Fast Time

by Shey Stahl

  An indescribable guilt knotted in my chest when I thought about Lily, and then Sway, and Justin, Ami…all our families. This was something that tore families apart completely.

  What would this mean for ours?

  Axel

  DNF – Did not finish. This designates a driver who hasn’t finished a race.

  I PRAYED.

  I begged.

  And then I did that again.

  Over and over again, desperate that this wasn’t happening, that they weren’t pumping my son’s chest while he bled out from his mouth, nose…It just couldn’t happen like this.

  This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be happening.

  Not like this.

  No.

  I stared at the doctors as they worked on my son. They could fix this, right? They had to save him.

  Let him live. Take me. Leave him.

  Take the breath from my lungs. I’ll never need it again. Take the heart from my chest. It’s done beating.

  Casten

  COVERED IN BLOOD AND crying, Dad stood after the ambulance disappeared into the night and another one left with Tommy, and yet another with the driver of the sprint car.

  Dad seemed shaky then dropped back to his knees, his head in his hands.

  “This didn’t just happen.” It was my only thought.

  But it did.

  It was reality when I stared at my father.

  I went to him, my movement seeming slow, like I was floating.

  “Someone call Lily and Sway,” he said, wiping his hands down his face after he stood up. “Have them go to the hospital.”

  Willie had pulled a truck into the pits and motioned to my dad.

  Someone had to load up the equipment and I couldn’t go to the hospital. No way. I couldn’t see what I knew was about to happen. The breakdown of every family member we have. I could see it starting already in the faces of everyone around us.

  “Can you…?” Dad didn’t have to ask twice, but I knew what he was asking. He needed me to take care of things here.

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  Dad drew in a deep breath. “Tell the boys to pack up and head home. We won’t be at the final two races in California.”

  Giving a nod, I watched him walk away to the truck where Willie was waiting for him and then looked over to Rager, who was standing near the track, his head bent forward, his hands over his face. I could tell from here he was crying, just like everyone else.

  The track and the place where Jack was hit was treated like a crime scene. I guess the detectives had a job to do, but I didn’t appreciate being questioned over and over again about what I’d seen. I wanted to forget what I saw.

  Unfortunately, that would never happen. I was sure of that. These images would haunt my memory forever.

  The track promoter, Nick Capper, was there with about a dozen detectives surrounding him. He also had his lawyer there. It was clear to us all it was a freak accident. No one could have predicted that car would have come off the track.

  Nick tried to talk to me, but I couldn’t. I knew he had fears, but none of us were in the mood to talk. I just wanted to load up our stuff and head home with my family.

  Willie, Lane, Rager and Dave had everything loaded up quickly, but I saw the pain in their eyes as we loaded up the haulers. This wasn’t good.

  Arie found me, though she’d been in the booth and the track officials wouldn’t let her in the pits once the accident happened. “Casten!” she cried, hugging me. “Please tell me that wasn’t Jack! Tell me!”

  I started to cry, my chin shaking, hands trembling at my sides and she knew.

  “Oh, God!” she screamed, falling against my chest. “No!”

  I held onto my sister, crying with her, knowing damn well our nephew wasn’t going to make it. There was too much blood, too much damage.

  I thought of Gray…and Hayden…how this was going to destroy my brother and Lily.

  And then the guilt hit my chest like the same blow I’d witnessed. The pain was sudden, as I cried with Arie. Struggling to breathe, or even stop shaking, Arie let go of me and collapsed against the ground. Rager ran over to her, his arms wrapped around her when the anger hit and rushed over me. It was like someone had ignited by body in flames. My heart thudded loudly, pulsing…beating…and his wasn’t.

  I was supposed to be watching him. Me. His uncle. I let him stand there.

  It should have been me who was hit by that car.

  It should have been me lunging for him instead of Tommy.

