So here I stand, surrounded by my crew but battling the shit in my head all alone. And of course my mind veers to the vultures at the gates that shoved cameras in my face and spewed Tawny’s bullshit lies about Rylee when I left the house earlier. Then it slides back to Rylee and how much I want her here right now.
Fuck this, Donavan. Quit being such a pussy and get in the goddamn car. You’ve faced shit ten times worse than this. You’ve got this. Man the fuck up and get in the car.
I take a deep breath and squeeze my eyes shut momentarily as I lift my helmet and push it down on my head. My silent acknowledgement to the guys that I’m ready to tackle this.
It takes me a minute to buckle my helmet; my hands tremble like a motherfucker. Becks steps forward to help and I glare at him to back the fuck off. If I can’t fasten this then I don’t deserve to get behind the wheel.
I slide my hand up the nose toward the cockpit. I knock softly out of habit to ease my superstitious mind.
Spiderman. Batman. Superman. Ironman.
Four knocks, one for each of the superheroes that the little boy in me still thinks will help protect him. They pulled me through the last crash, I know they’re good for it.
I take a deep breath and try not to think as I lift one leg and then the other so I can drop into the driver’s seat. I sit there, try to make myself numb so I can’t feel the fear coursing through me and trickling down the line of my spine in rivulets of sweat.
Becks steps up and locks the steering wheel in place and thank fuck for that because now I have somewhere I can put my hands and grip so that they stop shaking. I feel his hand pat the top of my helmet like he usually does, but before he clicks my HANS device he pulls my helmet up so I’m forced to look at him.
I see the fear flicker in his eyes but I also see resolve. “All you, Wood. Take your time. Ease into her.” He nods at me. “Just like riding a bike.”
A bike my ass. But I nod at him because I have a feeling I could argue the point just to cause a distraction from actually having to do this. I focus on the wheel in front of me as he studies me, gauging whether I really am okay being here.
“I’m good,” I lie. And he stands there for a minute more before the guys bring the crank out and we fire the engine.
The reverberation through my body and sound in my ears of the engine’s rumble is like coming home and making me question myself all at once. Kind of like Rylee.
I hold onto that thought—to the idea of her being here when she’s not—as I rev the motor a few times. It sounds the same and yet so very different from the memory still hit and miss in my mind from the wreck.
The crew gets over the wall and it’s just Becks and me. He leans over and pulls on my harness, the same way he has for the past fourteen years. It’s comforting in a sense because he doesn’t act like anything is different, knows that this is what I need. Routine. The sense that everything is the same when it’s a clusterfuck in my head.
He raps the hood twice as is his habit and walks away. I don’t follow him because if I do, I know I’ll see the falter in his step. And his hesitancy will reaffirm my fear that I’m not ready.
I give it some gas, let the car rumble all around me to clear my head, and psych myself to do this. And I sit here long enough that I know I look like a pussy who shouldn’t be in the car so I put the car in gear and begin to ease out onto pit row. My heart is in my throat and my body vibrates from more than just the car. Nerves and anxiety collide with the need to be here, to do this, to be able to outrun my demons and find the freedom-laced solace I’ve always been able to find on the track.
I exit pit row and squeeze the wheel, frustrated that my fucking grandmother can drive faster than I am.
“That’s it, Wood. Nice and easy,” Becks says, and it takes everything I have to shut him out, to listen to the car like I always do and try and hear what she’s telling me. But I can’t drown out the bullshit in my head so I close my eyes momentarily and tell myself to just push the gas and go.
And I do. I push it, flick the paddle as I change gears, and enter the high line into turn two because I’m not going fast enough to have to worry about drifting into the wall.
But the more I accelerate, the less I hear. She’s not talking to me. The noises aren’t the same. “Goddammit, Becks! This car is shit! I thought you checked everything. It’s—”
“Nothing’s wrong with the car, Colton.”
“Bullshit! It’s shuddering like a bitch and is gonna come apart once I open her up,” I grate out, pissed at that placating tone in his voice. I’m the one in the fucking car—the one that can possibly slam headfirst into the wall—not him.
“It’s a new car. I checked every inch of it.”
“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, Beckett! Goddammit!” I pound my fist against the steering wheel, completely backing off the gas.
I know he says something about taking it nice and easy but I don’t really hear it because the flashback hits me so hard I suffocate in the open air.
The car stops but dizziness spirals through me.
My body slams to a stop but my head hasn’t.
A breath shocks into me as I realize what just happened. That I survived that tumbling pirouette into the catch fence. That I escaped the shredded fucking mass of metal on the track at my back.
Pain radiates around me like a motherfucking freight train. My head splinters into a million damn pieces, hands grabbing and groping and pushing and prodding. That familiar pang twists in my gut because I don’t want anyone’s hands on me, can’t handle the feeling. I don’t want to be reminded of the little boy I used to be and the fear that used to course through me when I was touched by others. By him.
Medical jargon flies at a rapid pace and it’s so technical I can’t catch the gist. Just tell me if I’m going to be fucking all right. Just tell me if I’m dead or alive, because I swear to God my life really did just flash before my eyes and what I thought was going to be … what I thought I wanted out of life … just got twisted and turned more than the aluminum of my car.
How could I have been so wrong? How could I have thought change would be the catalyst when it ended up being my fucking epiphany? Shows me to try and change the road fate’s already set for me.
I writhe to get away from the hands that touch, twisting and turning to find her. To go back and tell her that I was so wrong. Everything I put her through. Each rejection and rebuff was my fault. Was a huge mistake.
How do I make it right again?
Pain grapples again and mixes with the fear that ripples under the surface. My head feels like it is going to explode. Lazy clouds of haze float in and out and eat the memories away. Take them with them as they leave and fade. Darkness overcomes the edges until I can’t take it anymore. Voices shout and hands assess my injuries, but I fade.
My thoughts.
My past.
My life.
Bit by bit.
Piece by piece.
Until I am cloaked in the cover of darkness.
“Colton?” It’s her voice that shocks me from my memory like a drowning man finally breaking the surface for air. I gasp in a breath just as hungrily.
I shake my head and look around. I’m all alone on the backstretch of the track, sweat soaking through my fire suit. Did I really hear Ry or was that part of my flashback?
“Rylee?” I call her name. I don’t care that there are guys on the mics that probably think I’m losing it because she’s not here … because they’re right. I am losing it.
“Talk to me. Tell me what’s going through your head. No one’s on the radio but you and me.”