by Joelle Knox
I just have to get through this race. I run my timed laps, channeling all of that chaotic emotion into focusing on the track, on the speed. On feeling the car respond to my slightest command.
It works. As I’m pulling back into the pits, the announcer posts the lowest time of any driver so far. I step out into the hellish summer night, where the air is somehow even hotter than in my car¸ and let Gibb and Boone slap me on the back.
One of the Buzz drivers calls across the infield. “Fast car tonight, Whitlow!”
Gibb’s grinning, until Mason ruins the moment with a snort. “Yeah. Convenient. Saved up your cheating for the last night, Gibb?”
The grin vanishes from Gibb’s face, but he doesn’t turn. “He must like it when I punch him.”
Ignore him. I’ve said it a million times, but I can’t force out the words, not tonight. Tonight, I’m thinking that Mason Shaw will be lucky to make it off the track without getting his ass kicked.
“Hey.” Gibb grabs my shoulder and grips it hard until I meet his eyes. “Are you good, Sean?”
“Just clocked first in qualifying, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, and you’re gonna take the division championship if you hold it together. You’re gonna hold it together, right?”
“Have I ever fucked up a race?”
He doesn’t say it, but I know what he’s remembering. All the times Cait blew my concentration to shit and I barely squeaked by. “Just be careful,” he says instead, squeezing my shoulder again. “And we’ll beat the shit out of Mason later.”
“Yeah, okay.”
It’s time for the drivers’ meeting, so we cluster around the track official, a portly man with a slightly hard-edged look behind his booming laugh. I saw someone take a swing at him once. He laid the guy out with one punch, then called the sheriff to come pick him up.
He gives us the usual speech about driving clean, then reminds us to watch ourselves in the pits. There are plenty of ways that your crew can cost you points, even a race placement—fighting, cussing, drinking in the infield.
The mention of alcohol sends my gaze skating back to the stands. My brothers and sister are there, along with my mother, but Hannah isn’t sitting with them. I’m still staring at the bleachers when the meeting ends, and I don’t notice the dismissal until Gibb nudges me.
“Evie’s with her,” he murmurs.
I don’t have to ask how he knows, but the fact that he does is morbidly hilarious. He and Evie are finally getting along, working together—and all it took was an implosion.
“I’m fine,” I tell him, already heading back to our area of the pits.
The first drivers are lining up their cars, and I get to work. There are always a hundred adjustments to be made after qualifying, most of them based on how well the car handled. The rest depends on whether Gibb noticed any issues from his vantage point in the infield.
I focus on the maintenance the way I focused on the driving, shoving every bit of the guilt and uncertainty twisting in my gut into something constructive. I’d like to think that if I work hard enough, long enough, it will all melt away.
Somehow, it never does.
»» hannah ««
Ice cream doesn’t cure all my heartache, but it’s a nice distraction.
Evie and I pick up fresh peaches on the way home, and I break in my ice cream machine with my grandmother’s favorite recipe. When it’s done freezing, we carry it out onto the porch and sit in the swing, the evening breeze making the heat almost bearable.
It’s the last weekend of the summer, by a lot of standards. School starts back this week. The first football game is coming up, but I don’t know if my invitation still stands. Sean hasn’t said a word to me, and even though that loss cuts the deepest, losing his family aches, too.
Friday night games. Sunday brunches. It was a pretty dream.
I don’t have Sean’s family, but I have Evie. She stirs the melting ice cream in her cup, then licks the back of her spoon. “You know, this is pretty damn good.”
“Yeah.” I take another bite of mine, wishing I could enjoy it the way it deserves. “I probably should have let it freeze longer, but I never was any good at waiting. Cait and I used to eat it out of the mixer.”
“It’s soft serve.” Evie’s grin fades to a smile as she gives the swing another good push with her bare foot. “You must miss her.”
