Slipstream

Chapter Twenty The Netherlands

Chapter Twenty The Netherlands

When I get to my room that night, I unbag the Panasonic camcorder, chuck it in the trash, and crawl into bed to wallow in my own self-hatred without stripping off my rain-drenched clothes. Then, ten minutes later, I pull the camera out of the trash can, cry, and fall asleep.

This is a bad idea.

By Tuesday, I have a tickle in my throat. Wednesday, a full-blown cough. I lose my voice the Thursday we arrive in the Netherlands, and begrudgingly send Max an email that I’ll be “off work” while Sarah squeezes me onto the team doctor’s Saturday morning schedule. “I’m completely okay, though,” I rasp out, then clear my throat. “See? Better.”

The elderly doctor eyes me over his wire-rimmed glasses. “Is this your first time traveling this much, Ms. Graywood?”

“Yes, but I used to move all the time as a kid.”

“And how’s your appetite?”

“Voracious.”

“Have you been caught in any bad weather recently? Snow? Rain?”

“Well…”

He agrees that I’m probably not going to die, grabs me pills from the cabinet across the clean white room, and slaps my name on the clinic door. “You seem to be getting better, but you may be contagious. Best to stay here in our bed for the rest of the day and heal up so a cold doesn’t travel through the paddock.”

The official racing clinic is tiny, four private rooms with linen-covered windows overlooking the Circuit Zandvoort, so I guess it’s a good thing that a sick documentarian is the only patient. Sighing, I let the doctor help me up onto the medical bed, grab me water and orange juice, and leave me with the ceiling-mounted television flickering through local news. After an hour of warm sunshine and subtitles, I’m dozing off, more relaxed than I have been in days. There may be something to medical intervention and extremely crisp cotton beds.

Only problem is, I haven’t talked to Arthur since the accident—and now it’s been too long and I don’t know how to bring anything up when I’ve smelled his blood mixed with burnt rubber. Every text I start feels frivolous. Want to actually sneak around so we can get dinner? Silly. I could wear a mustache to your hotel room so nobody sees me. Ridiculous.

He doesn’t reach out to me, either.

That’s why, in my half-awake, partly lucid dream state, I think I’m hallucinating Arthur’s quiet, angry voice from the other side of the closed clinic door.

“Who’s in there?”

“Mr. Bianco, I must ask you to leave. These are private rooms.”

“That name on the door—Graywood. Is that Lilah?”

I pull myself up the stacked pillows. I’m not dreaming; I couldn’t mistake his British-Italian accent for anyone else.

“That’s private medical information, even for you, son.”

“Private? Her name’s on the door!”

“Quiet down. She’s asleep.”

“Why? What’s wrong? What’s going on?” A pause. “Is she hurt?”

Oh no. Panicked, I finger-comb my messy hair and yank my gigantic Velvet Underground T-shirt back so it’s not hanging off my shoulder. But the doctor isn’t going to let Arthur stomp in here, and eventually, he’ll admit defeat like anyone else and leave me alone. He can do that. Arthur can throw in the towel.

“You know I can’t tell you a patient’s medical status,” the doctor replies.

“You have to. That’s my girlfriend.”

He didn’t.

“Oh… Mr. Bianco, I apologize. I had no idea.”

“Yeah. And if I can’t see her for myself, then you need to tell me if she’s okay. You have to.”

He did.

“Well, I can make an exception this once. Let me ask Ms. Graywood if she’s okay with—”

The door cracks open, then swings all the way, and Arthur is stepping into the clinic room. His face is pink, tense, anxious, and he keeps his broad back to the door as he shuts it behind him with one calculated hand, the doctor left on the other side. Our eyes meet, and his mask pops on: expressionless frown, relaxed brows. As if he was just walking down the hall and saw a distant enemy he wanted to say hi to.

“Hey,” he says casually.

I swallow. Does he think I didn’t just hear him on the other side of the door? “Hi.”

He nods, satisfied, like me being able to form words was the first test he wanted to run. And maybe I did hallucinate Arthur’s conversation, the fake-boyfriending, that he seemed to care why I was in here, because he seems very composed as he crosses to the stiff chair by my bed. Not frantic at all.

