Chapter Nineteen Belgium
Chapter Nineteen Belgium
It’s raining. Again.
Ever since the sun rose on the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium, rain has been plummeting from the sky in gray sheets. Sarah gathers the media team in the garage, handing out the bulky headphone sets. “Okay, people, you know the rules. Stewards don’t want anyone out there that isn’t a driver or pit,” she explains. “Social teams, we’ll get footage from the drones—ask me for the password now if you don’t already have it. Video, let’s plan on getting shots of the guys after. Cooldown if we get it, podium if we get it, and anything in between if, God forbid”—she knocks on the desk behind her three times—“we have to.”
Delaney is sitting in a swivel chair beneath the rows and rows of screens already illuminated with the slick track and rainy sky, a bag of Belgian chips open on her lap. I sidle up to her and whisper, “What does she mean?”
Delaney offers me a red-dusted chip. “Spa in the rain has a reputation.”
“It was fine in England, though.”
“Turned into a drizzle while they were out there.” She eats the chip for me and delicately wipes her mouth with the back of her wrist. “When it’s coming down in waves like this, that’s a safety concern. Visibility is shot. They’re going to try it, but I give it…” Her brown eyes narrow at the open garage door. Rain is pooling on an empty Ignition Energy Drink can. “Four laps before race control calls it quits and has everyone off the track.”
Nervousness lances sharply through my pulse. The cars are already lined up on the grid, tire covers off. The race is about to start. Arthur is near the middle of the pack today; he slid off the track during his fourth lap in the last Qualifying session, which technically broke the track limits rule and got his best lap time deleted. And from the races I’ve seen, middle of the grid isn’t great. Cars will try to get around him, bottleneck, slip around. Chances are already higher during the first lap for a “racing incident” to occur, too—the kind of accidents that happen when there are twenty world-class race cars staggered meters apart, all jumping to start at the same time, with millions of dollars on the checkered line.
And since the David Bowie Night debacle, our group chat has decided that it’s smartest to keep Arthur and my “relationship” under wraps until Bob’s wedding. No more breadcrumbs, plane cuddling, or shopping trips. We’ll stroll into the wedding of Ignition’s owner, Holmes will lose it, Arthur will get out of his contract, and everyone will go to Leone… besides me.
Until then, I’m not supposed to show that I like Arthur. At all.
And I can do that.
It’s only pouring down rain, and Arthur is about to drive as quickly as possible in it, and I can’t show that the noise and smells and excitement of the garage are scraping down my spine, dragging me apart. And that doesn’t even matter, really, because everyone is tense. I hug my bag to my chest, feeling the bulky weight of the Panasonic camera in there. He’ll be fine. He’ll drive. Then I’ll give him this camera and ask if he’ll film me per the philosophical advice of my Texas neighbor.
As if reading Arthur on my mind, Delaney adds in a low murmur, “He knows how to be safe. I promise. He just needs to stay alive and score some points.”
Stay alive ? That’s an actual reminder she’d say to him? “He has to be okay. He has to. They wouldn’t have me film this if something could happen.”
An emotion that might be compassion softens Delaney’s eyes. “Sure. Yeah. Nothing bad can happen.” She shifts, growing quieter. “Did he talk to you?”
Never a good question. “About?”
To me, Delaney is confidence, the kind of strong and radiant woman I aspire to be. So, to see her draw her fingers over her lips, eyes dropping to my knees… my stomach sinks.
“They cleared Faust to race again.”
No , I want to say. They can’t do that, because there’s a narrative to this story. Arthur is the comeback kid. He gets to redeem himself in Italy. That’s how stories work.
“We know they won’t put him back in until after the Netherlands race,” she continues. “And about today… Cameron told me once that a million things can go wrong during a race. Fuel, parts, temperature, steering wheel, adjustment, gearbox. You have to trust your team, and that nine hundred people did their jobs right. That’s the secret nobody’s going to tell you, Lilah. All of us are taking a leap of faith together every race weekend. He’s used to this feeling. I promise.”
My throat tightens. I think about the garage cheering when Arthur won. How the pit crew moves as one with his car, pulling in and exhaling out, a choreography of synchronized bodies. Cameron’s voice on the radio, the fans in the seats, Sarah like glue, Delaney like strength.
And me. I’m a part of this team, too. For now.
So I put on my headphones and hold up my camera as the last light above the track turns red.
