‘You know, my hair was pink, like, three years ago.’
Shantal slowly turns to me as if I’ve just declared I’ll be shaving it all off, and she’s going to be the one who does it for me. ‘Pink?’ she says with such conviction that I’m sure anyone standing in the hall of the motorhome can hear it.
We’re in my personal room, the door ajar to the commotion outside. I made it through the practice sessions – I did FP1 and 3 while Henri picked up 2 so I could rest. I showed up for quali, able to push hard enough to get myself into P5. It’s not a bad job. None of it was too far off from the sim prep I’d done on the Imola track, and with the new splint Celina has me wearing, I haven’t been in much pain at all. I should be completely hell-bent on gearing up for the two-hour marathon that will be my first race back.
But all I can focus on is Shantal, acutely aware of every single detail about her. The way her hair has started to sweep past her shoulders in gentle waves, with two small braids tied up on top, the glimmer of her brown lip gloss, every crease in her team T-shirt falling perfectly across her body, the slight tense of the defined muscles in her legs when she does an about-face to give me a shocked glance.
‘It lookedsogood, Shantal,’ I argue from where I sit on my training table. ‘I made it worksowell.’
‘Whatever you say.’ She glances at my hair with concern. ‘Next thing I know, you’ll have the R9 haircut.’
I burst out laughing at that one. Her eyes are telling me I’ve certainly lost it, but it’s too funny a nod to pass off. ‘I asked my mom to get me the R9 – in the sixth grade.’
‘Don’t tell me she let you!’ Shantal yelps around a bite of her banana as she waves it in the air like a sceptre. ‘No! Your mum can’t be enabling this!’
‘She didn’t let me,’ I grin. ‘But maybe she should have, I would’ve made that work, too.’
‘Keep lying to yourself.’ She holds the banana out to me. ‘Take a bite.’
‘I ate, like, five minutes ago—’
‘Take a bite,’ she insists, and I can’t refuse. I reach over and oblige, chewing on the fruit as I hop off the table and to my feet, and we walk towards the garages.
Just outside, in the pit lane, a crowd of sponsors, celebrities and team members are starting to gather, all eyes on the main straight, a good section of track from the finish line, where Revello’sCavaliere, their knight – a legitimate man in actual Italian armour, no kidding – has mounted his horse, withFabrizio Revello’s own family sword in hand. The grandstands roar as theCavalieretrots full pace on his horse before reaching the finish and slicing through a ribbon held up by volunteers at the line to deafening cheers. It’s an Imola tradition for Revello, but it strikes me as so American it’s funny.
‘That’s so “college football” of them.’
‘You do that in football?’ Shantal says in horror.
I shake my head with a laugh when I realize we’re a whole pond apart in terms of understanding. ‘American football. We’re weird. Anyway … I have a favour to ask.’
‘A favour? Or a bargain?’ she teases, tugging the shoulder of my race suit jestingly.
‘Maybe.’ I meet her eyes dead-on. ‘If I win this race – if, man, because Jolt and Revello aretop form– will you do me a solid?’
‘What solid?’
I lean in so close I can count her freckles and smell the peaches from her shampoo. She raises an eyebrow with the kind of sass that makes me grin like an idiot. I gesture towards the Brazilian flag that has been hung above the car.
‘I’m going to need you to hand me that flag.’
‘For what? For your lap?’ She gapes. ‘I couldn’t. Your crew needs to do that—’
‘You are in large part the reason I’m evendrivingtoday.’ I take one of her loose curls in my fingers and brush it from her face, letting my hand – my once-bad hand – stay at her cheek for just a moment. ‘If you don’t hand me that flag, Shantal, I swear to you, I won’t do the victory lap at all. It’s you or nothing.’
‘Ornothing?’ She stares at me in disbelief. ‘Then domea solid.’ She gets up on her tiptoes and plants a kiss on my forehead, her jesting smile turning to one of determination. ‘Race so hard that you have no choice but to give me the chance to hand you that flag.’
I nod, acutely aware of how red I must be going, despite having my Mãe’s blush-resistant skin tone. Turning pink like a middle-schooler with a fat crush right in front of said crush. I don’t have any actual words. She takes them away from me every time, even if she doesn’t realize she’s doing it.
‘You are gonna beso good,’ is the last thing Shantal says to me before my team sweeps me away, passing me my helmet and ushering me into the car. I can still see her out of the corner of my eye on the pit wall, giving me a little wave that I return with a wiggle of my fingers. I pull on my balaclava and helmet, which now bears a new cursive script on the bottom of the back, right near my neck:Pressure Makes Diamonds.
Even as I sit down in my ever-familiar car and get out onto the track, make my slow formation lap before pulling into the grid, I can’t get my mind off the way that the hammer could possibly come down before sponsors and bosses and probably God while I pretend to race like I’m in perfect physical shape. I guess that’s the thing. I don’t need to pretend. I earned my right to come back here the hard way.
It’s easier said than done. My breath quickens when the first red light comes on overhead. It’s only been seven or eight weeks, but it feels like I’ve lived an entire lifetime in those weeks. I’ve been to hell and back. I can viscerally feel again the pain I felt when I pushed my muscles like that, pushed them in ways they didn’t want to be pushed.
But as the red lights continue to flicker on, they morph into the truck’s headlights on full blast, they get closer and closer till I’m suddenly upside down, till my arm feels like it’s been stuffed in a snowblower.
I blink, tensing both of my arms for good measure.Come on, Darien. Come on.
