Chapter 7 - Aurélie
Arguably one of the worst parts of this sport is the obligation to do approximately sixteen thousand interviews, regardless of the outcome of the race. And the more popular a driver was, the bigger the scandal, the better it is for screen time. It all equates to more interviews.
By the time I made it back to my driver’s suite, Callum reluctantly letting me out of his sight, the rain had eased to a light patter. The race had ended, and currently the podium celebration was happening. I didn’t even know who placed, let alone who won.
I was too fucking tired.
The adrenaline that had carried me through the last few hours was gone, leaving only a bone-deep, exhausted tremor beneath my skin. The moment the door clicked shut, I pressed my back against it and exhaled. The quiet around me felt too heavy, but I couldn’t escape it.
My stomach cramped again. I clutched the counter until it passed—starting sharp before dulling and fading. It wasn’t as bad as earlier, and it wasn’t constant. They’d been further apart since I left the medical tent after being cleared. That had to be a good sign.
Probably just an endometriosis flare. They got bad a few times a year, so it wasn’t like this was abnormal for me.
I forgot how awful it could get because it wasn’t every cycle, so this made sense because I was due for my period anyway.
This could easily have been from the extreme stress I’d been under, the impact, dehydration, and hormone changes.
I’d experienced worse before. There had been many cycles through my adolescence into early adulthood that had me vomiting and spending days in bed for the pain to pass.
I peeled out of my race suit until it pooled around my ankles, skin tacky with sweat and rain under my fire proofs, and caught sight of myself in the cheap mirror above the counter.
Tear-stained cheeks, pale, eyes too wide and vacant.
As if I’d been hollowed out and left on display.
I turned on the sink, splashed cold water over my face, and told the woman in my reflection to get it together.
“?a va,” I whispered. “?a va.”
I wasn’t even sure who I was trying to convince. Sure as fuck couldn’t be me.
I picked my phone up from the counter, where I’d left it before the race, and unlocked it. I swiped until I found my doctor’s contact. My thumb hovered. She’d been nudging me toward surgery since last summer—a laparoscopic procedure. A few weeks of recovery, maybe less.
There had never been time, though. I never had a gap between contracts.
My off-season was never long enough because I jam-packed my schedule with training and work to pay my way through my career.
And somewhere deep down, I’d told myself that enduring the pain was a sign of strength.
That being the woman who could take it made me untouchable.
But now, staring at the name on the screen, I couldn’t help wondering if I’d been wrong.
If I wanted a real future with Callum—one that wasn’t built entirely on grit and scandal and secrets—then maybe I needed to start thinking about the body I lived in. The one he loved. The one that was screaming at me now to slow down and take care of myself.
But I didn’t. I couldn’t, not yet. The thought of recovery time, of stepping away, was unthinkable right now. The sport didn’t stop for women who needed to heal. It didn’t even pause, and I was so close to both being edged out and making real change. I didn’t come this far to only come this far.
So instead of hitting call, I dropped my phone on the counter, braced myself with both hands on the edge of it, and breathed through another cramp.
Mon Dieu.
My IUD was supposed to help in the meantime, if I had ever decided to go through with surgery. And it had, for a while. But lately… the flares were worse.
The cycle before Austria had been atrocious, too. Aching body, horrible cramps, killer headaches.
Great. And now Callum was all worked up when this was probably nothing.
I bit my lip, thinking it wouldn’t be a bad idea to just get checked. See if things had worsened in the last year, review my options, understand the full scope of my reproductive health. Callum needed those answers, too.
A frustrated sound ripped out of me—half growl, half sob. I snatched the nearest thing on the counter, a bottle of isotonic water, and hurled it across the room. It hit the wall with a hollow thud, splashing blue liquid down the surface. The noise echoed in the tiny space.
“Fuck,” I muttered, breath trembling. “Fuck.”
I kicked at the edge of my race suit, still caught around my ankles, until it came free.
It was graceless and angry. I didn’t even care where it landed—just that it wasn’t on me anymore.
The fabric slapped against the floor as I sank down after it, back pressed to the cabinet, knees drawn to my chest. My braids tugged against my scalp, tight and suffocating.
I ripped the ties loose, one by one, the rubber snapping, fingers digging into the plaits until they unraveled and my hair fell around my face in messy curls.
My hands trembled. My breath hitched. I pressed my palms over my eyes like that might hold everything in.
“Why can’t anything ever just be easy?” I pleaded to no one, the words breaking apart halfway through.
I folded forward, pulling my knees to my chest, and sat there for a long moment, imagining a future built out of the house I just closed on. Callum and me, curled up in front of the stone fireplace in the winter, making love to keep warm.
The two of us and a little addition running around in the backyard, kept safe within the grounds of our home with a picket fence. The meadows along the backside of the yard, butterflies chasing one another across the pond with a little bridge stretching end to end.