Nobody breathes—except for Arthur, low and soft over the radio. Rain drizzles in a thick fog over the track, throwing an opaque silver screen across the gray surface, and I watch the cars wait for the lights to go out from behind my camera. Footage I can play back later, combing through the seconds to understand how life works.
Then, the lights are out.
Rain shoots from the tires as the cars snap forward, so fast my stomach lurches. “Easy.” Cameron’s voice fills my headphones. “This isn’t King power hour. Mind your grip.”
There isn’t a reply. I can barely see Arthur’s car on the screen; everything is gray.
“Do you copy, King?”
“I got it,” Arthur bites back. “I can’t see anything. My visor’s blocked already. I need to open it.”
“Hawke’s right behind—”
Arthur lets out a blurred expletive as the red blinking lights on the back of the cars tangle in the fog. “Tell him to quit riding me,” Arthur growls, frustration darkening his voice. I’ve never heard him this angry before, and even I know that there’s very little Cameron can do when it comes to the other drivers.
“We can tap out,” Cameron says. “It’s okay.”
“I’m not quitting.”
More lights, and a cherry-red car pulls around a corner. The turn in the track must be breaking up the fog somehow. Arthur will be able to get more visibility once he’s closer. He just needs to make it a little bit farther and he’ll be safer. Every lap, there will be a chance for him to see clearly there, and that’s good.
He can do this. This is Arthur. He can do anything.
“All right. Visibility’s better in ten,” Cameron says, seeing the same break in the fog that I do. “Don’t worry about your position. I’ve got Holmes in my ear, they’re going to call the race in the next two—”
I don’t know what Cameron says after that.
Everything happens in the span of a breath. There’s this noise, like a metal door slamming shut, and the screen that shows Arthur’s camera blurs as a gold car slams into his, and then the barrier, bouncing and then twisting around, steam pouring from the tires and enveloping the camera. I’m staring in shock at the silver as there’s another harsh bang, and I look at the bird’s-eye screen: three cars skidding down, down, out of the fog, crumpling further as they turn all wrong, the golden Leone car flipped over, a sight as sickening as a broken bone. A fourth car emerges behind the pileup, its front-right wheel ripped off.
I think I say something. I don’t know. My hand’s over my mouth, and I’m standing, and I hear Cameron yell that the car’s okay and ask Arthur if he’s all right. Fingers grip the back of my sweatshirt and I turn, finding Delaney’s wide eyes. She’s just as shocked as I am, and my heart plummets. No , I think. No, you can’t be scared. You know how this works, and what’s actually bad, and you said you trust all 900 of us, so you can’t be scared.
I’ve almost got the words on the tip of my tongue when Arthur appears on screen.
He pulls himself out of the car. Orange in the gray, standing on the driver’s seat. Then he starts to run toward the other wrecked cars—one red, one gold. “I’m okay,” Arthur says, shaken up but speaking.
Relief drenches me. He’s okay. He’s okay. I’m okay. But what is he doing?
“Get back in the car,” I hear Holmes say over the radio, sending a jolt down my spine. “Right now .”
Arthur doesn’t listen. He approaches the two cars, the flipped-over Leone on top of the Cavalli, and my stomach sinks as I realize it’s Jean Baudelaire and Rafael Ramirez; they were in front of him and behind him on the grid. That shy, baby-faced smile.
Delaney grabs my shaky hand in hers and holds it tight.
The livestream cuts to another angle, and now Arthur’s helping medics and mechanics pull the cars apart, and his visor is open, a cut of skin between the orange, and I think he has to be helping Rafael out—but then he’s grabbing on to an arm in a gold race suit and hoisting Jean up, out, and onto his feet.
“Oh my God, thank you,” Delaney exhales, and my breath hitches.
He’s helping Jean . Arthur ran out of his car for his old teammate. His rival.
I think he’d do it for anyone, though.
I think this isn’t just a crush.
In the mist, Rafael appears beside them, then James Hawke, the driver who had his tire forcibly removed, and that makes four. All four drivers are safe. I cling to Delaney’s side as they leave the track and red flags wave between the fenced barriers. I keep my eyes on Arthur, the tiny orange pixels that mean he’s alive, he’s okay, he’s walking, partly because I physically need to keep watching him or else I might pass out. And partly because the announcers are explaining the last sixty seconds in excruciating detail, every angle of the crash playing out on the television screens. Arthur’s car getting hit again, and again, and again, and I can’t watch it. I will die if I have to see any more of that.
