath, shifted gears, and drove after him — to where the road twisted between olive groves, and ahead awaited a house with a coffee maker and, perhaps, something else she couldn't yet name.
Haymitch's home turned out not to be a villa in the usual sense. Rather, it was an old olive farm that had been redesigned. Walls of rough stone, darkened by time and sun, floors of hewn wood. On the terrace, a hammock, slightly torn in one corner, and an empty whiskey bottle forgotten by the railing. Inside — strange as it may sound — it was clean, but lifeless: no framed photos, no books on the shelves, not even magnets on the refrigerator. The kitchen was spotless, with dishes neatly lined up and not a single cup with a lipstick stain on it. Hmm... Strange. Very strange.
"Do you live here or just sleep here?" Effie asked, looking around the empty living room. Her gaze caught on a lonely armchair by the window and the dust on the windowsill, as if someone hadn't opened the curtains in a long time.
Haymitch took a battered cezve (ibrik) from the cupboard and a jar of beans that smelled of dark chocolate and smoke.
"What's the difference?" he tossed back without turning around.
"The difference is whether a place has a soul," Effie came closer, ran her finger along the countertop, leaving a trail in the thin layer of dust.
Haymitch almost rolled his eyes, muttering something unintelligible.
"It used to have one, somewhere else," he replied casually. "But that's a long and boring story, princess."
Effie didn't press, deciding it would be tactless. She went to the stove, took the cezve from his hands, and their fingers touched for a moment. She felt how warm they were, then quickly pulled away, scooped in coffee by eye, and put it on a low flame.
They were silent. Outside the window, a cicada was monotonously buzzing, and somewhere in the distance, probably on the track, an engine roared, reminding them of the world beyond this room. The smell of coffee gradually began to fill the space, pushing out all bad thoughts.
"Aren't you afraid to die?" Effie asked suddenly, watching the foam rise and form intricate patterns. "I mean the racing. Everyone says you drive like a madman."
Haymitch leaned back against the counter, arms crossed over his chest. His gaze became distant, as if he were looking not at her, but somewhere through the wall, into the past.
"Have you never lived as if tomorrow might not come?" he answered a question with a question.
"I have," Effie admitted, not taking her eyes off the cezve. "That's why I'm asking."
She remembered a difficult period in her life, when her family had severe financial troubles and they could barely make ends meet. Then, together with her younger sister, Posy, they had tried to hold on to each other, to support and protect one another. That had probably saved Effie from loneliness. As had her subsequent friendship with Maisilee, thanks to which working under Drusilla wasn't as nightmarish as it could have been.
Haymitch and Effie were enveloped in silence, filled with untold stories. The coffee came to a boil and rose in a cap, nearly spilling over the edge. She quickly took it off the stove and poured it into two cups. They turned out to be plain white, without any pattern.
Haymitch took his, took a sip, held his breath for a second.
"I told you I had good coffee," he said after a pause. "See? I didn't lie."
"I know," Effie replied, smiling slightly.
And then, for the first time in a long while, Haymitch smiled with the corner of his mouth, and it gave the impression that he had forgotten how to do it and was only just now remembering. The smile was uneven, a little bewildered, but alive. There was none of his usual self-confidence or defensive mockery in it — only something incredibly fragile, like the first sprout after a long winter.
Effie didn't understand why she wanted to preserve this moment in her memory, to capture it forever, as if with a camera. Haymitch's gray eyes had warmed a little, his shoulders relaxed — and she felt something in her soul reaching out toward his. It was a very strange feeling, but it brought a kind of peace to both of them.
Two weeks later.
They had said goodbye, but they hadn't really parted, running into each other here and there. Haymitch started joking about signs of fate when he saw Effie in a small café by the embankment, in a supermarket parking lot, or at the entrance to the hotel where, it turned out, he was staying for a few days with his team.
Then another incredible coincidence happened: Effie and Maisilee were hired as makeup artists for a photo shoot with Haymitch's sponsors. Effie arrived on set early in the morning, with brushes, a palette, and a thermos of coffee. She was so focused and composed, nothing like the confused girl at the gas station who couldn't figure out her map or GPS.
Haymitch stood by the wall, looking over the shoot script and sipping water from a bottle. When Effie approached, he fixed his gaze on her and froze for a moment.
"You're not going to put makeup on me, are you?" he asked, trying to keep his composure, but a hint of anxiety slipped into his voice.
It was funny. Was the always sarcastic, self-assured Haymitch really afraid of such trivial things?
"Yes, I am," Effie laughed. "So don't fidget and sit still."
