Bree set the phone on the pillow beside her, close enough to touch, and turned back to the TV. The commentators had shifted the conversation to tire choices, weather, and how cooler air off the ocean might change grip levels; things she barely understood but listened to anyway to fill the space in her head where the fear tried to creep back in.
She sketched their faces too, half listening, half sunk in the lines of her own private world.
Every time the camera found Hank’s bike on the grid, every time it lingered on his leathers, his helmet, the way he rested one hand on Julie’s tank like he was checking her pulse, she felt something steady inside herself.
He was down there, doing the thing he loved, the thing he was built for.
She was up here watching, bearing witness, doing the thing she was built for.
It was not the role she had expected when she came to Copper Moon to paint waves and tourists, but it was the one she had, and for the first time since Bryn’s death, she did not feel like the universe had put her on the wrong side of the glass.
She felt necessary.
She lifted her pencil again.
“Bring her home,” she whispered toward the screen. “And then bring yourself to me.”
Chapter 13
Bree told herself she was going to behave.
She sat at the foot of the bed with her sketchbook open and the TV on, the broadcast already cutting between shots of the grid and sweeping views of Copper Moon’s shoreline. Her phone lay beside her thigh, screen dark for now, but she knew that if Hank could grab ten seconds between obligations, he would use them to check on her.
She wanted to be able to answer honestly.
You still in your room, honey?
Yes. I’m here.
Door locked. Just like you asked.
She had meant that when she typed it earlier. She still meant it in theory.
Then the network cut away to a pre-race montage: crowd shots, kids with homemade signs, couples in Copper Moon Cup T-shirts. The camera lingered for a few seconds on the north grandstand, packed from end to end, a slow wave of people fanning themselves in the sun.
Something in her chest pulled hard.
She could almost feel the heat coming off that many bodies; hear the rise and fall of real voices instead of the tinny echo through hotel speakers. She imagined the smell of hot asphalt and fried food and salt, the way the engines would vibrate underfoot.
Here, in the room, the air conditioner hummed steadily. The carpet was soft. The curtains, drawn mostly shut, turned the day outside into a pale blur.
Safe, she reminded herself. You promised. This is safe.
Safe felt a lot like trapped.
Her brain flashed an image so sharp she had to close her eyes. Plastic chairs. A narrow waiting room. A TV turned to a channel no one watched. Bryn somewhere beyond a set of double doors, unreachable. Every sound distorted, every minute stretched.
She had waited then, because there had been no other option. She had waited and waited until the waiting ended in the worst possible way.
Now she was supposed to sit and wait again, while someone she loved did something dangerous out of sight.
Her hands went cold.
She set the sketchbook aside and stood, pacing once between bed and dresser.
On the screen, the cameras were on Hank’s pit; the sound was off, but she saw him clearly. Helmet dangling from one hand, he listened to Brian, nodded once, then looked up, straight into the closest lens. The director cut to a wider shot, but not before she saw it, the tiny tilt of his head that said he knew she would be watching.
He was down there, sealed in his world of torque settings, tire choices, and brake markers.