  Jogging away from Arie and Rager, I made it another twenty feet and vomited next to one of the police cars. I was in complete shock by that point, my body nearly ready to give way and fall to my knees.

  How could this be?

  What could I have done to change it?

  What could I do now?

  Falling to my knees, I brought my hands to my face and covered it. The images replayed in an endless loop.

  Axel

  YOU COULD DIE inside and still be alive.

  There was a part of me that died in Knoxville, and a part in Cottage Grove.

  As I sat outside the emergency room doors with my head in my hands, Shane sat next to me, offering me support. Though I said nothing.

  I don’t know how long we sat out there when my dad approached with Rager beside him.

  Shane looked up at my dad. “How’s Tommy?”

  “Broken leg, collarbone and few ribs, too.” Dad’s voice was low and raspy, as though he’d been crying for hours, which he probably had. “Twenty-nine stitches in his side. He’s going to be fine.”

  Shane cleared his throat. “And Stevie?”

  “Broken arm and collarbone.”

  Rager’s feet shifted and he sat down next to me against the wall on one side, Shane to my right, waiting with me. Dad sat across from us. “Your mom and Lily are on their way. I didn’t tell them anything.”

  Oh, God, Lily. I hadn’t even thought about what I was going to say to her. My only thought was Jack.

  Swallowing over the lump in my throat, the emergency room doors opened and a doctor came out wearing scrubs and a somber expression.

  The doctor looked down at me and gave a nod down the hall, away from my family. “Axel…walk with me.”

  I stood immediately, hoping he had a miracle for me. “Where’s Jack? Can I see him?”

  There was a look that came over a doctor’s face when they delivered bad news.

  And I was getting that look.

  Right then, I knew he was about to confirm what I already knew. I wasn’t going to accept it. He was seven-years old. He couldn’t be dead. No way.

  “We…we did what we could. We worked on him for an hour and we just couldn’t bring him back. There was too much blood loss.”

  With every word, blood pounded in my ears as I shook my head violently. I refused to accept it, refused to listen. Fire pushed through my veins stealing my breath, landing in my heart and constricting it. Each breath, I fought the lugubrious thoughts inside of me that this was happening to me, to my family, to my son. My stomach clenched as a wave of nausea shot through me, the sensation of intense sickness and desolation swept over me. Bringing my hand to my mouth, I chewed on the pad of my thumb, trying to ease the feeling and keep from punching the doctor.

  How could he say this to me? How could this be real?

  “Mr. Riley, I’m really sorry.”

  “Tell me he’s fine.” I paced to keep from hitting him, shuddering as I drew in a deep breath. “Tell me he’s back there and I can see him. Let’s go see him. Tell me he’s okay!”

  “I don’t…” He shook his head. His reluctance was my reality. A harsh fucking reminder the world was tainted and could take away everything you thought was forever, in the blink of an eye. “I’m sorry.”

  Salty tears pooled in my eyes, but I didn’t let go, grief and despair seemed to be holding them off. If they fell, slipped past my burning cheeks, the pain would never stop. It would for
ever be this way. It would consume me and overtake the rational thoughts I was clinging to. If they fell, the pain would never fade. If they fell, they would swallow me whole, drown me and burn my skin away like the soft feathers of light I saw around the edges of my eyes as the brightness of the room blinded me.

  “I don’t want your fucking sorry,” I said, shivering though my skin was burning. “I want to see my son. Tell me he’s alive.”

  I knew he was going to say the words, but I still couldn’t accept them. I didn’t want to.

  “I’m sorry. He’s gone. We tried for over an hour to bring him back, but he lost too much blood.”

  I shoved the doctor back into the wall. “Stop saying you’re sorry!”

  Dad stepped between me and the doctor where he caught himself, his hands splayed out on the wall.

  Dad’s hands laid gently on my chest. “Axel…” he warned, as if I would stop.

  Don’t tell me to calm down. Don’t.