She set up her worktable, laid out her tools, checked the lighting. Her movements were precise, practiced, without any fuss or eagerness to please. Effie worked as if no one was around, trying to minimally correct the imperfections of Haymitch's appearance, while also steadfastly fending off the questions of the observant Maisilee, who, to Trinket's great surprise, had engaged in a verbal battle with Abernathy.
Haymitch kept giving Effie provocative looks, and because of him, her fingers began to tremble slightly, although she tried her hardest not to show it. She had often worked with beautiful people — models, actors, and bloggers — but she wasn't used to being looked at as if she weren't just a makeup artist doing her job, but someone with whom a silent dialogue was taking place. What did Haymitch want from her? To ask her out in such a barbaric way?
"Are you always this serious when you work?" he finally asked, trying to break this strange tension.
"Are you always this nervous when someone looks at you?" she parried without looking up.
He wanted to say something cutting, even opened his mouth, but at that moment Effie ran her finger along his cheekbone, carefully adjusting the foundation on the spot where the bruise was. Rumors said he'd gotten it in a fight. Such a light, almost weightless touch, to Effie's great surprise, made Haymitch fall silent. Even his gaze changed: the usual sharpness was gone, replaced by something deeply thoughtful, as if her simple gesture had brought him back to the past.
Speaking of which... Effie had given in and Googled information about Haymitch. And then she was shocked to learn that he had lost his younger brother and mother in a terrible fire. But the misfortunes didn't end there, because his girlfriend died a few months later from a botched appendectomy. When Effie learned the details of Haymitch's biography, his motives became clearer to her, and why he drove at full speed, unafraid for his life... But she also understood that if she started offering condolences or showing pity, Abernathy would pull away from her. Apparently, what drew him to her was precisely that she remained ignorant about his life.
Effie took a step back, evaluating the result and trying to clear the jumble of thoughts from her head.
"Done," she said, stepping back. "You can take a look."
Haymitch walked to the mirror, ran his hand over his face, as if checking whether anything had changed so drastically that only a beautiful shadow of him remained. Then he turned to her.
"You know," he said slowly, "usually everyone wants to fix all the imperfections so they don't have to Photoshop too much. But you left me as I am. Just without the bruise and scars. Thanks."
Effie nearly dropped her brush. She wanted to answer with some barb, so he wouldn't later remind her of such an enthusiastic reaction to his compliment. But she couldn't. Instead, she smiled sincerely.
"That's my job," she said. "To help people look the way they actually feel."
Haymitch was silent for a moment, then nodded.
"Then maybe we can do it again? I mean the coffee, that is. As, uh, thanks."
She raised an eyebrow, not expecting such eloquence from him.
"Depends on the coffee," she said coyly. "If it's good, I'll think about it."
He smirked, suddenly picking up some fallen tubes. Effie hadn't even noticed them, looking at Haymitch in slight confusion.
"Deal," Haymitch nodded. "The coffee will be excellent."
Here is the English translation of the text.
A few days later.
Effie believed in the existence of a black streak again when her car broke down. The old Fiat she had rented stalled on the climb to Monza without warning, as if it had given out after a long struggle with the mountain roads. Effie sat on the roadside for two hours: the sun beat down on the back of her neck, the asphalt melted under her feet, and her phone stubbornly showed "no service." She was thinking of walking when, in the distance, she heard the low, familiar roar of an engine.
A minute later, Haymitch's car stopped beside her. He lowered the window, squinted, examined her vehicle, then looked at her — and without a word, nodded toward the passenger seat:
"Get in."
Effie suspected that Maisilee had called him — they had become friends, even though they seemed to detest each other — but deep down she understood: he had been looking for her himself. How else to explain that he happened to be on this godforsaken road?
They loaded her suitcase into the trunk, and he offered to drive her to the city. So began a trip that didn't last an hour but an entire day — because he suddenly turned the wrong way, then wrong again, and then, when the sun had already begun to gild the hilltops, he said:
"To hell with the city. Have you ever seen a sunset on Lake Como?"
"No," Effie replied, feeling something inside her pause in anticipation.
"Then you've got a chance to see it," Haymitch declared. "Just don't die of excitement or deafen me with your screaming."
They drove along a winding road, snaking between olive groves and vineyards. The sun was setting so slowly, as if it didn't want to yield its rights to the night. Haymitch drove with one hand, switching the radio with the other: they played The Black Keys, then some jazz, then rock again. Effie stuck her hand out the open window, and the wind tousled her blonde hair, braided into a plait, pulling out individual strands and throwing them into her face. She laughed, catching the currents of air with her fingers, while he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and shook his head, clearly not used to such childlike joy from her.
