Chapter 2
Don't bottle it inside you
William
The ice pack Felix grabbed from a kebab shop stings against my swollen eye.
Streetlights streak past as he drives my car through the busy motorway, his knuckles white around the wheel.
He hasn't said three words since we left the venue, just occasional glances at my face and muttered curses about "idiot drivers who should know better.
" The bleeding's stopped, at least. My eye throbs in time with the passing lights—bright, dark, bright, dark—as we head toward my place in the countryside.
"I can still see, you know," I say, breaking the silence. "One eye's plenty for navigation."
Felix snorts. "Last time I let you navigate, we ended up in Wales when we were trying to get to Bath."
"That was five years ago. And the GPS was fucked."
"The GPS was fine. You just can't read a map."
The familiar banter is comforting, but it's surface-level. Something deeper churns underneath. Felix works his jaw silently, his profile sharp against the glow of oncoming headlights.
"So"—I shift the ice pack, wincing—"how are you actually doing?"
His shoulders tense. "I'm fine."
"Bullshit."
"What do you want me to say, Will?" He keeps his eyes on the road. "That I'm thrilled about being unemployed at thirty? That I love watching the sport I've dedicated my entire life to from my couch?"
"I want you to say whatever's true."
He doesn't answer. We pass through a small village, its high street empty except for a couple stumbling out of a pub. Rain starts to fall, light drops that blur the streetlights into hazy halos. Felix turns on the wipers without comment.
"Look." I try again. "Remember my accident in F4?
How I was messed up. Scared shitless of driving a formula car in any category just because I saw a friend of mine die on track because the car stalled, and I…
clipped him? I was lost. I thought about giving up driving.
Then I fell into that slump of 'what the hell am I even good at? '" I readjust myself on the seat.
"You were the first to tell me I had options, Felix.
You told me not to give up. You saw my fucking tremors and panic attacks, and you helped me through, said I was gonna quell them and find a way to channel all that into my driving.
And that, if I ever wanted to truly give up, if getting into Formula 1 stopped being my dream…
" I take a breath and look him in the eye.
"You told me that there was more to me than being a driver.
So, take some of that advice from your wise, younger self and embrace it.
It was useful to me. Still is to this day. "
"This is a shitty situation, William," counters Felix as the wipers beat a steady rhythm against the windshield. The suburbs thin out, replaced by stretches of darkness broken only by distant farmhouse lights.
"I know. And no driver wants to go through it. We love driving. It’s almost synonymous with us.
But it doesn’t define you, Felix. It doesn’t.
Look, you’re good at drawing—just look at all the helmet designs you’ve done over the years.
I think tons of guys on the grid would like you to design their helmets like you did mine.
You can also try a sabbatical and join the grid in two seasons’ time, coming for a revenge tour on Baretta Racing. "
I spot the corners of his lips rising at that idea. Honestly, after Baretta Racing said he didn’t contribute much during the past season while he was driving a shitbox—sometimes running worse than our car—and decided to blame their driver, Beretta Racing deserves to try a bit of its venom.
"I’m not sure, Will."
I can understand his worries, but hell if I don’t want to slap some sense into him.
"I see you," I say, softer now. "I know you're spiraling. I can tell by the way you hold yourself, like you're bracing for impact. By the way you don't answer messages for days, then respond at three in the morning like you haven't slept. By how you stopped posting about races on socials."
Felix tightens his jaw. "Been stalking my socials, have you?"
"Through James's social media, you know I don’t have a presence there. Look, I've been worried about my best friend," I correct him. "You're like a brother to me, Felix. Always have been."
The memory hangs between us—Felix at thirteen, already world-champion material, spending hours helping a scrawny eight-year-old nobody from Michigan who just arrived in the UK and could barely afford entry fees to the races. How far have we both come?
"I don't—" Felix starts, then stops. His voice has the slightest tremor. "I don't know who I am without it. Without a drive. Without a purpose."
There it is. The crack in the armor.
"You're Felix Becker," I tell him. "Seven-time Grand Prix winner. The smartest strategist I've ever seen behind an F1 car. The guy who taught me how to hit an apex properly when my own Dad couldn't afford coaching. My mentor. The most loyal friend anyone could ask for."