He sits. Elbows on the armrests, legs crossed at the ankle. Taps his fingers on the curved plastic arm. Takes a breath, and glances at my face.

“What’s up? Are you… okay?”

His words are strained. I nod, shifting to sit up more. “Just a cold. Oh, Arthur, you can’t be in here.” My hand jumps to my mouth. “The doctor said I might be contagious.”

He shrugs. “It’s fine.”

“No, really, this cough sucks.”

“It’s fine ,” he repeats.

Okay. It’s fine. I slump down, letting the plastic headboard support most of my weight; my abdominals are currently spinning with cold meds and confusion, and aren’t that great at being muscles. Arthur’s eyes track my movements, then his jaw shifts, left, right, and he looks at the window.

“Why didn’t you call me?” he says.

Hmm, why didn’t I call the person I’m supposed to not care about at all? “Qualifying is today,” I say, opting to skip past the whole you’re not my emergency contact of it all.

Arthur shakes his head, clearly unhappy. “Did you tell Max?”

“Yeah, I did—oh. Sorry, I didn’t even think of that. Did he come up and annoy you or something?” I blink, realizing there’s a way more important question. “Why are you here?”

“Wrist sprain from Spa,” he answers quickly. “Not a big deal. And no.”

“No?”

“He didn’t… But you should’ve told him to stay with you.”

Okay, I’m officially very confused, and I don’t think it’s the slight fog from the cough meds. Arthur knows that Max sitting in my clinic room, watching me watch TV, is my personal version of Dante’s Inferno—all nine spicy layers.

“It’s just a cold,” I say. “I don’t need anyone.”

Arthur’s cheek flexes again. He rolls one wrist, fingers clenching, then smooths his wide hand down the length of his thigh. It’s a long journey, miles of space to trek.

“You can’t be alone at a hospital, Graywood,” he says. “I’m staying here. If that’s all right with you.”

“But Quali is—”

“In a few hours.”

“But you need to race this weekend.”

“And I will.”

My eyes narrow. His narrow back. Then he looks down at my neck, obviously noticing my collarbones, and then his eyes move down to my hands. The doctor had slapped a white medical bracelet on me, which had seemed like overkill at the time and especially dramatic as Arthur’s passive frown wobbles. For a split second between frowns, I see how much it bothers him to see me here, and I suddenly remember what should’ve occurred to me days before now. Arthur’s accident in Monza, the one Delaney had told me about, had been during a race. He would’ve been carted to whatever makeshift hospital F1 had nearby.

That’s why he’s here. That’s why he used our fake relationship to check on me; he’d probably claim to be Merlin’s problematically young boyfriend if she got cooped up, too.

That… might be why he disappeared after getting in another accident involving Leone.

“I’m really okay,” I promise him, my voice softening. “And I’ll call you. Next time.”

Arthur’s chest rises. “There won’t be a next time.”

“Right. I’ll never get a cold again.”

He exhales. “Never.”

He’s always so tense. And I want to know why. At this point, with how little time we have left, I need to know. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Delaney mentioned there was an accident in Monza. What happened?”

His eyes skid over to me, surprised. “You don’t know?”

“I couldn’t find anything online.”

On some deep level, I recognize that this is it, my proverbial fork in the road for ignoring what’s happening here. When his lips tick into an unhappy smile, I feel myself land in this trap for good.

“I almost died.”

Fear. That’s all I am as he continues. “It was the Italian Grand Prix, back when I was with Leone. He got me on the thirtieth lap around the Parabolica. Next thing I knew, I was in the barrier. They said it was a freak accident. All the things that could’ve gone wrong, did.”

Died. He—that is so much worse than I thought. I fight the urge to reach over for his hand just to feel his pulse. “I’m so sorry. The videos, it looked bad, but… they all do to me.”

“Don’t apologize. I just wish everyone could move on, like I have. My TP at Leone would bring it up every time I got into a car. Toughen up. Be a man. We can’t keep you if you don’t prove yourself. That makes whatever this is”—he waves to his chest—“worse.”

