6. Garret
GARRET
I'd ridden a hundred miles with the sun in my face and my better judgment somewhere behind me on the highway, but I didn't care.
The finals only came around once a year, and Sara had been working toward this race since the season started.
I wasn't going to miss it just because we weren't together anymore, and I wasn't gonna let Lightning's threats, Fox's rules, or Peter's glares keep me from supporting her. I knew this was what she wanted.
I parked my bike in the overflow lot behind the grandstand and walked the fence line looking for her.
The pits were a mess of trailers and toolboxes and bikes lined up on stands, and every crew had their own little camp set up with coolers and pop-up canopies.
I scanned every one of them and didn't see hers.
Her bike wasn't on a stand anywhere, and the little blue canopy she always set up with her dad's shop name on the side was nowhere in sight.
I worked my way through the crowd along the main grandstand and looked for Peter.
As her coach, he never missed Sara's races.
He'd be the easiest one to spot because he always wore that faded red cap with the shop logo on it and stood in the same spot near the scoring tower where he could see the whole track.
But his spot was empty and nobody was standing in it.
So I pulled out my phone, taking a risk to call her.
I knew she probably didn't want to hear from me, that I'd made a mess of things, but I knew things could change.
It rang four times and went to voicemail, and I hung up without leaving a message because I didn't know what to say.
I'd never used her number to call her, and calling now felt like showing up to a party I wasn't invited to.
When she didn't answer after the fourth time, I accepted that she was angry.
I had ignored her call last week, the morning after our argument, because I was too angry and I knew I would blow up and say things I'd later regret.
It was bad on my part and I knew it. Now I was feeling the consequences for that.
I meandered closer to the track and carried the sting of that rejection with me.
The announcer came over the loudspeaker and started calling heats, and I found a spot along the fence near the first turn where I could see the starting gate.
The 250 class lined up first, and I watched a dozen riders roll to the line and settle into position.
Sara's class was next, and there were only eight riders in it because the field had been narrowed down through qualifiers over the past three months.
Whatever spot she scored today, she'd go down in history as being one of the first women to make it here.
When the heat lined up, I counted the bikes at the gate, but there were only seven.
It didn’t make sense. I walked down the fence to get a better angle and counted again—seven riders.
I looked at each one and none of them were Sara.
Her number wasn't on any of the plates, and her bike wasn't at the line.
The gate dropped and the seven riders tore into the first turn, and I stood there with my hands on the chain link wondering what on earth had happened. Sara would never give up this chance to race. She loved this sport more than anything. It didn’t make sense.
I stayed through the heat and watched the whole thing play out, half expecting her to show up late with some story about a flat tire or a broken chain, but she never came. The race finished and the riders pulled off and the announcer moved on to the next class, and Sara's name was never called.
I got back on my bike and sat there for a minute with the engine off, staring at the dust cloud rising from the track.
Sara would never miss this race. She was the first woman to ever make it to the finals in this circuit, and she'd talked about it for months like it was the most important thing in her life.
She trained for it. She prepped her bike for it.
She put in the hours and the sweat and the money, and she earned her spot the hard way against riders who had more experience and better equipment.
Walking away from that wasn't something she'd do, and it sure as hell wasn't something she'd do without telling anyone.
I started to wonder if she'd skipped it because of me.
Maybe she thought I'd show up and she was avoiding me, or maybe Peter finally figured it out and put his foot down.
Whatever it was, I had to stop being prideful and go tell that crazy woman I was an idiot and I didn't want her to break it off.
I kicked the bike to life and pulled out of the lot and headed south toward Grove Hill. The entire ride, I spun wild scenarios about all the reasons she would've skipped today. Broken bike, family emergency, but I was only torturing myself.
I'd been avoiding the Griddle since the breakup because I didn't want to make things uncomfortable for her at work.
The last thing I wanted was to walk in and make her feel like she couldn't escape me.
I respected her enough to give her space, but this was different.
She didn't just skip a Tuesday night shift at the diner.
She missed the biggest race of her life, and I needed to know why.
I bypassed town and rode straight out to Peter's shop on the county road.
The garage doors were open and I could see him inside working on a push mower with the housing pulled off.
He looked up when he heard my bike and his face went through about three expressions in two seconds, none of them happy to see me.
I killed the engine and swung off and walked straight in. "Peter," I grumbled.
