I nod a little uncertainly.
“He has done surgery to stop the bleeding,” she continues, “but... la tension artérielle—blood pressure—is low. He is taken back to surgery soon.”
“He’s had surgery?” A hollow feeling spreads through my chest. “He’s going formoresurgery?”
She nods. “I am sorry.”
“No, thank you,” I say. “Thank you for telling me.”
Her phone buzzes in her hand. She ignores it, and studies my face a moment more. “You are... good friends?”
The beat of silence is entirely too telling. She knows—or at least, suspects. The first person in the entire world to know. Maybe I should be freaking out, but in light of everything else, I can’t bring myself to care. And something in the girl’s steady gaze tells me our secret is safe.
“I am working all this week,” she says. “I give you information when I can, yes?”
I manage a tiny smile. “Yes. Thank you.”
She nods again and continues on down the stairs. My phone buzzes with a text from one of Harper’s press people.
Race still on for tomorrow, will send updated press schedule shortly.
The race. Jesus. I’d completely and totally forgotten about it. Qualifying seems like it happened a hundred years ago.
I scroll through all the texts I’ve missed, mostly notifications from the team about canceled press events. With an F2 driver dead, no one will be doing interviews. But they won’t cancel the F1 race. There’s too much money on the line. Which means tomorrow morning, I’ll be expected to be in my car, driving around the same track where Jacob’s car was... what?
Gritting my teeth, I open up Google again on my phone and slowly type in “Formula 2 crash circuit paul ricard video.” A YouTube clip pops up. The thumbnail looks a little grainy, like it was shot on someone’s phone, but it was posted a few hours ago and has sixty-seven thousand views. It must be the real thing.
Taking a breath, I click play. It takes a few minutes to load, and every second steals another heartbeat out of my chest.
The video was filmed by a fan in the stands. It opens on a section of empty track, with motors roaring in the distance. A carzooms through the frame, then five more cars zip past in rapid succession. It’s too quick to tell which car is which. They must be going one-fifty, maybe faster. The camera shifts to the left and suddenly it’s all smoke and flying cars. There’s a collective cry from the crowd, and the video jars. Someone nearby says, “Oh my god!” and then the camera swings back to face the big screen nearby.
There’s a replay showing—they always replay crashes, because usually there aren’t any injuries—and the track cameras have picked up a perfect shot. Parrot is coming out of the corner when his front left tire locks. His car swerves erratically at the exact moment that Costa tries to pass Jacob on the outside of the corner. Wheel to wheel, the two cars slam into Parrot, and all three cars shatter and fly. I rewind the video, my breathing quick and shallow as I watch Jacob’s car tumble through the air, over and over, before skidding upside down into the barrier. Three of the tires have come off of it, and the chassis is a mess of torn-up carbon fiber.
Touch and go, the doctor said. Seeing that video, I’m surprised Jacob survived this long.
I feel strangely numb all of a sudden, strangely distant from it all. I turn the video off and climb up one more flight of stairs, settling myself on the top floor, just outside the door to the roof. I can’t imagine anyone will come up here. And there’s no way in hell I’m leaving.
Instead, I open up my text messages and find Jacob’s name. I scroll back, all the way to the very first text he sent me, almost a year ago to the day.
4
Second Place
The rain eased up the next day, scattered showers turning the F2 race into a slippery, dangerous melee. I watched it all on one of the big screens through the window of my changing room, while my trainer, Brian, prattled on about a party he was going to that night. Jacob got a bad start from P10, but as the laps ticked by, he overtook car after car and finished second. He’s a damn good driver, Jacob. Great instincts, aggressive pace. The camera showed him getting out of his car after the race, and for about three seconds I was transfixed by his crooked, cocky smile.
I was fighting a grin of my own as I got into my car and headed out into qualifying. I breezed through Q1 in third and Q2 in second. Then, in Q3, it all went wrong. I pulled out with ten minutes left, but before I’d even started my flying lap, I started to lose power. “Anti-stall” flashed on the steering wheel as I maneuvered the car off the track.
I started the race the next day from the pit lane, after the engineers spent the night repairing the car. I checked my phone once more right before the race started. My stomach leapt when I sawI’d missed a text message. I swiped it open eagerly, but it was only a text from Brian.Feeling sick, be there next weekend.
God, he was an asshole. There was no way he was sick. He’d been bragging all day Saturday about the “lit party” he’d been invited to. No doubt he was hungover somewhere. I turned my phone off and headed for my car, swallowing down disappointment. It had been two days since Jacob took my phone number, and there had been nothing but radio silence. I couldn’t even text him, not that I’d have ever had the nerve. He hadn’t given me his number.
I pulled on my helmet and climbed into the car. Outside, the rain was starting to fall again, heavier than it had been all day. It would be a wet race after all.
Try to impress me, Jacob had said.
A feeling like cold water washed over me, and my senses seemed to sharpen. Impress him... I could do that.
For two hours, it was like I could do nothing wrong. My mind was as focused as it had ever been. I wasn’t even thinking, really, just reacting. Car after car disappeared behind me, until there was one lap to go and only two cars left in front of me. Mahoney and Clayton were first and second in the championship, two of the best drivers in F1’s best cars. But they didn’t have as much experience in the rain as I did—or at least, Clayton didn’t. I overtook him on the last corner of the race and crossed the line in second place. From a pit lane start to second place, in a wet race. It was a record—or at least, that was what my race engineer was saying in my ear.
