The February weather gets even more miserable, and I start making my way through my list of F3 teams. I add some teams from the F4 leagues in the US and UK as well. That would be... a huge step down. But I figure it can’t hurt. Plus, I’m kind of hoping for some easy yeses, to make myself feel better. I was running third in last year’s F2 championship before the crash, and I finished second the year before. Surely some team will want me.
Spoiler alert: they don’t.
I start to have nightmares about e-mails. Every time I go to therapy, I get this weird terror that Amanda is going to sit me down and tell me it’s finally time to give up. And when I’m at home, I get these random bursts of panic, my heart rate suddenly taking off at the thought of wasting another day in Albuquerque. I need to get back into racing. I need to get out of my parents’ house.
“Get an apartment now, then,” Amanda says, when I tell her this.
I shake my head. “I’ll need every dollar I’ve saved if I want to race in F3 or F4. Unless I can find a sponsor, which I can’t.” Trying to get sponsors has been even worse than trying to find a new team. At least the teams tell me no. Sponsors—the big money ones, anyway—don’t answer e-mails, and they definitely don’t answer cold calls.
“Who was your sponsor before?”
I make a frustrated noise. “They were all through Porteo. I got into their young driver program in karting, then I was with them all through F3 and F2.”
My manager was through Porteo, too. I reached out to him weeks ago, and he sent back a polite e-mail saying he thought it would be best if we parted ways. On his website, he has Estefan Ribiero listed as a new client.
Amanda opens her mouth and then closes it again, and something wobbles inside of my chest.
“I should give up now, right?” I hate the way my voice shakes. “I know you’re thinking it.”
“No,” she says slowly. “But you might end up having to try again next year.”
I press the heels of my hands into my eyes. “Fuck.”
“Is that the worst thing?” she asks. “Your physiotherapist’s only just cleared you to race again. Is waiting another year really all that bad?”
“Yes.” I swipe angry tears from my face. “It is the worst thing. I need to race this year.”
“Why?” she asks. “And don’t tell me about the younger drivers again. I’ve done my research, you know. There are plenty of twenty-three and twenty-four-year-olds in F2. I know it’s not what you wanted, but in the grand scheme of your life—”
“I have to race again this year,” I interrupt. “I haveto. I can’t piss away another year. I can’t go another year feeling likethis. I want my old life back.”
She looks up from her notepad. “Your old life?” she asks. “Or Travis?”
My stomach lurches forward, as if I’ve come to the end of a set of stairs and thought there was another step at the bottom.
“What do you mean?” I ask warily.
“I know you want to get back to racing,” she says, sounding like she’s choosing her words carefully. “But is this also about Travis? Being part of his life again, maybe, or being ‘good’ enough to be with him?” She frames the word “good” with her fingertips.
My face is on fire. “No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” I look down at my hands. “No. I don’t know.”
She nods slowly. “I see.”
I scowl at her. She knows I hate when she says that. Just like she knows when I’m being full of shit.
Because, yeah. I have been thinking about Travis lately. Almost constantly, really, since my hike in the park. It’s, like, part of the cycle of feeling shitty. Send an e-mail. Get my hopes up. Think about what Travis will do when I show up at the track again. Play out the first conversation we’ll have. Think about having sex with him again.
Get rejected. Feel like shit. Repeat.
“If you want to see him again,” Amanda says, “then go see him.”
My cheeks burn hotter. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