Peter set his wrench down on the bench and wiped his hands on a rag. "Garret."
"Sara wasn't at the finals today." I noticed sadness in his eyes, and I couldn’t remember the last time I saw it except maybe when I told him I'd signed with the Gravehounds. "What's going on?"
He took a long breath and leaned against the bench with his arms crossed. He looked tired. "I don't know."
"What do you mean, you don't know?" My shoulders were tight, hands curling into fists as he spoke.
"I mean I don't know, Garret. She's gone."
Gone? But where would she go, and why? Did I mean that much to her that she just took off because I broke her heart and said nothing to me? No second chance or time to talk though things? "Gone where?"
"She left last week Sunday and she never left a note.
We heard from her on Wednesday and she said she needed to get out of town for a while…
Said she's moving." He eyed me suspiciously, but at this point, I didn't care what he said or if he knew that Sara and I had a fling going.
Hearing that she up and left made me insanely mad again.
"Know anything about that?" he asked, lifting one eyebrow.
I stared at him, trying to decide the right move. If I outed her now, it'd cause problems on her end. And without speaking to her about it, I didn't dare make that choice. "No, Sir," I grumbled. "Last week, really?" I couldn't believe she just took off like that.
"That's right."
"And you didn't think to call anyone or go looking for her?" My blood was boiling at the idea that he and Anne didn't bother going after her. They just let her leave.
I could tell I'd hit a nerve when he said, "She's twenty-one years old.
She's not a child. She called and told us she's living somewhere else now and that she's safe, and she asked us not to push it.
Her mother's been a wreck over it, but Sara's a grown woman and if she says she needs space, I'm not gonna drag her home by the collar. "
"Where is she?" If he wouldn’t go after her, I would. I had to see her and work this out. I was going crazy every time I thought about not seeing her again.
"I'm not telling you that."
"Peter—"
"No." He held up his hand and his voice went firm.
"You don't get to come in here and demand answers about my daughter.
You and I had a conversation a few weeks back, and I reminded you of a promise you made to stay away from my children.
Now I don't know what's going on right now, but I don't like what it sounds like. Her location is none of your business."
"The hell it isn't," I snarled, but I knew I crossed a line when he pushed off the bench and walked toward me. I'd never hit Peter, not even if he was hitting me. And it appeared that if I pushed my luck, that was just what would happen.
"I'm gonna ask you one time to leave my property, Garret, and if I have to call the sheriff, I will."
I paced the length of the workbench and ran both hands over my head. "This doesn't make sense. She wouldn't just leave."
"Well, she did."
"Did she say anything? Anything at all that might explain it?"
"Now, Garret," he said firmly, and I got the point. I was pushing my luck, and I was lucky he didn't outright accuse me of crossing lines. I had no choice but to get out of here before he started making threats.
I walked back to my bike and threw a leg over and kicked it hard.
The engine roared to life, and I tore out of the gravel lot fast enough to throw rocks against the side of the garage, which was reckless and disrespectful and I didn't care.
I hit the county road and opened the throttle and let the speed do what the whiskey the other night couldn't, which was drown out every thought in my head.
The road curved south toward town and I knew the bend was coming, but I didn't slow down enough like I should have.
The gravel shoulder on that curve had been loose for years, and every rider in the county knew to take it easy through there, but I wasn't taking anything easy tonight.
I was running hot and blind and stupid, and when the front tire hit the loose gravel at speed, the bike went sideways under me before I could correct it.
I went down hard on my left side and the bike slid out from under me and scraped across the road in a shower of sparks and grinding metal.
My leg caught between the frame and the asphalt, and I felt something give in my knee that shouldn't have, a hot pop followed by a pain so sharp, it whited out my vision.
I rolled twice and came to a stop face down on the shoulder with gravel embedded in my forearms and the taste of dirt and blood in my mouth.
I tried to push myself up and my left leg wouldn't respond.
It was still there, I could feel it, but it wouldn't move the way I told it to, and the pain was a solid wall of heat that ran from my hip to my ankle.
My bike was on its side twenty feet ahead of me with the rear wheel still spinning and the headlight throwing a crooked beam across the road.
I lay there on the gravel and stared at the sky and closed my eyes, feeling the rage of a thousand suns burning in my chest.
I lost her. I really lost her.