Page 47 of Speeding Hearts

He didn’t think he’d done it. I’d just finished cleaning up at his place, changing his bedding and taking care of all the dishes he’d left lying around all week. I was annoyed that I was still here, doing everything for him, and was thinking about how to tell him I was going to have to leave him to his own devices again. He was doing a lot better with his recovery from surgery, though his back seemed to be acting up again, and he spent most of his time lying in bed or on the couch in the living room.

“Mom says you should be taking walks,” I said as I furiously scrubbed a pot he’d let burn on the stove when I hadn’t been around.

“Why is she giving out advice?” Dad retorted from the couch. I could see him through the little gap over the counter that opened into the living room.

“Because she knows you. She knows what you need.”

Dad huffed. “She’s not the perfect angel you think she is,” he said.

I chose to ignore him. “I remember you and her going for long walks when I was a kid. She said it helped your back.”

Dad harrumphed again. “She was always telling me what to do. Never listen to a woman who thinks she knows more than you.”

“She does know more than you.”

Dad smacked his hand down on the coffee table. “If you know so much about women, why aren’t you with that one you’re in love with?”

My stomach jolted, as hard as if he’d punched me. “Now you’ve really gone off the deep end, old man.”

“Is she with someone else or something?”

“No. I mean, you’re wrong—I’m not in love with anyone.” Heat rose in my chest, spreading up over my neck. I wasn’t inlovewith Stella. Even if she was all I thought about. Even if I grilled Mom about how she was doing, if everything at the trailer was working, and about even the tiniest kernel of information she might have on Stella that I was too chickenshit to get myself.

I knew, within the hour, she’d be flying around that dirt track, trying to prove herself and risking her goddamned neck in the process.

But I wasn’t in love with her. There was no way—I didn’t know what love was. Even if I did, I didn’t know how to do it. Falling in love was for other people. Besides, I didn’t deserve love. Dad should know that best of all.

When I looked over at Dad, he was sitting up on the couch, staring at me through the little window of the kitchen as if he’d been watching all of that play over my face.

“If you’re not in love with her, then you should go enjoy yourself,” he said.

I didn’t know if he was serious. Dad didn’t talk to me about stuff like this. He grumbled and complained. He was a jerk. But then he stood up, gripping the cane he’d been forced to take at his latest physical therapy appointment.

“Be a young man for God’s sake. If you don’t want to be with her, go meet some other women, have some fun. You know, I thought when you left here, you were finally going to go have a life somewhere else instead of mooning over the past.”

“Mooning over the—what the hell are you talking about, Dad?”

“You never got over that goddamned crash!” he snapped.

“YOU never got over that crash!” I shouted back. An old, ancient rage rolled inside of me as I threw the dishrag down and came around to stand before him in the living room. I stopped a few feet away from him. “You never forgave me for being a dumb kid even though I was trying to getyourgoddamned attention by stealing that car. You blamed Mom for what happened because it happened at Colin’s racetrack, but it was my fault it happened, not hers.”

I couldn’t believe I was saying all this—giving words to what had been burning inside me for years. “You ruined—” I cut myself off.

I was going to say he’d ruined our life. He’d ruined our family.

But I’d done that. I’d been so desperate for his love and attention that I’d stolen that car. I’d crashed that car. And I’d driven him and mom apart.

Dad looked away, and suddenly I saw him for the first time like he was—a frail old man, beaten down by life.

Something twisted inside of me, but I shoved it down. It was his own fault.

“I gotta go,” I said. “You can finish up your own goddamned dishes.”

* * *

I didn’t meanto head to the Speedway. I even tried not to, driving first toward my apartment a few blocks from Dad’s. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t not be there. What if something happened to her the way something had happened to me? What if she got hurt again and I wasn’t there, again?

I gripped the wheel so tight I thought I would bend it and jerked it toward the speedway.

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