Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Four
When I wake up, my new watch says it’s ten a.m., but I don’t believe it. I rub my eyes, peek under the duvet to confirm I’m alone, then slide out, tiptoeing to the wide windmill-patterned curtains that cover one side of the room. Gone for breakfast , reads the note on the side table. Stay in bed.
I smile. It’s a brand-new day, and I need to deal with what happened last night. But I think I’m also… happy.
Letting the curtains drop back into place, I check that my T-shirt is long enough for ten a.m. behavior and then walk over to my phone.
The screen is filled with notifications.
One hundred missed texts. Fifty emails. Missed calls , three from my mom. And it catches me by surprise, that falling feeling, dread from somewhere below me I can’t spot yet. How quickly that happiness can disappear without a trace.
Hi, honey, it’s me, I saw the photos and just wanted to check in and…
I exit her voicemail, my mind going numb. Photos? There shouldn’t be any photos. We purposefully went to a nude beach so—my eyes snap to the ruined orange dress on the ground.
Karaoke. In clothes.
The internet unfurls under my fingertips, my own personal nightmare. My name is everywhere, every version of it, with photos from last night, nothing scandalous but a lot clearer than the grainy shots from Hungary; that’s proof to the fanbase. Sports reporters have thrown up clickbait Who Is Lilah Graywood? Meet Arthur Bianco’s New Girlfriend articles overnight that would be kind of funny, headline wise, if they weren’t real. But they are, and it’s like the internet has already chosen the narrative it’s running with: Arthur and I are deeply in love, have been dating for months, and he might quit Ignition to be with me, a rumor that doesn’t even make sense.
Until I look at the comment sections.
They’re flooded with hate, the kind of high school bullying you only remember in bits and pieces as an adult, like when you see a water fountain and remember getting shoved into one.
PaddockClub9: He CAN NOT do this to us!!!! we’ve supported Arthur for YEARS and this is how he repays us! Just as he was racing again!!!
scuderia_bianco: He turns thirty and starts dating a girl from KENTUCKY I can’t watch him actually marry this one and retire lmaoooo
hitmewithyourcarjean: well she is a “filmmaker” :// she’s probably trying to trap him so she can live off that f1 $$ forever
anyonebutfaust: yeah, shes a total freak—look at her wiki
I have a Wikipedia?
Five seconds later, and that’s confirmed.
If I was editing this part of the movie, I’d layer in the most dramatic stock music I could find, because I’m in the Netherlands for a documentary and this is happening and…
I’m done.
They know. Everyone knows.
I slept with my subject and everyone knows.
A few years back, the online documentarian community was scandalized after a guy admitted to using public domain laugh tracks, layered to look like the people he’d filmed were doing the laughing. They’d ripped into his integrity and called for a boycott of his films. What I’ve done makes free soundtracks look like child’s play and—I can’t deny it. Ignition could hide it, like they’ve hidden Arthur’s story, but could I? Would I lie to my colleagues and say that I hadn’t crossed the worst line with Arthur?
No. I can’t.
I won’t.
My body starts shaking like I’ve been thrown into a freezing lake, cold sweat coating my skin. It’s over. All of the people I’ve admired in my professional community—the political workers I’ve revered in D.C., the documentarians I’ve studied—they’re going to hear about this, me, and they’ll judge me, look down on me, and it’s okay because I’m free . I don’t need to lie anymore about what I feel about Arthur, or keep this a secret. Holmes, Max, the money, the U.S. circuit, my movie…
The truth is out, and the truth can’t hurt me.
My work phone vibrates with a new email, notification unraveling. It’s from Sarah, a forwarded message with a quick note jotted at the top.
Hi love—in our hotel room, but wanted to send this before we met up… Wasn’t sure if you’d want everyone to know. I got this email today from someone saying they’re your mom. This is probably stupid spam and the press has done weirder but idk, it just made me feel like I had to give you a heads-up. Do you know anyone named “Delilah”? Or is there a reason why someone would use that name to try and talk to you? Sorry if this is weird, my brain is a bit mush right now.