The peace of birds under the high noon, or crickets in the evening as we stared up at the stars, dreaming of our future together.
Racing memorabilia lining the walls of a shared office, a workout room, and a nursery on the second floor. Our shared bedroom on the main floor and sex in the en-suite shower, hot water cascading over our skin, on lazy Sunday mornings. Pastries for breakfast, debates over coffee versus tea.
Rain tapped against the window, the hum of the paddock fading into nothing.
For a moment, calm settled over me. My mind cleared.
My body didn’t ache. Then I dragged myself upright slowly, tucking my knees beneath me.
I rocked back and forth for a moment, stretching my neck back and forth.
With a deep breath, I crawled across the floor, dragging my bag closer, desperate for a distraction, for anything to make me feel useful instead of helpless.
My fingers shook as I unzipped it and pulled out my laptop. The pain had ebbed momentarily, and I wanted to use the reprieve to my advantage.
I opened my emails. Alain had sent updates since our conversation this morning. Attachments, security footage, drafts of legal letters. Things that should’ve made me feel powerful. Instead, all I felt was small. I was losing control of the one thing I couldn’t afford to—my body.
No. No distractions. Work before worry. Always.
But when I shifted to sit cross-legged, the cramp returned—low, deep, almost rhythmic—and the cursor blurred on the screen. I gritted my teeth. “Just a flare,” I told myself. “Just a flare.”
It made more sense anyway, for it to be an endo flare. I mean, the likelihood of my IUD getting dislodged more than once seemed highly unlikely, especially since bleeding hadn’t followed these cramps.
A wave of dizziness rolled over me, soft but disorienting.
My body wouldn’t listen no matter the circumstances.
I pushed the laptop aside and reached for my bag again, rummaging until my fingers brushed the small, half-empty bottle of painkillers buried at the bottom.
The ones I kept for travel, stronger than the stuff I took yesterday, prescribed near the end of last season when the flare-ups had nearly put me in the hospital.
I turned the bottle over in my hand, debating. The label warned against mixing with caffeine, alcohol, and operating a motor vehicle. It might as well have said racing, thinking clearly, and feeling human.
The race was over. I could afford to dull the edges for a night.
I twisted the cap off and dry-swallowed two, grimacing as the chalky bitterness clung to my tongue.
I had a bit of time until they kicked in, so I needed to get going.
I carefully climbed to my feet, but every movement felt like it had to be negotiated with my body.
My muscles trembled as I shimmied into soft black leggings, tugged one of Callum’s shirts over my head, and pulled a hoodie on top.
Armor of a different kind. Something to hide behind.
Not from him, but from the vultures with cameras waiting outside the paddock.
I stuffed my laptop back in my bag, shoved my damp race gear inside a laundry sack, and tugged the hood over my head until my face was shadowed.
Then I slipped out the back exit of the hospitality wing.
The rain had dwindled to a fine mist that turned the floodlights into halos.
My car was parked just beyond the barriers, waiting for me in the fading daylight.
I climbed in, started the engine, and let the quiet hum fill the space.
By the time I hit the motorway, the pills began to seep through my bloodstream, all creeping and patient.
I could feel the first threads of relief unspooling.
The world didn’t stop hurting, but it started to soften.
My muscles unwound. My thoughts drifted, edges blurring like headlights through rain.
The pain dulled to a hum, distant but present, and I let myself sink into the quiet.
My fingertips tingled where they curled around the steering wheel. My mind detached from reality, not unpleasantly, just enough to feel comfortably distant from the heavy thoughts that had consumed me for what felt like my entire life.
I felt floaty, not quite still, like the air itself had thickened. My body felt light but not free—the cost of comfort was distance: from pain, from fear, from myself.
The discomfort was easing. That’s what mattered. The rest could wait.
Tomorrow, I’d call my doctor. I’d explain everything to Callum—that it was just a flare, just my endometriosis being cruel and untimely, nothing more. I’d tell him I was okay. I’d make him believe it, even if I didn’t.
I could almost feel him now. His hand at the back of my neck, grounding me, thumb brushing the spot behind my ear, how he always kissed me there when he held me from behind. He’d cradle me, whisper mon c?ur against my skin, and everything would quiet.
That was the safest I ever felt. Right before I fell apart with him. He was the only one who truly knew me inside and out. The only one who knew how to soothe me and break me all at once. He always knew exactly what I needed.
I lifted one trembling hand from the wheel, and without thinking, rested it over my stomach. I thought about what this pain could be, and the thought just about took my breath away as a sob caught in my throat.
I turned the radio on to drown out my thoughts, but even the music sounded far away.
The motorway lights streaked across the windshield in blurred gold lines.
Everything was fine.
This was fine.
It had to be.