Page 88 of Flat Out
Too loud, too needy, too much.
Only valuable to my father to live vicariously through me rising through the racing ranks.
And my mother. God, she worried for me, but her concern was wrapped in exhaustion and her own pain. When she and my dad fought, she’d vanish for days, leaving me in his hands. He was ruthless, obsessed with molding me into something worth his sacrifices, pushing harder than any coach ever could. To him, I was his second chance at this career.
Racing then became my only escape. The one place where I knew the rules, where chaos bent to control. My mother loved me, but even that love felt laced with guilt, as though she regretted bringing me into a life splintered down the middle and tattered at the edges.
Every tear, every scrape, every failure only seemed to confirm it.
So I told myself I’d cut loose from all of it. My heritage, my accent, my roots. Leave behind the broken boy who never felt wanted, never felt enough. Even if my relationship with them is better now, more normal, the damage was done. I couldn’t bear the thought of ever being someone else’s burden the way I’d been theirs.
It was better to bury it, run faster and chase glory, than risk letting anyone see the mess I came from. Distraction used to be my best friend—really, anything that kept me from looking back.
But standing here now, watching Aurélie climb into the cockpit of her car through a screen, all of it came roaring back. Because she’d chosen me—me—despite the wreckage I came from. And for the first time, I wanted to hold on to every part ofmy past if it meant she could see the truth of me and still stay. It terrified me, that much power in her hands. It terrified me even more how much I craved it.
And if I let the fear win, if I let it crack me open, I wouldn’t survive watching her race today.
The lights went out,and the race began. The cars launched off the grid. Marco surged into the lead, his aggressive start paying off in the opening laps. Tobias, meanwhile, was... Tobias. Struggling to find rhythm, missing braking points, and already losing places.
Aurélie was in the thick of it, battling in the midfield. From the garage, I watched as her car darted into corners, her lines precise, her timing flawless. She didn’t just defend her position—she owned it, forcing others to react to her moves. Every time she pulled off an overtake or held off a challenger, I leaned forward, gripping the edge of the telemetry station.
“Come on, Auri,” I muttered under my breath as she defended against Morel through Turn 6, the two cars inches apart. Her radio crackled with tension, her engineer urging her to stay calm, but I could hear it in her voice—she was pushing harder than ever.
Then it happened.
Lap 23. Tobias, our reserve driver, attempted an overtake on Morel at Turn 14—a move that screamed desperation and recklessness. He misjudged the braking zone, locking up the reartires. The car spun out, the rear slamming into the wall with a sickening crunch of carbon fiber.
The garage went silent, save for the replay looping on the monitors. I stared at the screen, my jaw hanging to the fucking floor. Mycar. Mychampionshipcar. Myseason. And it was in pieces against the barriers.
Totally fucking different than whenIcrashed into the barriers.
“Idiot,” I muttered under my breath, the word slipping out before I could stop it.
But it wasn’t just about Tobias. It was the weight of what this crash meant. For the team, for the titles, for me.
Aurélie’s radio crackled again over my headset, pulling me back to her race. She was still fighting, clawing her way through the pack. Hunting where she could, defending when she had to. She was losing pace with every sector.
By the final laps, she was running P11, her tires screaming for mercy. Turn 3’s uphill curve was brutal. I watched her onboard camera on my phone the entire time, studying how she had to muscle the wheel just to keep the front planted. At Turn 5, the rebound bucked so violently, there was no doubt it rattled straight through her spine. By the final sector, the car slid under her, rear tires screaming, traction bleeding away. And still she fought, still she made it look easy,stillshe persevered. But I saw every flinch, every microcorrection, every second I knew it stole from her body.
On the last lap, she dove into Turn 12, taking the inside line and muscling past a rival. The move was audacious, calculated, and absolutely fuckingflawless.
When she crossed the line in P10, stealing the final point, I let out a breath that felt as though it had been burning my lungs for the last two hours.
The garage erupted in a mix of cheers and frustration. Marco had taken P2, but Tobias had thrown away a decent haul of points.
And Aurélie had salvaged something out of nothing.
That was my woman in a nutshell: tenacious and persistent.
But I couldn’t unhear her voice in my ears.Fix it. Are you even listening?I couldn’t unsee the way her car fought her every single lap.
And now, I saw something else, something that alarmed me. My gaze flicked between the monitor in the garage that had the live footage of the race, and my phone that was tracking her on-board camera.
From her car, she was disconnecting her steering wheel. She set it on top of the car and tried to pull herself out. Her movements were agony in real time. She reached for the halo, hands visibly shaking, and it clearly took everything she had just to haul herself upward.
Aurélie collapsed against the bar, her head dipping forward and her body sagging with exhaustion. She rubbed at her neck as if it couldn’t hold the weight of the helmet any longer, then fumbled with the wheel to reattach it. Every action was slow, labored, as though her muscles were rebelling against her commands. And still, when the wheel locked into place, she slumped forward again, resting on the halo like it was the only thing keeping her upright.
From the network footage, she staggered when she climbed out, and then I saw Kimi rush in to catch her. At first, he’d been grinning, probably ready to tease her, but the second he saw her falter, the smile dropped from his face. She missed a step, knees buckling, and nearly crumpled against the sidepod before he was there. He shot an arm out, helmet under the other one, bracing her. Her legs gave just enough to make my gut twist, and shedidn’t even pretend to be strong. She leaned into him, likely just as much out of choice as it was necessity.
