10. Audrey
AUDREY
PLAYLIST: MOCKINBIRD – EMINEM
Morning comes, and it’s only then I clock what I am doing here. Where I am. And how much I missed it. And because I missed it so much, I need to get away from it.
I can’t be here repairing cars and racing while so many people rely on me leading Whitney-Morgan.
“I should go,” I say.
“Inside,” she says and tilts her head to the house.
“No, I need to go back.”
“Back to what?”
“Back to a penthouse suite in the Four Seasons Hotel I hate with every cell of my body to dress up so I don’t get eaten by men who think themselves the main character of everyone’s story,” I say. Just the thought makes me feel sick.
“Why do it then?”
“Because,” I say with a voice shaking as tears flood my eyes again from just thinking about all the responsibility I now hold, “Because there are 750.000 employees who would lose their jobs, somewhat about 5000 companies losing their funding as well as 19-something million private individuals losing their houses. Not to forget 40 million people who rely on the Whitney-Morgan Foundation funds to survive.”
The tears run down my cheeks.
I hate it. Hate it. Hate it. Why am I always fucking crying!
But the pressure, the responsibility—
I just can’t.
I want to work on a motor all night. Not sit in a glass enclosure. I want to roam free, while I am followed everywhere by prying eyes and camera lenses.
“What is it with you and all the crying?” Cass asks, enraging me the very second.
I open my mouth.
Close it again.
It’s stupid explaining myself to her.
She wouldn’t understand anyway.
I just throw the cloth in my hand away and storm out of the garage.
“Addy,” she calls after me. Not harshly, but soft, so I stop.
“Maybe you can also think about the 400 million people harmed through the water extraction done by Whitney-Morgan Goods. The 8 billion people affected by climate change caused by all those oil and industrial investments. The 20 million poisoned by the Whitney-Morgan-funded dye let into the indian rivers.”
I turn.
“They didn’t—“ I stutter out.
“Of course they did! Don’t you watch the fucking news?”
I shake my head.
“I—I don’t—It’s—“
I can’t deal with this.
Can’t.
I can’t lead something like this.
I—
My breathing flattens.
Not getting enough air.
I close my eyes.
Pick a role.
Any role.
Someone who had their shit together.
“I am Amber Hayes, badass killer. I murder for sport, fight training, no emotions. I overcame the abusive home. I survived. I rose. I became feared. No emotion,” I rehearse in my mind while I let the song I associated with the role play in my head.
The storm in me calms.
I get into the car without another glance back.
It was a night with everything I ever wanted. And then morning came and the life I was born into returned.
I don’t belong here.
I belong nowhere.
I am back in the hotel garage on 58th without knowing how I even got there. Not knowing if any of the traffic lights I passed were red or green, not knowing if I hit someone on the way or not.
I get out of the car and into the elevator leading directly into the penthouse suite.
There is no emotion I feel, only exhaustion.
But there is no room for it. I am not allowed to be exhausted, because of all the responsibilities.
I get into the bathroom, undress, and shower. I put on makeup to hide the marks of what happened and dress up as it is expected of me.
I get into a taxi followed by paps.
Get escorted into the glass enclosure.
Bred in captivity.
Back in captivity.
I sit at a table with nine men.
Not a single woman.
Each of them looks as if they eat souls of small children at night.
I can’t do this, says a part of me.
You have to, says another.
“Straighten up, fighter girl,” says Luke somewhere in my memory. It was back when I was close to breaking under the pressure of the industry, with everyone wanting something from me, while everything I wanted was peace and a car to speed in.
I lean with my elbows onto the glass desk.
Close my eyes for a second.
I am so tired that I want to fall asleep right here, right now. Except for the four hours in that holding cell, I haven’t slept for two nights.
I get up without a word and walk out of the meeting room without a glance back.
I take a taxi to the hotel.
Exhaustion creeps up on me, and I almost don’t make it to the bed.
I just sink onto it, shoes on and in my coat.
When I wake, it is with bright sunlight stabbing my eyes. I cover them with my arm.
I thought sleep would make me feel somewhat better, but everything feels just as horrible. Pointless.
I get up.
Shower.
Get dressed.
Sit in a cage all day.
Get a new phone from someone.
A laptop.
One I’d happily throw from the balcony when I’m back in the hotel.
I eat food I can’t remember an hour later.
Sleep.
Wake.
Rinse.
Repeat.
At the end of the week, I stare at the bathroom mirror and box into it until my knuckles are bloody, accompanied by silent screams no one will ever hear.
I curl up in the bed, but it doesn’t help.
The room's width makes me sick.
Everything in my life makes me sick.
I take the elevator downstairs and sit in the Mustang with my legs drawn up. It’s the closest to feeling something.
20 million poisoned humans, 8 million children.
400 million without water because of my father’s greed.
19 million homeowners who would lose everything.
40 million fed and saved souls because he thought that would change something.
The numbers haunt my mind.
Whatever I do, I will hurt millions of people.
So I just sit here in the car, doing nothing. Because doing nothing is better than doing the wrong thing.
I pinch my arm so hard the marks of my nails stay blue.
“We don’t give up. We race. That’s how we deal. How we survive. How we die.” Cass's words come back to me.