He shakes his head slightly. "That's all the past."
"It's who you are. Not what you do. Remember that, buddy."
We turn onto the narrow lane that leads to my place. The headlights catch raindrops and transform them into streaks of silver. The kart track I built in the backyard will be slick with rain, the white lines barely visible in the darkness.
"You know," I continue, "you can talk to me. Actually talk, not just pretend everything's fine when it's clearly not. It might ease the pain a bit. And look, I know all about the doubts, the anxiety, the feeling that your career is slipping through your fingers."
Felix slows as we approach my driveway. The silence stretches until I think he's not going to answer.
"Have you had any anxiety attacks?" he asks suddenly. "Since that accident six years ago in F4?"
That day. My car flipping over. The flames. The sound of my own screaming through the radio as I tried to get out of the burning car and saw a friend dead in theirs; the car I had clipped on track.
Felix glances at me, then back at the road. "Sorry. I shouldn't have—"
"No," I say, cutting him off. The word falls between us like a stone.
His eyes narrow slightly. He knows me too well to believe it.
The tires crunch over gravel as we pull up to my farmhouse. The porch light casts a warm glow across the weathered wooden beams. Home. My little sanctuary.
"No," I repeat, more firmly this time. "I haven't."
Felix puts the car in park but doesn't turn off the engine. He studies me for a moment, his blue eyes searching mine—well, my one good eye, since the other is now swollen shut. Then he nods once, accepting my lie, because it's easier than pushing.
"Your eye looks like shit," he says finally. "Let's get you some proper ice."
I'm lying through my teeth. Felix knows it, too, but he lets it slide.
The truth sits heavy in my chest: I've had dozens of anxiety attacks since that F4 crash.
They come without warning—in the car, in bed, in the middle of sponsor events.
My heart hammering against my ribs like it's trying to escape.
Sweat breaking out across my forehead. My hands shaking like crazy after driving, after crashes, after tight corners that feel claustrophobic.
The world shrinking to a pinhole while my lungs forget how to draw breath.
The sense that death is reaching for me with both hands, dragging me to a pitiless void.
That feeling of not driving myself… but of being a passenger in my own body.
We make our way into my farmhouse. The wooden beams overhead creak slightly as I flip on the lights.
My trophy wall comes into focus—the regional kart championship, European titles, my F3 championship trophy.
And right there, that empty space next to my three F2 runner-up trophies, waiting for an F1 championship that still feels like a far-off dream.
"Your fridge is still pathetically empty," Felix calls from the kitchen. Ice clinks into a towel.
"There's mango beer," I shout back, collapsing onto my couch. "And some Chinese takeout leftovers." My head throbs.
The anxiety attacks started two months after the F4 crash.
I'd convinced myself I was fine—a little fire, a dislocated shoulder. Nothing permanent. Nothing that would keep me out of the car. And it wasn’t my fault my friend died.
I didn’t know how to avoid the accident.
Well, that’s what my therapist drilled into my head, and I’ve… come to accept it.
Then I got back in for testing at Brands Hatch. Clear day. Perfect track conditions. I made it through two laps before my chest seized up. Couldn't breathe.
Couldn't see.
Couldn't hear my engineer shouting in my ear.
I managed to get the car back to the pits before I passed out. Told everyone it was dehydration.
Felix returns with a proper ice pack and tosses it to me. "You need anything else? Painkillers?"
I press the ice to my eye. "Nah, I'm good."
He settles into the armchair across from me, eyeing the empty takeout plastic bags from the sushi restaurant downtown on my coffee table. "Your housekeeping skills haven't improved since last year."
"Says the guy with a cleaning service."
"Had," he corrects. "Past tense. Since I have some free time now, I do it myself."
Since last year’s 51 G crash, every time another car got too close in my mirrors, my throat would close up.
Every time I approached that same corner in the simulator, my vision would start to tunnel.
I'd grip the wheel so hard, my hands cramped, fighting to stay present, to stay in control. No one knows that at Colton Racing.
"Are you still with me?" Felix asks, pulling me back to the present.
"Yeah, sorry." I adjust the ice pack. "Just tired."
He studies me. "Right."
We sit in silence for a bit. The clock on my wall ticks loudly.