Crash Into You

Milan, Indro Montanelli Park, 9:47 p.m.

Graduation day.

Our second anniversary.

The day Rafael De Luca vanished from my life.

Triple kill.

I sat on a park bench, staring at the watch on my wrist, a seventeenth birthday gift from the boy who, at this point, might have been abducted by aliens. Or, more realistically, the boy who was probably already on a private jet chasing his dream career without bothering to say “arrivederci.”

The Milan night air bit at my neck, and the navy dress I’d picked so carefully because Rafael once said he liked the color, was quickly becoming my dumbest decision of the year.

His number? Out of service. Our last chat? Still stuck at one check mark.

And me? I was parked here like some desperate stray at Indro Montanelli Park, my only companions a half-empty water bottle and yesterday’s leftover mini paratha.

Romantic, right?

“Don’t be dramatic, Vicky,” I whispered, fixing my faded lipstick in my phone’s screen. “Maybe he fainted from loving you too much.”

Yeah, sure.

We’d promised to meet here. Seven o’clock. After graduation. He said he had a surprise for me. I brought a gift too, a limited edition sports watch I’d saved up for over two years to buy. Could it get any more cliché? I even wrote a tiny card with star stickers on it.

Disgusting.

But Rafael never showed. And Milan didn’t stop spinning just because one idiot girl was sitting in a park, waiting for her high school sweetheart.

Rafael De Luca wasn’t just any boy. The heir to the De Luca empire, the family that practically owned half of Italy’s automotive world. He went to an elite private school in Brera, the only student allowed to skip math class because he had to fly to Spain for training under Ferrari’s junior academy.

His life was already mapped out: school in the morning, racing in the afternoon, sleeping at night like a prince carrying the weight of a nation’s expectations. His father had connections to every major team. His mother was a former Fendi model. He was born for the spotlight.

And me? I was just Vicky. A girl from the Americas with no one in Milan except Signora Esposti at the flower stand and the stray cats I fed on my apartment balcony.

But Rafael used to say I was home. Until he decided to move without telling me.

By eleven, the benches were nearly empty. The wind was getting meaner, and the mosquitoes had declared me their buffet. Still, I stayed.

Because some idiot part of me still believed he would come. Maybe he got in the wrong cab. Maybe his flight was delayed. Maybe aliens really did take him. Whatever the reason, one text would be enough.

Just one.

But nothing came.

No Rafael. No white sports car pulling up. No frantic apologies about training in Maranello running late. No crooked smile. No warm hand reaching into my bag just to steal a mint.

Only the chill of Milan’s night and the distant hum of trams rolling down the far end of the street.

People say teenage love never lasts. People also say unicorns don’t exist. I believed both. Until Rafael showed up and made me believe in every stupid thing I used to laugh at.

And now, he was gone without a word.

This was supposed to be our day. Our graduation. Our anniversary.

But the boy who treated promises like sand slipping through his fingers chose to leave for something bigger. F3 in England. The top-tier F1 academy that had been eyeing him since he was sixteen.

It all made sense. Rafael belonged on the track, not in some park. And ... I was nothing more than a pit stop before he sped off to the next circuit.

My eyes burned, but I was too stubborn to cry in public. So I stood, shoved the watch he’d given me deep into my pocket, and walked home slowly, as if nothing had shattered me.