My storm before the calm.
My angel breaking through the darkness.
My ace.
My chest reverberates as the cars fly down the backstretch. Fifty laps in and I’m still a nervous wreck, my eyes flicking between the track and the television monitor in front of me when the cars are at my back and out of my sight. My knee jiggles, my fingernails have been picked clean of nail polish, and the inside of my lip has been chewed raw. And yet Colton’s voice comes through confident and focused at the task at hand every time he speaks on the headset I’m wearing.
Each time he talks to Beckett or his spotter I feel a trickle of ease. And then they hit a turn, cars side by side—masses of metal flying at ungodly speeds—and that trickle of ease turns into a pound of anxiety. I check the monitor again and smile when I see “13 Donavan” under the number two spot fighting his way back to the lead after a pit stop prompted by a caution.
“Dirty air ahead,” the spotter says as Colton comes out of turn three and heads toward traffic a lap down.
“Ten-four.”
“Last lap fastest yet,” Beckett pipes into the conversation as he studies a computer screen several seats down from me that’s reading all of the gauges in number thirteen. “Doing great, Wood. Just keep her steady in that groove you’ve got. The high line has a lot of pebbling already so stay clear.”
“Got it.” His voice strains from the force of the car as he accelerates out of turn number one.
There is a collective gasp from the crowd as a car comes into contact with the wall. I turn to look, my heart jumping in my throat, but I can’t see it from our position. I immediately look to the monitor where Beckett is already focused.
“Up one, Colton. Up!” The spotter yells in my ears.
It all happens so fast but I feel like time stops. Stands still. Rewinds. The monitor shows a cloud of smoke as the car that hits the wall first slings back down the track at a diagonal. The speeds are too fast so the remaining cars are unable to adjust their line in that quick amount of time. Colton had once told me you always race to where the accident first hits because it always moves afterwards due to the momentum.
There’s so much smoke. So much smoke, how is Colton going to know where to go?
“I’m blind,” the spotter yells, panicked as the mass of cars and the ensuing smoke is so large that he can’t direct Colton. Can’t tell him the safe line to drive with his car flying close to two hundred miles per hour.
I watch his car fly into the smoke. My heart in my throat. My prayers thrown up to God. My breath held. My soul hoping.
Motherfucker.
The smoke engulfs me. The blur around me now gray with flashes of sparking metal as cars collide around me. I’m fucking blind.
Don’t have time to fear.
Don’t have time to think.
Can only feel.
Only react.
Daylight flashes on the other end of the tunnel of gray. I aim for it. Not letting up. Never let up. Race to where the crash was.
Go, go, go. C’mon, one-three. C’mon, baby. Go, go, go.
The flash of red comes out of nowhere and slings in front of me. No time to react. None.
I’m weightless.
Lifted.
Weightless.
Spiraling.
Spinning.
White knuckles on the wheel.
Daylight again.
Too fast.
Too fast.
“Fuck!”
I see Colton’s car rise above the smoke. It’s up on the nose. Spiraling through the air. I hear Beckett yell, “Wood!” It’s only one word, but the broken way he says it has lead dropping through my soul.
I can’t react.
Can’t function.
Just sit in my seat and stare.
My mind fracturing to images of Max and Colton.
Broken.
Interchangeable.