  There was a moment right then where I didn’t hear anything around me. Pitch-black silence engulfed me, shutting off the world around me. The air felt thin and I was barely able to draw in any air. I reached for the wall to catch myself and then faced it, trying to shield myself from the room. There were people talking, but I didn’t know what they were saying. I was right there, trying, wanting to have just one more breath, for him. I heard his laughter; I saw his blue eyes. I wanted to capture it right then and live in his memory.

  That silence ended when I saw Lily approaching in a frantic run down the hall. “Where’s Jack?”

  She knew by the look on my face what I was going to say to her.

  She knew.

  Those were the hardest words I’d ever tried to get out.

  “He…he…” I couldn’t say it.

  My dad reached for Lily. “Lil, Jack…” He couldn’t do it either. He tried, a couple times.

  The doctor then tried. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Riley…Jack is gone. He suffered trauma to his carotid artery and massive internal bleeding.”

  “How?” My mom reached for her as she stumbled, her knees weak. “How did this happen?”

  I swallowed, but couldn’t say it. Her worst fear had just come true.

  Lily looked at me and then the floor. And back to me. Her eyes spoke volumes for what she couldn’t say with words. Confused, hurt, angry…

  “How did it happen, Axel?”

  I couldn’t say it because I couldn’t comprehend what happened. In a split second, our lives had changed forever.

  Taking in a deep breath, I held it in for a moment. “He was hit in the pits by a sprint car.”

  Her head flinched back. “What?”

  I wasn’t going to say it again. I couldn’t.

  She didn’t move for the longest time, unaffected by what I’d said. When her eyes met mine, it was only for a second. She glanced away, refusing to look at anyone.

  And then it hit her, hard, pounding her into the ground like it did everyone else. She collapsed on the floor before me, sobbing into her hands. I tried to hold her, do anything to ease the pain, but she wouldn’t allow it and pushed me away.

  I wanted to say anything to her that meant something. My shoulders squared up, but my words fell short, lost in my tightening throat and trapped in lungs that couldn’t expand.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, eventually, low and raspy, lowering my head.

  I held her regardless because what else was I going to do? She couldn’t possibly hate me as much as I hated myself.

  Sure, she could blame me, but she it wouldn’t be as much as I was blaming myself.

  This isn’t happening. It can’t. Not to us. This didn’t happen to good parents. It can’t.

  She was sobbing and wailing, hitting and blaming me, but I felt nothing.

  I felt something sure, but it wasn’t this.

  “You son of a bitch!” she said, slapping me in the face, as if I had something to do with it.

  I stood, my body shaking and started to walk away from them, all of them. Before I got away completely, I put my fist through the emergency room glass doors and walked into the parking lot.

  MY DAD FOLLOWED ME outside, but still gave me room to calm down. I understood completely that she was going to blame me for this. I knew this. It was her worst fear and it had come true, while I was supposed to be watching him.

  Flexing my fist, I knew I did some damage to my hand, but I didn’t feel the pain. The only pain I had was in my chest.

  “The doctor is asking if you would like to see Jack.”

  At the sound of my dad’s voice, I stood from my place on the sidewalk and walked back into the hospital. I didn’t know who was in there with us, but I saw Lily standing with the doctor, her eyes on the floor.

  Quietly, the doctor led us down the hall and to the door of a private room. “Take as long as you need,” he said, opening the door and then disappearing.

  Lily walked in first and I followed, never touching her. She moved into the room as the doctor closed the door behind me. I wasn’t sure what to do, or say, so I did neither.

  He was there on the bed covered up to his chest with a thick white blanket. He looked peaceful, like he was sleeping. I prayed it was a nightmare, for him to wake up and open his eyes.

  He wasn’t going to open his eyes. Never again.

  There was a thick bandage on his neck, and his face was cleaned of the blood that had covered him when we’d arrived here. Thankfully, Lily didn’t see him like that. Now all she saw was what looked to be her sleeping son.