"Tell me something about yourself," he asked, when the song ended and silence fell for a moment, broken only by the noise of the wind and the road.
"What exactly?" Effie turned to him, tucking a stray strand behind her ear.
"Why you never stay in one place," Haymitch prompted. "Why you're always going somewhere. I asked Maisilee, but she said something about girl solidarity and told me to go to hell."
Effie was silent for a moment, looking at the road, at the cypresses and old villas hidden behind hedges flashing past the window.
"Because you can get tired of any place," she said finally. "Of people too. It's easier to be with a suitcase. Pack up and go. You don't get attached, and you don't get disappointed. My family, you know, has a bad reputation... So much media attention, you couldn't count it all in words. And I'm not that attached to my parents. Only to my little sister, who also loves to travel."
"Almost a familiar story," Haymitch nodded, gripping the steering wheel tighter. "Except my suitcase has wheels. And it goes three hundred kilometers an hour."
"And where are you going?" she asked.
Haymitch didn't answer right away. He just looked ahead, at the road that was taking them farther and farther from their usual routes.
"Away from myself, I guess," he said finally. "Like all of us. Right, princess?"
They didn't torment each other with questions anymore. Lake Como was beyond praise! It was glassy and smooth, almost mirror-like, reflecting the sky in shades of peach and lavender. Haymitch and Effie sat on the warm stones by the water's edge, drinking juice from plastic cups, and Effie fought the urge to put her head on Haymitch's shoulder. Suddenly, it didn't matter that they hardly knew each other, that tomorrow she might leave again and he would go back to the track. What mattered was only this: their conversation, the water, the smell of warm stone, his breathing next to her, so steady and calm.
"Come to the next race," Haymitch said without looking at her, twirling his empty cup in his fingers. "In Imola."
"Why?" Effie raised an eyebrow, but her heart sped up, betraying her true feelings.
"So you can find out why I'm not afraid to die," he finally turned to her, and in his gray eyes, framed by a dark rim, something almost vulnerable flickered. "Maybe then you'll understand why I drive like that. Why I need to feel that I'm alive."
Effie looked at Haymitch for a long time — at the drops of water on his cheekbone, at the shadow of weariness in the corners of his eyes, at the stubborn line of his lips that she wanted to kiss, smearing with bright lipstick. And suddenly she understood: he wasn't just inviting her to a race. He was offering her the chance to see and understand the real him — the one hidden behind the mask of "The Thunder," behind the roar of the engine and the flashes of cameras.
"Alright," Effie promised. "I'll come."
Haymitch smiled, putting his arm around her shoulders. Effie finally laid her head on his shoulder, and in that moment, there was more truth than in all the words spoken before.
Imola, that very race.
Effie came. She stood behind the barrier and watched as Haymitch's car took the turns — so close to the wall that sparks flew, struck from metal against concrete. Her heart clenched on every bend, but she didn't look away: in this insane risk, on this edge between victory and disaster, there was something mesmerizing. And when the checkered flag fell and he won again — crossing the line a fraction of a second ahead of his closest rival — she felt a huge new feeling rise in her chest, filling everything. Not fear, no, but something else: a deep, almost primal desire for him to always come back. To come back here, to her, alive and unharmed.
After that, everything changed. Haymitch and Effie started seeing each other without commitment — that's what they called the feeling they were tired of hiding. "Without commitment" sounded easy, safe, like insurance against pain. But reality turned out to be more complicated. Effie left him notes on the bathroom mirror, things like "coffee in the cezve, don't overheat," drew smiley faces on sticky notes and sometimes forgot to remove them. He taught her to keep her balance while driving — first literally, on the steep bends of mountain roads, where the car would smoothly enter the turn, and she learned to always grab his hand when it got scary. Haymitch often talked about how not to fear speed, how to trust the flow, and how to let go of control when necessary. Gradually, Effie stopped being afraid of his speed — she understood that it wasn't recklessness, but skill. And he began to notice her anxiety, how much she worried about him on the track.
When they returned to Monza, a year later, when summer reigned again, something both unexpected and predictable happened. An accident on the same track where they first met. Effie was watching the live feed on her phone, because she'd managed to get sick after eating too much ice cream, and Haymitch had refused to take her along. The broadcast was from a drone, an overhead view, which made it even scarier. The orange car went into a skid coming out of the third turn, slid, crashed into the barrier, flipped over, and came to a stop, smoking. She didn't hear her own scream — only the thud of her heart, so loud it drowned out even the roar of the commentators, who fell silent for a moment and then all started talking at once: falteringly and fearfully. The world ceased to exist and collapsed.