Mine too. My lungs sting with a quick hit of air as I thumb down the email to Delilah Prestel’s original message.
Hello,
I am sorry for the out of the blue email! My name is Delilah and I am looking for my daughter Lilah. We miss her so much! Can you please let her know that we want to talk to her about this exciting new—
I stop reading. I can’t do any more.
Who the fuck is we ?
I get up. Put my phone down. Pick it back up. We? Her and a man I’ve never met? Them and their two happy, smiley, candle-sniffing children? I’ve been here. I’ve been waiting. She never contacted me before now, but the second photos of me and a famous, rich man hit the internet… here she is. My Hollywood happy ending is plastered all over social media, and I’m her daughter again.
She wants me back.
A phone starts to ring—it’s Arthur’s.
The door opens. Arthur’s in his sandy clothes again, phone against his ear, listening to someone speak, a bowl of fruit in his other hand. There are beads of water dotting the back of his neck. He must’ve already worked out. Run off the news. His eyes meet mine, and he nods, and that one gesture, acknowledgment, is the hug I needed.
“I’ll call you right back,” he says, then he’s off and setting the fruit on the nightstand. “Hi, have you looked at your phone?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you all right?”
Last night, I was terrified by the inevitable what-are-we conversation. Now it feels like the lock on my life has been cracked, and anyone with internet access can see my soul. “I don’t know,” I say. “I’ve been so worried, all summer, about this exact moment, and now it’s here and we’re alive. And—did Holmes fire you?”
His eyes skitter away from me, back on his screen, scanning something. Scrolling. “Not yet.”
“Are you meeting with him soon?”
“Tomorrow.”
His phone rings again. With a frown, Arthur begins to drum his fingers on his leg.
“Sorry, are you busy?” I find myself saying, and Arthur flinches, shaking his head.
“I have meetings tomorrow with Leone and Holmes, in Italy. I’m heading out this afternoon with Cameron.” He’s stilted, cold. Drumming his fingers. “Stay here. Sarah and Delaney turned their room into a war room. They’re going to wipe this from the internet. Things are going to be okay, I promise. But it will take time.”
Leone? He’s going to Italy already. I close my eyes, unable to think straight when he’s tapping his fingers, his eyes desperately searching my face for my thoughts. “Why would you talk to them right now?”
“Because I have to assure them that I’m still the driver they want next season,” Arthur says, and it’s easier this way, when I can’t see him. “You weren’t—you’ll understand next year. Once I’m back at Leone, competing with them, I’m going to be myself again. My life will go back to the way it was before the accident.”
“No. It won’t. That isn’t how life works.”
His phone starts to ring.
“Sorry. Shit.” He goes to silence it. It’s in his hand, his thumb on the side switch, when we both see the name Cavalli lighting up the screen. Under that is a missed voicemail from someone at Static. And Wusch. And other names I don’t remember.
My breath hitches. “What’s going on?”
“They’re just circling the water,” he says, and he’s using his smooth voice on me, camera Arthur, everything’s fine Arthur. “Teams that want a different driver for next year saw the pictures and assume Holmes is going to bin me.”
Ironic. The happiest sentences are the most devastating, too. “You’re… getting offers from other teams?”
“Yes, but that doesn’t change what I want to do.” Arthur touches my arm. His eyes are dark, and last night comes rushing back into my memory. All that forever right within my reach. “I need to fix what happened. I need to prove to myself that I can drive with Leone again.”
Prove himself to who? Me? His faceless crowd of fans? While he leaves me here, abandoned, with messages piling up, my own life crumbling down. “I’m coming to Italy.” Stress makes my voice stretchy, and I swallow, trying to sound stronger than I feel.
Arthur pulls his hand back. “You don’t need to.”
“You don’t have to face this on your own.”
“I’ll be okay.”
“Would me going make it worse?”
He drags in a breath that doesn’t reach deep enough. “I don’t know.”
“Then what can I do to help?”
