THE SEA BETWEEN US// ESTEBAN OCON

SIX

SIX

"Hi Mara!"

Lando Norris squealed as he ran to the woman that was the best friend of his best friend, Carlos Sainz.

The woman he had squealed at, turned her slim body around at the sound of his high pitched voice and held a look of annoyance upon her tanned face.

Lando was about to run in to her and hug her, but stopped at the last second since he had remembered the last time that he had tried where she had wanted to punch him.

"Hey, kid."

Almara Cabrera spoke nonchantly towards the Norris boy, knowing that he wasn't a child and was in fact only a couple of years younger than her, but she didn't care.

"I'm not a kid!" Lando grinned as he raised his voice, noticing the woman lifting one of her hands up to pinch at the bridge of her nose in exasperation.

"I'll believe it when I see it."

Almara lifted one of her hands up to pat the top of the boys head in an attempt to offer comfort, since she didn't like hugging people that weren't Carlos.

Carlos was her safe place.

Carlos was her home. She might have lived in Buenos Aires but that for her was never home. Home for her, was a person and that person was her best friend, the man who had given her the world when she didn't think it was possible.

"Soy Lago."

The Cabrera woman snapped her head aggressively back towards the British boy at the Spanish words that had left his youthful lips, her dark eyebrows furrowing together in confusion.

"What?"

"Soy Lago."

Lando repeated with a childlike grin upon his face, lightly bouncing on the tops of his toes since he wanted to impress her, even if what he had said did not make any sense.

"You are a lake?"

The Argentine woman raised one of her eyebrows at the boy as she questioned his mental state and his stupidity levels, her mouth opening and closing multiple times since she wasn't quite sure if she was really there or if she was hallucinating.

"Yeah."

The Norris boy nodded his head up and down a couple of times as his smile grew at the look on her face, soft and silent giggles leaving his throat.

"What do you mean, you are a lake? You're a body of water? You're drowning? You're wet-ew no." Almara grimaced at the thought that invaded her mind, shaking it from side to side in an attempt to get rid of it, nausea building up inside of her.

She hadn't even noticed how a tall French man was stood behind her, watching her with a large smile upon his face at the pure look of lost and confusion that she held.

"I'm learning Spanish." Lando smiled proudly up at the Cabrera woman, fluttering his eyelashes a couple of times since the sun was almost blinding him. "I'm trying to learn so I can speak with you and Carlos in Spanish. He told me how you still don't understand a lot of English."

Almara couldn't hide the way that her lips twitched upwards at the boys words, no matter how hard she tried to.

"That's kind of you, kid."

"You're my friend, Mara. It's what people do for their friends." Lando smiled gently at the girl, seeing the girls face morph in to one that held a very small smile.

"Only Carlos calls me Mara." Almara admitted, seeing the boy nod his head as he listened intently, along with another person who was mentally taking notes.