We race.
We ride or die.
We ride.
We die.
Yes, we die.
I slip my legs down and start the Mustang’s motor. Drive all the way to Red Hook, find them where I found them last week.
I’m let in.
Park.
Have a beer.
And another.
See someone doing coke.
“Can I jump in?” I ask the guy with a blue Pontiac and hand him a hundred bucks.
“Sure,” he says and throws a pouch with the white powder at me.
I open it and throw it onto the plate he has, chop it up, take two, and tell the others to take the rest.
“Have fun,” I say.
I walk past the other cars, looking at the drivers. I’m looking for someone special. Someone who can’t lose well and would walk over broken souls to win.
“Hey,” I hear behind me.
It’s the redhead flag girl, dressed in a very, very short leather skirt, her hair up in two knots like cat ears and a lollipop in her mouth.
“We never had the chance,” she says, holding out a hand. “Nikki.”
I squint my eyes slightly. The coke is consuming my system, and my heart beats quite fast, causing my vision to be very tunnel-y.
“Addy,” I say, taking the hand.
“I heard you kicked Cass’s ass a second time,” she says.
I am slightly taken aback. I figured Cass would have the loss die in silence.
“She told you?”
“No secrets between family,” she says lightly.
“Or rather you annoyed me so much until I spilled the tea,” says Cass, appearing from behind with an arm around Nikki’s shoulders.
“Nikki is my brother’s girl,” Cass says. “Way too good for that dumbfucker.”
“He has his qualities,” says Nikki. I am suprised, because she was definitely on my gaydar.
“Oh yeah? Which ones? Farting louder than an elephant?” Cass jokingly.
A grin fights its way onto my face even though I don’t want to, but it’s the first time all week that I didn’t feel like dread and total numbness.
“Nah,” says Nikki, “He’s just too good at eating pussy.”
I snort out and Cass chokes.
“Ew,” says Cass. “I really liked the version of me before I knew that.”
“If you dish out, you gotta take it,” says Nikki and turns to me. “So, what do you say, in for a race?”
“Which one’s yours?” I ask.
“That one,” she says and points to a green Camaro two behind us.
“Not sure you can handle me,” I say, playfully arrogant.
“Don’t let yourself be fooled by the cute appearance,” says Cass. “That little kitten has lioness claws.”
“Does she?” I ask, teasingly.
“She’s a free climber,” says Cass. “More guts than any of us here.”
“You gotta take me,” I say mindlessly. Completely forgot that I don’t plan to be here tomorrow.
Only that right now, right here, between them, nothing feels as bad as it felt before.
“You climb?” Nikki asks, beaming at me.
“I do whatever is risky enough to die from it.”
“She’s awesome. We gotta keep her,” Nikki says to Cass, who shakes her head in disbelief.
Seeing them, hearing them, causes a grin to tug at the corners of my mouth, while deep inside I am as envious as someone can get.
I am envious because I am so disconnected from myself right now, even here, that I feel detached even with all the cars around.
“I’m getting a beer,” I say shortly and walk away from them. Walking away from what I can’t have and never will.
I grab a beer from the iced buckets and walk over the low wall where Cass found me last time.
I sit there in silence.
Longing for the time in the garage.
Longing for feeling something other than this dread.
Longing for being saved from this shitty world.
But no one’s gonna save you, says a voice in me.
Not true, says another. Cass saved you.
Out of selfish reason.
A full discussion is erupting in my mind like a storm while my body is as still as it can get. Frozen to the spot. Staring into nothingness.
“How bad is it?” asks Cass, sitting next to me.
I look at her. Suck in my lips. I don’t want to cry again. But somehow her closeness drives me into tears every time.
She sits so close this time. So close her heavy and present perfume washes over me.
“It was a ten,” I say and look away, taking a sip of the beer.
“And now?” she asks, putting her hand on my thigh.
“Six.”
A moment’s pause.
“You need to get outta there,” she says.
“I can’t just walk away.”
“You can.”
“And where would I go?” I round on her, anger flashing. “I have a flock of Paparazzi following me every step I walk. And there is no place in this world where I can go to outrun the guilt I carry.”
“I know,” she says, and then she brushes back a strand of my hair behind my ear.
I stare into her eyes.
She trails down my neck with the back of her hand, and suddenly, goosebumps spread over my arms as she follows down over my arm to my hand.
“Don’t,” I say, shaking my head slightly as she softly grasps my hand.
“I know,” she says, and yet, she doesn’t remove her hand. I stare at her knobbly fingers and feel the rough skin of them as she brushes with her tips over the back of my hand.
I close my eyes as the dread in me overwhelms me, mixing with that deepest desire of just being held. Held by someone who tells me everything is going to be alright while the world around me is burning down in roaring fire.
A tear rolls down my cheeks as I rip my hand away and swing myself off the wall, walking away.
“Addy,” she calls after me as she follows me. “You can’t run away from everything.”
I stop.
I turn.
She is so close.
I grasp her face with one hand.
She has these beautiful brown eyes staring up into mine, flickering like dark crystals in the flickering light from behind me.
“I’m not running,” I say. “I’m walking away because I won’t be responsible for ruining just another life.”