I do, with an ache that feels fresh. Because grieving my older sister who died in a tragic accident was always a lie, and Cait deserved more than having her truths spackled over. She fought so hard, for so long, and now I can remember her for it. “I never realized how much she stood between me and my parents. She was the one who took care of me.”
“I’m sorry, Hannah.”
“I wish I’d been old enough to take care of her, too.”
“We do the best we can,” she murmurs. “There are always times when it isn’t enough. But there are also times when it is, and that’s the thing to hang on to.”
Like now. Since the day Cait died, I’ve held myself apart from others. Offering nothing, and asking for nothing in return. Evie has given me so much, has held me through tears, has listened.
But she hasn’t shared. And I haven’t asked, not really. “Do you want to talk about it? Why you came back home?”
Her spine stiffens a little, but a moment later she lifts her shoulders in a shrug. “I came back because my life wasn’t mine anymore. I didn’t recognize who it belonged to. My parents, I guess. And my instructors.”
Evie always loved to dance. She loved it in a way I envied, because even though we were young, she was so sure. Confident about what she wanted to do with her life and what she wanted to be.
That spark and passion is gone from her eyes now. She just sounds tired, as if something ground the joy out of her dreams. “I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t want it enough,” she tells me simply. “Ballet looks magical, glamorous. And it is. But you have to be completely dedicated. It’s not enough to love to dance. You have to breathe it.”
But she still misses it. I reach for her hand and curl my fingers around hers. “Parents are fucking complicated.”
“Yes, they are.” Her phone nearly vibrates off the porch swing beside her, and she scans the screen before holding it up. “Sean did well in qualifying.”
My heart does a little kick, and I want to smack it. I didn’t just burn my bridges there, I nuked them from orbit. Continuing to obsess over him is just torturing myself, but I’m starving for any scrap of information. “Did Gibb text you?”
“I asked him to keep me posted.” But her cheeks turn pink as she tucks her phone away.
Evie’s potential crush on Gibb used to horrify me, but I’ve seen a different side of him now. “He’s kind of nice. I don’t think he wants anyone to know, but he is.”
“Tell that to Sawyer,” she says ruefully.
Uh-oh. “Are things not going well with him?”
“Mmm, no. We broke up. Or I broke up.” She wrinkles her nose, then scrubs her hands over her face with a groan. “Sawyer’s a great guy, but it’s not…” She trails off and sighs. “You have to breathe it, right?”
I haven’t been able to take a full breath since Sean walked away. “Yeah, but it’s scarier this way.”
“And better.” Evie casts a sidelong glance my way. “Have you called him yet?”
I haven’t dared. “I can’t, Evie. He walked away. He was so…” Blank. Empty. Hurt. “I should have told him before. I should have told him years ago.”
“Come on, you don’t really believe that, do you? You were a kid, Hannah.”
My ice cream has all but melted. I drag my spoon through it and watch the swirls I leave behind vanish. “Fine, not then. But before things between us got serious. He deserved to know.”
“Maybe,” she concedes. “Or maybe there was never a good time for a bombshell like that.”
“Then we were doomed from the start.” I try to smile. “Not quite as ba
d as Romeo and Juliet, but pretty fucked up.”
She hums in amusement rather than agreement. “We could head over to the track. There’s still time.”
I want to, more than anything. If I was only risking rejection, I might. But Sean’s told me enough times how precarious the balance is when he’s behind the wheel, how absolute his concentration has to be. How thin the line between victory and tragedy.
I can’t be the reason he gets distracted, not tonight. “Tomorrow,” I promise. “I’ll call him. Right now, I want to hide with you and eat ice cream and pizza.”
“And binge-watch something on Netflix?” she asks hopefully.
“Until we can’t keep our eyes open anymore.”
23
»» sean ««
I may have qualified first, but when they roll the dice for my starting position, it’s ugly. I’m stuck near the back of the pack, and my sole consolation is that so is Mason Shaw.
He flashes me a cocky grin before climbing into his car, and I roll my eyes. He can’t help himself, but I’m not in the fucking mood to deal with his bullshit tonight.