Like a flash, he steps away from me. “I’ll be right back.” Then he’s walking to the bathroom, closing the door. It’s silent. No footsteps, no shower, nothing.
My pulse ticks.
Then I follow him. I knock, wait, then think better of that and try the handle. Unlocked, the door swings open, and when my eyes adjust to the dark, I freeze. Arthur is slumped over on the tile, his back against the wall, his head in his hands. His shoulders shake, and he has his elbows on his knees like he’s trying to keep the motion in.
“Arthur?” I whisper.
“One second.”
Both words are punctuated with breathless frustration, and I take a step closer. Mayhem has its own gravitational field, and I’ve never known how to stay back. “I’m coming in,” I say.
He doesn’t respond. Just keeps breathing loudly, in and out of his mouth, too fast. He’s breathing far too quickly for the oxygen to calm his system down.
I kneel by his side. When I put a hand on his shoulder, he shies from the touch, twisting toward the wall behind him.
“Don’t,” he says. “Please. Go.”
But I can’t. I can’t go. Not when he’d asked me last night to stay with him past our ending. It had felt real—it had been real.
My thoughts stop, suddenly understanding. Short, clipped sentences. Staggered, erratic breathing. Arthur is having a panic attack. He’d left so I wouldn’t see.
“You need to do something for me.” I grip his thick shoulder in my hand. “You have to breathe with me.”
“No.”
“Arthur.”
“Lilah—please.”
“I’m not leaving.”
His chest stills. Then he finally looks up, and his bloodshot eyes are miles away from the playful hazel I’m afraid that I adore.
“I did this. This is my fault. It’s been on me to protect you. But I—I got selfish. I took it too far.” He sounds broken, and I hate that most of all, that he’s this lovely and still breakable. “You can’t get close to me.”
“I’m okay. We’re going to be okay.”
“No, because, because you want to be invisible, you make these movies so you can be, and the team warned me, after that night in the club, that this would crush you. And I told myself it wouldn’t. I wanted to think it wouldn’t. But they were right. I’m going to hurt you, I was always going to hurt you, and now I have.”
“I’m okay ,” I repeat.
“I never wanted this. I never—I want to be good for you.”
“I know, sweetheart. Please, can you breathe with me?”
Needing to break through his thoughts, I peel his hand from his knee and hold it to my chest, right over my sternum, then inhale a deep diaphragm breath. As I count to five, I keep staring into Arthur’s eyes. I don’t blink. I don’t dare. I can’t let him slip back into his panic, shutting me out. Intense emotions like this can make a person act erratically. I remember it too well, trapped in my skin, boiling alive.
But he doesn’t pull back. And when I get to five, Arthur starts to angle toward me, his rigid arm relaxing.
“What are you doing?” he says hoarsely.
“We’re breathing. It feels good.” I choose my words carefully; pointing out to someone that they’re having a panic attack isn’t exactly relaxing. “Breathe with me, Arthur. I dare you.”
A second ticks by. Then he inhales a noisy breath.
“Good. Hold it with me. We’re going to count for five.”
I count softly, one to two, three to four, as he looks at me. He doesn’t stop looking. Barely blinks. Slowly, his panic trickles away, revealing the desperation in his flushed face. When I get to five, I start back over at zero, and minutes pass just like that, me breathing, Arthur following, his gaze clinging to me. I shift us to breathing through our nose, taking a big, wheezy inhale as an example for him, and Arthur laughs. The broken chuckle grabs my heart and gives it a shake.
I make a vow to myself right then. I don’t know how I’m going to convince him, but I’m not letting Arthur go to Leone.
If I can, I’m going to help him never feel like this again.
His eyes trail down to his hand. I’ve got it wrapped up in both of mine so he can’t take it away from its place over my heart, our chests rising and falling in sync.
“Feel that?” I say once the color has returned to his cheeks.
The corners of his mouth wobble, and he sets his jaw, bracing against the admiration in his eyes. “Still alive?”
“Still alive,” I answer.