Suddenly, there’s a firm squeeze on my shoulder. Delaney. “They’re coming this way. Are you all right? Do you need to sit down?”
I nod, my throat stuck. “No, I’m good. I can—I can handle this.”
Her eyes drift over my mouth, as if she knows something she doesn’t want to say, then she nods back and goes to talk with the group forming by the garage door, and I twist my hands behind my back as I pace to the shadows. I don’t want to be around people and I can’t keep still and I want to see him and I want him to tell me that it was all a joke, a prank, typical Arthur, what a lark. Adrenaline is rocketing through me, and I shift my weight back and forth between my toes and heels until—
Arthur and James appear up front. Arthur is still in his race suit, only the collar undone and the zip pulled down so he can get more air. His hair is plastered to his balaclava-creased forehead, sweat and water dripping down his sharp nose and pale cheeks, all the color drained from his skin. He keeps twisting his wrist and wincing, like he’s checking and re-checking if whatever hurts still hurts. He’s hurt.
People start to clap. I try to join in, pasting on a mechanical smile as Arthur works his way through the crowd… toward me.
No.
He’s looking right at me. Is he going to—?
He walks past me.
Doesn’t throw off a cocky one-liner or flirty quip or an explosive, cutting truth. He ignores me completely as Merlin guides him through the back, the smell of rain and fuel and what might be blood lingering in the air.
That’s when I notice the eyes.
Everyone in the garage, from Cameron in his mission-control chair to Sarah to the strangers I haven’t met—they’re all looking at me. Because rumors do travel fast in Formula 1, and if I hadn’t been sure the team was onto us before, hadn’t been convinced that Arthur and I needed to reel it back to make it to the wedding, I could be sure now.
Embarrassment seeps into my cheeks as I shrink into an empty chair. Then I get up and scamper to the back door. I need space, air.
All those eyes. The staring. The curious pity.
Poor, sad me. Left again.
I push through another door and find myself in the walkway to an employee parking lot. A gazebo stands like a lighthouse in the pouring rain, and I run over to it, grateful for the first time in my life to see a tiny cigarette logo denoting that this is a smoking area.
Leaning against a white post, I try to catch my breath. God, I’m being ridiculous. Arthur just helped pull a man out of a wrecked car while he himself was injured, and I’m only thinking about how I feel. That’s so selfish. I told myself that I could ignore this—and I can. I will. I have to, for Arthur, for my friends. They all want to go to Leone together, and if I close my eyes, breathe through my mouth, block out my thoughts, there won’t be this pathetic feeling gnawing in my chest, burning through my skin, begging me to find a man who doesn’t want to talk to me right now. Find him. Tell him your feelings. Once he knows, he’ll be the one who wants to stay.
Hope is so annoying. It doesn’t make any narrative sense at all.
“Lilah?”
My fingers tighten around the gazebo’s column as I recognize the voice, my panic sharpening into tension instantly. While I still have my back turned to her, I take a deep breath. Stay calm. Detach.
I turn, and my iron will snaps at the sight of Delaney standing in the rain. She’s soaked, her pale pink suit a saturated fuchsia. “I know, I know, you’re totally fine.” She holds up her dripping hands, palms out. “But you don’t need to be. And if you aren’t, and you need someone to talk to…”
Tears well in my eyes as I nod, unable to speak. She steps up to the gazebo platform and gets her slender arm around my shoulders just as the floodgates open, and then everything is raining, the sky and my eyes and my greedy, idiotic heart who wants another ending, any ending, where I don’t leave here alone.
“Have you told him?” she asks. “That it’s real for you?”
I take three big breaths, one and one and one, hoping too much oxygen might short-circuit my sobbing. “No. I can’t.”
“Why?”
Because the clock is ticking, and Arthur goes after everything he wants, and I can’t want someone who doesn’t want me, who’d pick a car over my heart , I think. I spent my entire childhood having happily ever after ripped away from me over and over, living in other people’s houses, watching other people’s lives. I’m supposed to know better than this.
But out loud, I say, “I just can’t.”
Delaney doesn’t ask me anything else after that. She only squeezes my back and sets her chin on top of my head, and lets me watch the rain shimmer over the grass until my chest doesn’t burn.