Races have a rhythm. We line up, taking our positions behind the pace car as the announcer runs down the roster of drivers. A couple of laps, and then we get the green flag.
That’s when things get real.
Mason’s driving hard tonight, but so is everyone else. No one wants to make a piss-poor showing in the final race of the season, even if the points standing means they don’t have a chance in hell of winning the championship. The stands are jam-packed, because everyone, even the most casual fan, is here tonight.
Everyone except for Hannah.
Forty laps seems like a lot, but it flies by. We’re five laps in when Wright gets loose in the second turn and smashes into Peters, spinning his car toward the infield barrier, and the first caution is thrown. I slow to pace, maintaining my current position in the pack of cars.
It’s one of those nights, full of yellow flags, pits, and engine failures. The race creeps along in literal stops and starts, but Gibb’s done a fantastic fucking job on the car. It’s fast as hell, and by the time the flagman flashes the crossed sticks that indicate twenty laps down and twenty to go, I’ve managed to pull ahead.
So has Mason Shaw. He’s riding just as hard tonight, maybe even harder, because it’s his last chance this season to back up those snide remarks and cocky, shit-eating grins. Anger pulses through me, tightening my hands on the wheel as we race around the track, utterly focused on winning.
The second half of the race is smooth, flawless—five laps to go. Two. And Mason and I are still scrambling, neck and neck, both running our cars and ourselves faster than we should down the back stretch. This kind of speed is where things get dangerous, but Mason obviously thinks the race is worth the risk.
Any other time, I might back down. I know I should, but I can’t let him win. I cannot let him win. Not now. Not on top of everything else.
I go into the last curve on the outside of the track, pushing harder, and the nose of my car has just edged past his when it happens. A sound like a gun going off reverberates through my car, and the wheel nearly shakes out of my hands as the car shudders. I’ve lost a tire, and all control over my steering.
I don’t have time to panic. I hit the wall, and the shriek of metal against concrete drowns out the rest of the world. It goes on forever, the spinning and the crunching. I can’t tell if I’m still sliding along the concrete barrier or if the car is flipping, because everything is just chaos, and I’m stuck at the center of it. My helmet hits one of the roll bars, and an unbelievable agony jars down my spine. Suddenly, everything hurts, and all I can think is that must be a good sign.
Dead men don’t feel a thing.
It can’t be more than a few seconds before what’s left of the car drifts to a stop. The announcer’s voice echoes over the loudspeakers, high-pitched and tinny, but I can’t understand a word he’s saying. Everything is hazy—and hot.
Too hot.
The fucking car is on fire. I yank at my harness, but my fingers fumble. The world descends into slow motion as the flames lick into my peripheral vision and smoke fills my lungs. Someone is talking to me, but everything seems far away, distant. I should care, I think, that someone is scrabbling to yank open my door, tearing at my window net, but all I feel is darkness closing over me.
»» hannah ««
We’re halfway through our second episode of House of Cards when Evie’s phone beeps. She absently checks the screen, then frowns and stands abruptly. “Holy shit.”
Panic comes too fast, because I know. In my gut, I know. The tentative feeling of hope that’s taken root in my heart is like taunting the universe. Bad things always happen. “What happened?”
She shakes her head. “It’s Sean.”
I can’t seem to breathe right, and my voice comes out faint. “What happened?”
“An accident.” Evie snatches up her keys from the table by the door. “They’re on their way to the hospital.”
Oh, my God.
It’s the only thought in my head, throbbing with my pounding pulse until a new refrain overtakes it. Not Sean. Not Sean. Not Sean.
The air is thick. The room is hazy. But I’m a goddamn expert at this now. I can’t feel my feet as I shove them into my sandals. I can’t feel my fingers as I pick up my phone and wallet. My body knows what to do, because this is all it ever does. Swim through panic until we spill into grief.
Not him, please not him.
