Page 99 of Crash Course

Everything slows down.

Who says he wanted you first?

Theo’s front wing clips Jameson and time stops.

Knox is just behind and catches Jameson’s rear wing, sending the car spinning toward the wall.

My heart is in my stomach as the chassis spins, hurtling toward the barriers at the side of the track. Barriers are designed to stop cars. They’re not comfortable. Not at two hundred mph.

The front of Jameson’s car catches the wall and rips in half.

It’s raining but not hard enough. Oxygen catches, combusts, and flames engulf the chassis, licking at metal and paint.

In the time it takes me to draw a breath, there’s no sign of the driver.

I scream his name so hard it hurts.

30

Shay

“Can you go any faster?” I demand of the cab driver on the way to the hospital.

It takes way too long to get there. Every traffic light is agony. The constant guilt I lived with for weeks when I was lying to my dad is nothing compared to the hollow pit that appeared in my stomach the moment Jameson’s car hit the barrier.

“I need to see Jameson. Ashford,” I add at the nurse’s station when I finally arrive. She looks me up and down, ready to shoo me away. I dig into my damp shirt and flash my ARI badge and her expression wavers a little.

“Take a seat.”

No. But I can hardly bowl her over, so I do and watch her head into a private room to confer with a doctor.

Today was supposed to be a triumph on the track, a chance for him to clinch the ARI seat and for me to prove my skills. Instead, I’m missing the rest of the race and bouncing my knee in a cramped plastic chair in a room with fluorescent lights, curtained bays, and wristbands.

Impatience and desperation take over. I look both ways down the hall. There are staff at one end, passing back and forth. The nurse from before is busy a couple of rooms down.

I duck inside Jameson’s room. My feet squeak on the floor as I cross to the metal bed.

Jameson looks pale against the white sheets, his face bruised and eyes shut. His hair is plastered against his skin. My breath sticks in my chest, heavy and painful. The antiseptic smell fills my nostrils, the beeping of the monitor invasive and insistent.

“You know, the first time I saw Theo, I thought he looked like an angel and you looked like the devil.”

He doesn’t answer.

“Not that I’m advocating for you to walk toward the light. You’d probably go to hell. And I bet it’s humid as fuck there and your hair will be a mess all the time and you’d hate that.”

I trail off and shift on my feet. I hate hospitals. The people here make amazing things happen, like they did for my dad when he needed his surgery, or me for that matter. But you don’t typically come here unless you need those things. Which means somewhere along the line, something has gone wrong.

Jameson’s hands are limp. I reach for one, threading my fingers through his like he did with mine at the hotel.

I’m regretting last night. It’s not that I forgive him for what he did, or for refusing to apologize. It’s not even that I forgive myself for trusting him.

It’s that this is the first moment I can remember where I’m strong and he’s weak, and it doesn’t feel nearly as good as I thought it would.

“You were off to a good start,” I chide. “You could have won the next corner. Now they’ve red-flagged the race. Theo will probably win by default.”

My fingers brush his knuckles, more for my benefit than his. “Why the hell didn’t you try again the next corner?” I know it’s unfair. I know the rain and the wall and the physics of it. But grief isn’t reasonable.

And maybe some part of me wanted him to push.