  When my grandpa died, I remembered that feeling I had watching the night unfold, sitting outside the emergency room doors and praying they would make it. I was numb to the world, disoriented, frustrated that I couldn’t just get a hold of myself.

  That was exactly how I felt. Disoriented.

  Lily was careful with him, holding him to her chest. She breathed in deeply, for him maybe, because he couldn’t. Her sobbing was making her cheeks red as she let out a shaking breath. She said whispered words to him, too quiet for me to hear.

  I couldn’t move from my place against the wall. I stared at them, as if it was the only thing I could do in that moment.

  My mind flooded with memories, one right after another, flowing into the next.

  His first breath, his last. Him holding onto my hand and walking through the pits, crawling all over tires and cars. Every race I ever saw him race. His face when he broke the track record.

  “Daddy, I win!”

  And then I saw him surrounded by layer upon layer of white beauty.

  This was the end of my son and I couldn’t process that.

  How did…how could this have happened?

  How?

  Why?

  Broken and empty, I struggled to process my new reality. Kids didn’t die. They were not supposed to. We brought them into the world. We didn’t watch them leave it.

  Lily

  I WANTED TO KNOW how long this pain would last.

  Would it be days, months, years…forever?

  With the unbearable way it clawed at me from the inside, ripping away everything I ever had inside me, I wanted to know. I needed to know nothing that hurt this badly would last another excruciating minute.

  I couldn’t.

  The pain would kill me first.

  It had to.

  Please let it.

  Without him, I don’t want to live.

  Disbelief…shock…numbness…denial…anger…it was hitting me like the waves in the ocean slammed against the rocks on the shore, one right after another with no chance of relief.

  The tightness in my chest took over and I gasped, another wave of emotions taking over as I stared at Jacen…and then Jonah. That’s when I knew this pain was never going away. It’s a heavy, depressive feeling that hit me suddenly, and it was here to stay.

  The longer I laid there, the more I started to question everything.

  Life.

  My purpose.

  Why this
happened?

  I felt like in a matter of hours I had lost everything about myself, my meaning, my son, security, just everything.

  So yeah, I wanted to know, how long would this last?

  Please, tell me it doesn’t last forever.

  They say that crying offers you relief, emotional and physical.

  I didn’t feel any relief no matter how hard I cried, and believe me, I was sobbing.

  I was paralyzed by this grief.

  Axel

  Flash Point - The lowest temperature at which a substance—in automotive terms, mainly gasoline or oil—may ignite or burn.

  MY PARENTS HAD somehow gotten the boys back to the hotel and in bed when we arrived around three in the morning. I crawled onto Jonah’s bed Lily scooped up Jacen in her arms.

  How were we going to tell them what happened?

  Oh, God…tell me this isn’t real.

  This didn’t happen to good parents. This happened to the ones who ignored their kids and didn’t give a shit.

  I barely slept at all. The only thought I had was this was somehow a horrible nightmare.

  It wasn’t real.

  I must have fallen asleep at some point though, with my first thought that morning being, “Did last night happen?” Followed by, “Will it always hurt this bad?”

  When I woke rubbing my eyes, I felt Jonah stir beside me, his left arm flopped over my stomach. Lifting my head, I peeked over to Lily in the other bed with Jacen.

  She was awake, staring at the ceiling with Jacen now on her chest, her arms wrapped around him. And though this feeling was awful, indescribable and gut wrenching, I’d heard of families losing more than one child at a time, or a husband losing his wife and kids in the same night.

  An entire family gone.

  I didn’t think to myself, at least I have them.

  I thought to myself, I’m thankful I have them.

  When I looked closer at Lily, tears rolled down her cheeks, sadness silently falling from her.

  I let Lily move at her own pace that morning. I knew we needed to head home. My dad sent a text message letting me know the boys were heading home and Tommy would be released later that morning. Willie and Logan were at the hospital and would fly back to Mooresville with him.