Chapter 12 #3
“I know you think I should just laugh it off. I know it sounds like champagne problems. Boo-hoo, I look different; in exchange I get more sponsorship and media attention than anyone else. But you don’t understand how it feels to spend all your time and energy trying to do what you love yet never feeling like you belong with the community around you. ”
Racing is and isn’t my world. I’ve spent eleven years living and breathing it—skipping birthday parties for weekend kart races until I had no friends, smiling and pretending I’m interested in the yawny personal lives of sponsor reps—but I’m still the attention-sucking outsider to my peers, a surprising novelty to my superiors, a “tick-the-box publicity exercise” to the sport itself.
There’s absolute silence.
My insides twist and tangle until I can’t feel them at all. My plan this morning was to make progress on the FC-80 and cram in a couple hours of SAT studying. Easy, simple, straightforward.
Yet somehow here I am, standing amid the fragments of a half-built rear wing to a twenty-year-old car, pouring out my darkest thoughts—words I’ve tried to play off as a joke—to my biggest rival.
Cameron could laugh in my face, pawn it off as melodrama, even relay the story to Sasha over a beer tonight like, Can you believe this crazy girl?
My heart thuds. I pray my momentary failure to control my mouth won’t blow up spectacularly in my face.
After what feels like an eternity, Cameron leans down so we’re eye to eye. “If those are champagne problems, then that’s some shit champagne.”
I let out a long breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.
“I’m sorry for making you feel unwelcome. It was just really hard to compete against you sometimes.”
I choke back a laugh. Last I checked, DraftKings had him at -300 odds of winning the championship while I hovered somewhere between +5000 and +6000. “You’ve been leading the whole season.”
“But it’s not only about the on-track performance.” He looks at me, his eyes sad. “We like to pretend it’s all about being fast, but you’ve been around long enough now, you know the paddock game.”
He isn’t wrong. Any ideas I might have had about Europe being the enlightened land of motorsport, free of inconvenient racing politics, had gotten smacked out of me when Britt called about an Orbital x Girls campaign before I’d even set foot in England.
“Are you saying I should be grateful I’m at least leading something?”
“No. I just want you to know it’s killing Sasha you could sneeze and get five sponsorships tomorrow while he can’t sign anyone except his dad’s company.”
That does make me feel good, even if I’d rather be beating Sasha on the track.
“And I’m sorry we haven’t done more to include you,” he says. “To be honest, you’ve never given the impression you wanted to come out with us very much.”
I think back to our prior interactions—how desperately I wanted to belong, yet how I shrunk back at any whisper of rejection.
It’s a trigger reflex I’ve honed from always being the odd one out.
Put on a brave face. Don’t let them see you hurt.
The shell has kept (some) of the disappointment out, but clearly it’s also been keeping people out, too.
“Just so you know, you’re welcome to come to pubs with us and watch Tottenham lose anytime.”
I giggle at this very apt description of what they spend 99 percent of their hangouts doing. “Why do you guys bother if your team’s so bad?”
“There’s that smile I’ve been looking for.” He takes a step in.
Suddenly, I feel like I can’t breathe.
I can count every single lash framing his dark eyes.
I worry my lower lip. Kissing Cameron would be the mother of all terrible ideas.
We’re teammates, so I have to see him at every race weekend whether I like it or not.
He’s my direct competitor for the F2 seat next year and the F3 Drivers’ Championship.
I can’t be thinking about how he makes me jittery and tingly all over when I’m trying to pass him.
Not to mention how totally cliché it would be for the only female driver on the grid to get into something—anything—with her own teammate.
Despite this, my stomach drops like I’m taking a hairpin turn when I feel his minty breath on my lips. Worse, my body is tilting toward him of its own accord, as if my brain has no control whatsoever.
He gently tips my chin up. His eyes go from my eyes to my lips, then back up to my eyes. If I lean an inch closer—
My phone dings.
Cameron jerks back. “Damn, that’s loud.”
I glance down, heart still pounding away.
Dietrich: Are you in Milton Keynes today?
Dietrich: The reporter who was supposed to interview me fell sick
Dietrich: Would you like to meet and do some race review?
Okay, I type back, partly relieved, partly disappointed the emergency brake has been pulled on whatever messy situation I was about to trip my way into.
“All good?” Cameron asks, his face as red as if we just finished a round of HIIT.
“All good.” I train my focus on Dietrich’s profile picture, trying my best to tame the unruly swarm of butterflies invading my stomach.
This is the boy I should want. The generational talent who’s going to help me level up. The guy Mom squeals over. The idol I’ve revered since I’ve known what a crush was.
Not my competitor. Not the guy who muddles the picture on-track. Not even if he’s turned out nicer than I thought possible, not even if I can tell him things I’ve never shared with anyone.
Dietrich: Meet at The Avenue in 15