Page 55 of All That Glitters
I saw it in her eyes here in the garage.
I saw it in her eyes in her bedroom.
She’d let me do whatever I wanted, however I wanted as long as she believed she was helping me.
I didn’t know if any of it was going to help me. I didn’t know what would help.
But when it came to her, I didn’t care. The near silence in my head was worth it. The soothing presence that she was… Her smile, her voice, her touch… It was all worth it. I wanted to use her to hurt Hale and that was still the plan, but there something deep inside a place I didn’t want to look that told me the plan wasn’t going to work out the way I imagined it would.
“You need to get right with yourself, Ashton. We’re not your enemies. Not me, not your father, not even Hale. And deep down you know that. You’re just too much of an asshole to give a shit about it, to remember it. I hope you do before you fuck up everything that you’ve ever worked for. As for your father and Hale driving for Glitterati… Maybe he should. I don’t know that any of us can count on you. I don’t know that any of us can count on you for anything anymore.”
Brax looked at me with something akin to pity before he pushed past me and left out the back of the garage.
I didn’t watch him go. I didn’t even look up at the engineers and mechanics. I felt their stares. I didn’t need to see them.
I’d wanted some peace. I’d come here looking to just sit with the cars. It used to be a favorite thing, a favorite way to spend a few minutes, watching the cars being built. Watching the designers. Watching the technicians.
I learned so much by watching, asking questions when something intrigued me.
I spent as much time learning about the cars from the sketches and renderings and throughout the build as I learned from behind the wheel.
And now, it all seemed foreign to me. A didn’t lead to B.
I thought about what Brax said about my father. I should talk to the old man about what I’d overhead. I should tell him the truth of how I was feeling, of what was going on in my head, but other than with Helen, I hadn’t been able to put it into words.
That fucking fear again.
It dogged my every step.
Every time it reared its head, the anger flooded my body until I couldn’t think, until I could only react.
“That was unnecessary, son.”
“I warned him.”
“I think you should stay away from the garage for a while, stay away from the shop.”
That statement brought my head up.
“But I need to be here.” There were no truer words I could think of to say even though they tore through everything inside me leaving a trail of carnage in their wake. I needed to be near the cars, near the smell of them, the view of them. I needed them as much as I needed air to breathe. Maybe more.
I wasn’t ready to let go. I wasn’t ready to give up.
But that didn’t make the shit in my head stop taunting me, stop pushing me ever close to the edge.
“Then you need to come when no one else is here. You’re destroying everything you built.”
“Hale —”
“Stop. I don’t want to hear that fucking shit anymore. You’re the one destroying it. You. Hale didn’t wreck you on purpose and you know it. You’ve seen the film. I know you have. I saw it cued up on my laptop. I know you’ve watched it. More than once.”
Karl was right. I had watched the footage of the wreck. I’d watched it from every angle I could find. I’d watched it from every news feed, every social media post, every helmet cam that was in the area.
I couldn’t make myself admit who was right or wrong. I couldn’t do it. If I did, I was afraid the fight would go out of me and if I lost my fight, what was I going to be left with?
“Even if you get back in the car, even if you’re cleared to drive, you won’t be the anchor. You’ll be second in the line-up, maybe, and you even may end up a back-up to begin with until you’ve proven yourself again.”
“Proven myself?”