I’m sick with anger. “What gets worse?”

He waits, the clock on the wall ticking, the silence between us louder. “Sometimes, after something goes wrong, I can’t really breathe.” He doesn’t meet my eyes as he speaks. “It happened at Spa, and that day the team talked to me about… us, or whatever. Ever since the accident, when I think about it, I can’t breathe. So I try not to, so it doesn’t get bad.”

Bad. It. He isn’t using the therapy-speak of someone who’s googled all this. “Do you mean you have panic attacks?”

“I don’t know,” Arthur says. “I haven’t—well. I haven’t told anyone. If the sponsors knew, or the teams heard. If Leone…”

He trails off, and my heart threatens to break. If the team that already fired him once after he almost died heard that Arthur was still suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, that’d be it.

It’s an act.

I knew that, to a certain degree. But I couldn’t ever guess that a persona could run this deep. I would never judge him for his anxiety, but I know how the world views someone if their brain deviates from the norm. If the fans knew how their hot, confident, reckless driver is looking at me—like he needs me to save him, like I’m a map in the middle of a maze—his daredevil image would be toast.

“Why do you keep doing this? You don’t need to race.”

“I don’t quit,” Arthur says, cracking a smile. “I’ll either die in a car or they’ll kick me out of Formula 1.”

I get it then. When we first met, Arthur hadn’t just wanted me around because I could help him. He saw me about to quit on myself, and he couldn’t stand it.

This is him, dying on his feet.

“But the person who hit you, are they still out there? Do you still have to compete against them?” I hesitate, needing to know. “Was it Jean?”

Arthur’s eyebrows knit together, and he gives me a look that’s too long. “You’ve never seen my uncle race.”

“That isn’t—”

“Holmes Bianco only drives carefully,” he says, reciting an equation he’s memorized. “He was the pragmatic king of Formula 1. He retired a few years after I started.”

“You… competed against him?”

My pulse quickens as Arthur’s mouth pulls in. “He won the race I crashed. It was nice for him, I’m sure. Teaching me one more lesson. You’re… supposed to let someone pass if they’re faster than you. When he did, he bumped me off the road. Tires blew. Something was wrong with the halo that was supposed to keep my head on. Funny.” He lifts one forefinger and lets it fall on his knee. “He says I’ve never gotten it back on straight since.”

His—uncle. His uncle was the one who caused Arthur’s accident? Ruler of the family fortune. Arthur’s team principal.

Commissioner of the documentary.

“How?” I clench the blanket on my lap. “How can he get away with this? Is it legal? How—how can you work with him?”

“It’s only illegal if I have proof he did it on purpose. Otherwise? It’s just another crash. And he became team principal after I’d signed the Ignition contract.” Arthur says this like it’s a fact of life, and maybe it is; men in positions of power continue to reposition for power. “This is how I know they’ll cover us up, Graywood. He’s been covering my hospital stay for years. Called you in to help him, even. Set his narrative in stone and line his pockets doing it.”

Holmes is the reason I’m here. He’s the reason why Arthur has had to jump through hoops to get out of his manipulative contract. Moments loop back in my memory like rewinding footage: Arthur saying he doesn’t want to do the documentary, Arthur finding my scar, Arthur disappearing after David Bowie Night. Every time he’s vanished. His secret, angry smiles. He’s been hiding this pain in plain sight, and I’d missed it. Me. The bloodhound.

And then there’s the images I’ve kept spooled and hidden in the 35-millimeter film can of my mind: Arthur in that Texas dive bar with a half smile and an untouched beer, telling me to stay, the first person who ever has. Arthur at the airport, saying that I don’t have to put up this much of a fight when people want to help me, because he knew what it was like to hide from the world. He’s been here since day one, helping me, and I’ve been too wrapped up in my own life to see it. And now I do.

I see all of him.

Struggling to swallow, I look down at my fingers. They’re shaking. “Thank you for telling me. Do you… want to lie down?”

