Page 99 of All That Glitters
“I can’t believe your father did that. Damn. I wish I could go with you. Several of us do.”
“I appreciate that. I wasn’t sure how anyone felt about me anymore given how I’ve been the last…however long.”
“The old you is still in there somewhere, Ashton. He’ll show up when he’s ready.”
“I hope you’re right.” Though, honestly, I was beginning to have my own doubts about it. “Can I see the tapes of the wreck again.”
“Haven’t you seen them enough?”
“I’m looking for something.”
“What? Karl doesn’t really want you looking at it again.”
“I know, but I just… I need to see something. And after this, I doubt I’ll be allowed anywhere around here.”
He nodded, disapproval written all over his face. It was always what I asked when I came into the garage.
It still consumed me, but there were other things that consumed me more in recent days. I didn’t know what, if anything would change Helen’s mind, but I knew if she got back into a race car, just got back behind the wheel, she’d remember how much she loved it, how long it had been her dream.
I needed to take my own advice. I didn’t know what was going to get me in the driver’s seat again, but if I didn’t figure it out soon, I wasn’t sure I ever would.
Helen was paramount to that for me. I needed her. She was the only one I trusted.
In hindsight, I may have pushed things a little too hard, too fast, too unwilling to compromise, but I didn’t know any other way.
I followed Clay back to Karl’s office weaving my way through the cars, parts littering the floor, tool boxes… I wasn’t feeling as sick, as uncertain, as anxious as I had every other time I’d been in the garage the last few months.
“Don’t stay in here too long,” Clay said as I settled behind Karl’s desk. “He’ll be pissed if he sees you.”
“I won’t.”
I brought up the file, the race, the lap of the wreck, and backed it up to a few laps before. I needed to see where Hale was, where I was, who else was around us.
I’d seen the footage enough times that I shouldn’t need to look at it anymore, but…
Was anyone else involved on the periphery? Was anyone else coming up on us, or was someone slowing down in front of us? How long had we been racing each other that day? Did anyone come between us at any point?
What frustrated me was that I couldn’t remember anything beyond slamming into the barrier and the car exploding around me.
For the next thirty minutes, I watched the same five laps, over and over and over again. I went back ten and twenty laps, too. I looked at every angle Karl had indexed.
I was removed enough that I could see, and admit to myself at least, that it looked just like any other racing accident. He could’ve lifted as I’d suggested back at the Troye house. Hale could’ve not driven in so hard to my inside. I didn’t have anywhere else to go or I’d have been in the gravel and at the speeds we were going, I’d have slid, almost like a hydroplane into the tires. If I had lifted, that’s what would’ve happened, but I was there before he was. I was the one with the line and I was the one with the speed.
Until the last second. Until we were neck and neck. Until he weaved and wavered. There wasn’t enough room, not with as tight as he had me pinned down.
The hit happened in the fraction of a second. I didn’t even have time to take a full breath before all control was gone and I was broken, on fire, and desperate to get out of the car.
Helen and I were similar racers. We drove based on the way the car felt, the track, and our own intuition. Hale was technical. He had learned all the skills, memorized things based on logic, how it should work, and he’d force it if necessary.
I closed the files and left Karl’s office.
I didn’t see Clay in the garage and Karl hadn’t appeared, either. I took a fortifying breath and forced my feet to move in the direction of my father’s study.
I refused to look in the direction of the cottage, even though that’s where I wanted to go. I needed some time away from everyone and everything after all that had happened. The day had started off promising and it was ending in a shitstorm.
I refused to think about Helen and the night we spent together. I refused to think about her fight for me, her belief in me, her love for me, even though what I wanted most was for it all to wash over me and give me strength for the conversation I needed to have.
Everything was quiet but it was late in the day and there was no way my father was anywhere else. I took the stairs two at a time and voices drifted down the hall toward me until I was right outside the doors.
