I know I shouldn’t. I know I care more about him than he ever cared about me.
But I miss him. And I need to know he’s okay.
Swallowing hard, I open a text message to him. The last text he sent me (Just landed. Headed to track now, soo tired lol. Pizza tn?) makes my chest hurt. I push through it and force myself to type.
Hey, hope your rehab is going okay.
I bite my lip and add the truth.
Thinking of you.
I hit Send, then I get off the bed and pace the room. I only make it a few steps before my phone dings. I snatch it up, my heart beating somewhere in my throat. There’s a message—I swipe to open it—
Message failed to deliver to recipient.
Everything inside of me goes cold.
He changed his number.
Of course he did.
I think that’s the moment when I finally accept it. That he doesn’t want me to contact him, that he doesn’t want to get back together. That it’s really over.
In some ways, it feels like the end all over again. I feel just as crushed, just as devastated. In another way, it’s almost a relief. I don’t have to keep wondering. I can let it go. I can focus on what’s important. My friends, my career, the pseudo-family I’ve found in Heather and Hunter and Matty and Mrs. Costa and Matty’s parents.
Almost on cue, my phone buzzes in my hand. Mrs. Costa is calling me. I lick my dry lips and hit Accept.
“Travis, meu querido,” she says. “I hope I’m not disturbing you, I just wanted to wish you luck.”
“It’s no problem.” I smile. “I’m glad you called.”
“Are you nervous for tomorrow?”
I look through the blinds. Dark clouds are gathering in the night sky. There hasn’t ever been rain in an Abu Dhabi race, not once, but all day, the forecasters were wondering.
“No,” I tell her. “I think I’ve got this.”
And the next day, in the faintest rain—
I’m right.
Sector Two
Jacob
20
Pain
Rehab is awful.
It’s painful. It’s boring. It’s embarrassing.
Six months ago, I was an athlete. Twenty-three years old, in the best shape of my life. Now, I’m practically useless.
My right leg was broken in two places, and my hip. Four of my ribs were broken. Then there was the surgery to remove my spleen, the liver laceration, the blood transfusions, the days and days spent on a ventilator.
It’s like all my stamina has been sapped away. After an hour of physio, I’m breathless and exhausted, when I used to run 5K a day without breaking a sweat. My physiotherapist says I’m making progress, but I can’t see it. And every night I go home to my parents’ house and sleep in my childhood bedroom, with all of the stupid trophies from my karting days looming over me, mocking me while I try to sleep. My mother fusses over me, my father alternates between being pushy and being distant, Paul is... Paul. And Lily’s back at home in Lovington, but she won’t stop texting, like she thinks hearing about her life is a useful distraction.