The screen door slams behind me, and I don’t know how I got outside. Evie’s keys rattle as she locks the door. The paint on the porch railing is chipped and flaking off, and it hurts. I was going to sand it and paint it with her, but I can’t.
I can’t do this again. I can’t survive this again.
Somehow, she gets me in the car. The drive is a blur of confusion and passing lights. I know every building, every street sign. I’ve made the drive from Evie’s house to the hospital too many times, and the familiarity makes the nightmare worse.
It takes forever and then it’s over, and Evie is pulling me into the fluorescent glare of the lights in the emergency room. Sawyer is there, his dark blue fire department T-shirt washed out by the harsh lights, his face grim. “They’re checking him out now.”
The buzzing in my ears is faint, and so is my voice. “How bad…?” I can’t finish the question, because I don’t know if I can handle the answer.
“Hannah.” Sean’s mother tips my chin up, then draws me into her arms, hugging me so tightly I can barely breathe.
It’s strong and comforting—pure, undiluted love—and I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve Sean’s mother holding me like I belong, like I’m part of this family instead of the reason they’re here.
She doesn’t know. For some reason, Sean hasn’t told her, and now I have to. Somehow, I have to find the words. I screwed up. I broke your son’s heart. I fucked him up, and maybe this is all my fault.
Sean was whole before I came home. Whole and happy and winning, and now he’s in a hospital, broken, because I ruin everything I touch.
“We’re waiting to hear,” she whispers. Her hair smells like smoke, and her face is streaked with soot and tears.
I need to tell her, but I can’t put any more grief on her shoulders, or any more tears on her cheeks. I’m selfish, selfish, selfish, choking down my latest secret so hard my words have to fight their way past it. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
At least that’s the truth.
“Sit down,” Sawyer says gently. The walkie talkie clipped to his belt crackles, and he lays a hand over the speaker, muffling the sound. “I’ll go back and wait with Sadie.”
“I’ve got them.” Gibb appears with an insulated cup in his hand. The look he gives me warns me not to go spilling any awkward revelations, and I feel even worse. “Come on, Mary. I got you some coffee.”
“I don’t—” She sinks into a molded plastic chair, staring at a red
welt on his forearm, cutting across one of his tattoos. “You should see a doctor, too.”
“I’m fine,” he promises, but his face is streaked with soot, too, and his voice is raspy. Something bad must have happened, something that involved fire, and my imagination leaps to fill in the horrifying details.
Sean, trapped in a burning car. Flames and smoke and the struggle to breathe as the heat becomes unbearable—
Evie’s still standing close. I reach blindly for her hand, clutching at it as I brace myself to ask. “What happened?”
Gibb’s expression flattens, and for a heartbeat I think he’s angry at me, at my presumption. But that look is the one I’d see if I could face a mirror right now—guilt and a rage that’s focused inward. “He blew a tire on a turn. Lost control and hit the wall. Mason had him out of the car before I could get there.”
That makes it better and worse. How many days did I sit in this hospital, marveling over how fragile we are? How a bump to just the wrong spot means you’ll never, ever wake up? My imagination replaces nightmares of flames with the silent misery of Sean’s body in a bed and the rest of him...gone.
It’s a miracle I don’t puke on Evie’s shoes.
“Hey.” Evie turns me around and holds my arms tighter and tighter, until I look up to meet her eyes. “They have all kinds of safety equipment, okay? Fireproof suits and roll cages and harnesses that NASA would be jealous of. They won’t let them out there on the track without it.”
I nod, and that was a mistake. The world keeps moving even after I stop, and I have to take careful steps to find a chair. Evie’s watching me like she’s ready to lunge to catch me, and so is Gibb, and that’s when I know something inside me has shifted irrevocably.
I used to be so good at hiding my panic and pain. I used to be small and empty and invisible. Sean stripped away my masks and coaxed my emotions to life, and now they’re growing on their own. The good ones and the bad, all in a jumble, all tangled in my aching chest and making it hard to breathe.