I don’t know why I say it. The question comes out of nowhere. My face goes warm, and I really hope he thinks it’s a cold symptom. Flushed cheeks, could be a fever. “Just, if you’re driving later. This bed is really wide, and that chair looks uncomfortable. And you’re here, visiting me when you don’t have to, so you should be—”

“Yes,” Arthur says. “I want to.”

Trying my best to look calm and collected, I scoot to the right side of the thin bed, stopping when I feel the sheets scraping my bare ankles. Maybe I should give him a warning about that. Scraping. Hospital smells. Semi-sick person. This has to be triggering, a weird flashback to—

The bed sinks to the left as he sits, right on top of the covers. “Do you mind if I do this?” he says, positioning his arm on top of the stack of pillows, somewhere by my neck but not touching my neck. But close, he’s close, and we’ve objectively done more, danced in public and slept on a plane, skin-to-skin contact to keep people guessing, but this is what’s painful. This is when I wish we were touching because I want to hold him , tell him that I know it’s hard, I know he’s a good person. He can’t hide it from me anymore.

“Go for it,” I say.

He shifts again and our legs brush, separated by the blankets. “Sorry.”

“No, get comfy. If you get sick, it needs to be worth it.”

He laughs quietly.

I don’t know what to say back, so I shift against the pillows, cross my legs, and pretend to watch TV. For once, Arthur doesn’t work overtime to fill the silence. After ten minutes, he gets out his phone, types out an Infinite Jest –length something to someone, then starts to thumb down the screen, scrolling whatever social media website or cat memes he likes. I wonder if there are secret apps just for the elite, like Reddit for the upper class. I’d heard about Raya.

I bite the inside of my cheek and ask, “What are you looking at?”

“Just reading.”

“Reading?”

“Don’t sound so shocked.”

He tilts his phone toward me, and sure enough, the screen is covered in text. “I like autobiographies,” he says. “It’s just sports.”

“No, that’s cool.” I turn to face him more. “I love memoirs. I’d read a sports one, probably.”

That one treacherous corner of his mouth perks up. “Really.”

“Don’t sound so shocked,” I tease.

“But it’s you, willingly reading about sports. Wow.”

“Maybe if I was in an airport and they only sold one book?”

“Reading in general, really. I didn’t peg you for the type.”

“It’s weird, I know. The glasses trick you.”

He laughs again. I love winning his laughs, even more now, when it’s like a wall between us has dropped away and he’s stripped down to the real him.

“What about car docs? Have you ever seen Hands on a Hardbody ?” I ask.

“Nope.”

“Oh man. It’s so good. Best movie about cars ever made.”

I glance at the ancient television that in no way can access a streaming platform. Arthur follows my eyes, also assessing that we’re stuck with local channels for the foreseeable future.

“I could pull it up?” he says. “It’s probably online. If you wanted.”

My own phone is sitting in my backpack on the ground next to him, chock-full of internet and entertainment. And I actually like the grainy tube television and incomprehensible Dutch commercials. And I should probably take a nap and sleep off this cold, so I can get back to filming him tomorrow. Which is something we need to discuss. His secret. My documentary. Unstoppable force, immovable object. How are we going to figure this one out? How will I?

But watching another movie with Arthur is undeniably tempting. And maybe—secretly—this could be good for me. For both of us. For the rest of August, or however long we have, I can keep my walls down and be here for Arthur and enjoy this sunshine while it lasts.

“Let’s do it,” I say.

When he finds the documentary online, he angles himself so we can both see the teensy-tiny screen, his phone resting on his knee. Minutes pass. We sink together. The side of his ribs against my shoulder. My arm, brushing against his thigh, then resting on top. After he chuckles at something, the bed sags more and my cheek finds his chest, like he’s supporting me, and then his cheek is on top of my head, like I’m supporting him. And neither of us moves.

“Arthur?” I say after a minute.

“Hmm?”

“I’m sorry I didn’t ask sooner. I—this… You’re worth knowing. Just in case no one’s said that to you lately.”

His chest stills, as if he’s holding his breath, waiting. Then he lets it out, long, soft.

“Thank you.”