At a hospital in Milan, she sat in a plastic chair for six hours.** The walls were painted a calming blue, but it didn't help. Every time someone walked past, she jumped up, thinking they would tell her something new. Finally, the ICU door opened, and Haymitch was wheeled out. Fortunately, alive, mostly whole, only with a broken arm and a concussion. A bandaged arm, a pale face, eyes clouded from the drugs. Everything about him was so familiar that her heart ached.
Effie stood up, her feet feeling like lead, and walked over to the gurney. The words came out on their own, hoarse and trembling:
"You idiot."
"I know," he mumbled, struggling to focus his gaze on her. "You're here?"
"I'm always here," Effie said, taking his healthy hand in hers.
His fingers were cold, but she held them tightly, as if she could transfer all her anxiety and all her unspoken love to him through that touch.
Haymitch buried his face in her palms. His shoulders shook, his breath hitched, and she just stood beside him, stroked his hair, and whispered something incoherent — not words of comfort, but simply reminders that he was no longer alone. This continued all the way to the hospital room.
Somewhere beyond the wall, doctors' voices hummed, monitors beeped, doors clattered. But here, in this room, there were only two: him, finally allowing himself weakness, and her, accepting that weakness as a sign that he truly, finally trusted her.
"Don't ever do that again," Effie whispered, when his breathing became steadier. "Promise."
"I'll try," Haymitch looked up, and in his eyes was all the truth: the passion for speed lived in him as deeply as his need for her. "I'll come back. To you. Always."
She nodded, smiled through her tears, and kissed his forehead.
"Then come back," she said. "Just come back."
A month later, Haymitch and Effie bought a van. An old Mercedes-Benz, painted in faded blue, smelling of hay inside, as if it had spent its last years in some Alpine barn — forgotten, but not broken. Haymitch had wanted to sell it at first, eyeing the worn upholstery and squeaky door hinges, but then he suddenly changed his mind. And he and Effie set about renovating it.
"This is our home now," he joked, as they loaded inside her suitcases, his bag, the cezve, sleeping bags, and a map of Europe already marked with routes — red dots and scribbles hinting at the spontaneity of the journey.
Effie looked around the van: at the new paint on the wheel arches, the windows, the traces of their fingers on the side door. She smiled warmly.
"Home isn't a place," Effie replied, hugging Haymitch from behind, pressing her cheek to his shoulder blade. "Home is us."
Haymitch turned around, took Effie's face in his hands. There were still scars on his hands from the accident — pale lines on his skin, a reminder of the day when everything could have ended. She wasn't yet fully used to them, but she was glad they were healing.
"So we're home now," he said, kissing the top of her head.
Outside, the Ligurian coast was noisy: the cries of seagulls, the sound of waves, and the distant voices of fishermen laying out their nets. It smelled of the sea and coffee — Effie had brewed it in the cezve right there on a portable stove, and the aroma broke through the smell of old metal and dust. Somewhere in the distance, the track roared: the hum of engines, signals, the rhythm of speed that Haymitch had grown used to over years of racing. But they weren't in a hurry to get there. Ahead of them lay all of Europe: the narrow streets of Tuscany, the lavender fields of Provence, the mountain serpentines of Switzerland, the beaches of the Algarve, and the misty dawns of Scotland.
Haymitch and Effie marked on the map not only cities but also little things: cafés with the best cappuccino in Bologna, a viewpoint over Lake Garda, a campsite by a waterfall in Tyrol, a gas station with homemade ice cream outside Nice. Every wrong turn now seemed not a mistake but an adventure. Every breakdown of the van was a reason to laugh and fix it together, lingering in new places. Every sunset was a reason to stop, spread out a blanket, and silently watch the sky change color.
And the speed of their feelings finally slowed — not to a final stop, no, but to a steady, living, real rhythm. Their relationship no longer resembled a frantic race or a panicked flight, but a calm, forward movement: hand in hand, eye to eye, joyful whispers during kisses in the night, when the van was parked somewhere on the roadside of a new country, and the world around amazed them with its ordinary beauty.
Sometimes, out of habit, Haymitch would still glance toward the racetracks. But now, when Effie took his hand and said, "Look at those clouds," he would turn to her, smile, and forget about speed. Because the most important thing is not to cross the finish line first, but to arrive somewhere together. And to stay there. If only for one night. Or for the rest of their lives.