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.”
She’s here. It’s her. I don’t even know what to do because I feel like I’m hit with a wave of emotions. Relief, fear, anxiety, need.
“Ry … I can’t … I don’t think I can …” I’m such a fucking head case that I can’t string my thoughts together to finish a thought.
“You can do this,” she tells me like she actually believes it, because I sure as fuck don’t. “This is California, Colton, not Florida. There’s no traffic. No rookie drivers to make stupid mistakes. No smoke you can’t see through. No wreck to drive into. It’s just you and me, Colton. You and me, nothing but sheets.”
Those words. I know they don’t belong right here in this moment but fuck if they don’t draw a sliver of a laugh from my mouth but that’s all I can manage because they also make me think of everything I’ve put her through. How nothing but sheets between us has led to her having to deal with the fallout of Tawny and all of that bullshit.
And yet somehow she’s here. She came for me. Does she have any fucking clue what that means to me especially when I’m the last one on earth that deserves her right now?
I pushed and now she’s pulling.
“I just …” Can’t do this anymore. Push you away and hurt you. Push the gas and drive the car. Not have you near me.
I know my head’s fucked up but I’m in overload mode again and then she speaks and lets light into my darkness.
“You can do this, Colton. We can do this together, okay? I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”
I don’t deserve you. Your faith in me. Your belief in me.
“Are your hands on the wheel?” The confidence in her voice staggers me when I feel anything but.
“Mmm-hmm … but my right hand—”
“Is perfectly okay. I’ve seen you use it,” she says and the thought flickers through my head of just how she saw it the last time we had sex.
“Is your foot on the pedal?” she asks.
“Ry?” I want to stay in these thoughts of her, don’t want the fear to ride the wave back into my psyche.
“Pedal. Yes or no?”
“Yes …” But I’m not sure I can do this.
“Okay, clear your head. It’s just you and the track, Ace. You can do this. You need this. It’s your freedom, remember?”
She knows the words to pull me back from the edge. I take a deep breath and hold on to the confidence that she has to try and override the fear crippling my thoughts with images and sensations of tumbling into the wall. The wall that looks exactly like the one to the right of me.
Surrounding me.
C’mon, Donavan. Engage the motor. Prevent it from dying. The engine revs and a part of me sighs at the progress.
“You know this like the back of your hand … push down on the gas. Flick the paddle and press down.”
I make myself focus on her voice, hold on to the thought that she came back to help fix the broken in me. And the car starts to move down the backstretch and into turn three.