Driven to you - OP81

Haileybury College didn't feel like home—not to Oscar Piastri, not really. It was all cold stone and manicured hedges, a campus that smelled like rain and expectations. But it's where he was. Where she was. That made it bearable.

Oscar and Costanza had been together for almost two years—though "together" wasn't a loud word at Haileybury. It was passed between them like folded notes and quiet glances across the dining hall. A boarding school relationship required subtlety, something they'd perfected. She was all fast wit and fire under pressure, and he was the silent sort, calm until something mattered.

Then came Oliver Shellford.

British. Polished. Perfectly disheveled hair and the kind of laugh that sounded rehearsed. He joined mid-term, straight from some school in Surrey. He slid into their year like he already knew how things worked. Within days, he was asking people if they wanted to "grab a pint" even though they were seventeen and very much not in a pub.

Oscar watched it happen.

He watched Oliver orbit closer to Costanza.

It was subtle, at first. A comment about her handwriting in Economics. A lingering question about her Italian during morning break. Then: "Do you want to study together sometime?" Too casual to be serious. Too familiar to be innocent.

Cocco laughed it off the first time. "He's just bored," she said. "Don't combust over it."

Oscar didn't combust.

But he did start pressing his pen too hard when they sat next to each other in the library.

Then came the group project.

History. Twentieth Century Warfare. Mr. Caddel, a man who wore corduroy unironically, assigned random pairs. "Shellford and Piastri," he said. "Second World War propaganda. Focus on domestic morale. Due in two weeks."

Oscar didn't react. Not visibly.

Oliver turned and smiled. "Guess we're on the same team now."

The first meeting was a disaster. Oscar arrived with color-coded notes. Oliver brought a laptop and zero context.

"You're intense," Oliver said midway through their planning. "Chill, mate. It's just school."

Oscar didn't look up. "Then you should have no problem doing your part."

He redid Oliver's section the night before they presented. Rewrote the slides. Checked every source. His patience wore thinner than the tracing paper he used to map out their visual examples.

The morning of the presentation, Oscar barely spoke. He just clicked through their shared PowerPoint while Oliver gestured vaguely at wartime posters and said things like "fear-based messaging" and "British resilience."

Cocco sat in the front row. Took notes in the margin. Raised one eyebrow when Oliver claimed cinema was the "most powerful weapon" of the war.

After class, Oliver turned to Oscar with a grin. "See? Went fine."

Oscar was already packing up. "You're welcome."

That afternoon, he found Costanza in the common room. She was curled up on one of the oversized armchairs, history book open, a packet of revision flashcards splayed out on the floor.

"Good presentation," she said without looking up.

"His part was garbage."

She smirked. "I know. I saw your footnotes."

That made him pause. "You read them?"

"I always read your footnotes."

He sat beside her, shoulder to shoulder. The silence between them wasn't awkward. It never was.