Anjali’s voice bears a stab of pain that I had not expected, along with my name leaving her mouth in full. It’s always beendidi, the honorific. This sounds so foreign.
I turn to her, and her lower lip wobbles, her eyebrows furrowing in confusion. I’ve never been more ashamed than I am when I nod.
‘Shantal …’ Anjali, in all her innocence, can still afford to live in this rose-tinted version of how the world works, but now, that same innocence drives poison-tipped arrows between my ribs, making it harder for me to breathe with every word she says. ‘If you keep wasting your time searching for a name for this feeling … let me tell you, you’re never going to find it. Because look how much he loves you.’ She gently taps the gold macaw bracelet that Darien had given me, his mother’s bracelet, still on my wrist. I haven’t removed it since we parted ways. Conflicting emotions cross her face as she lets out a small sigh. ‘Look how much you lovehim.’
Chapter Fifty-Six
Darien
It’s the last race of the season, and I’m not quite sure what I’m doing.
We’re in Abu Dhabi for this one, as we are every year. It’s a grand affair – the usual fanfare, the chaos, the flamboyant atmosphere. But it’s like trying to get your headlights to illuminate a road through dense fog. I can’t tell exactly what I’m seeing, where I’m going. Amid everything else, Shantal dominates my thoughts.
I tug my race suit on in silence in my personal room, fastening the Velcro with a heavy exhale. I extend my bad wrist, my right, out in front of me, and push the layers of fabric covering the scars back. There they are, one a neat incision that’s now a pale line extending from my wrist to halfway up my forearm, a row of evenly placed puncture marks from the suture on either side. The other is a jagged gash on the opposite side of my arm, dragging through my tattoos like a surgeon went in blind. They’ll be here for as long as I live now, but they no longer remind me of the accident as much as they do Shantal’s graciousness after it.
I’m just starting to work my muscles when there’s a knock at the door: Celina.
‘C’mon in,’ I call.
My trainer slips inside, her usually no-nonsense glare one of concern. Her rose hair is half up in two space buns this Sunday, the kind of cheery style that doesn’t quite match the occasion.
I haul myself to standing from the exercise table. ‘Tell me something good.’
She just shakes her head with what almost appears to be a guilty expression on her face. ‘You’ll have to go it alone today, Darien. Please, please. This is what you excel at. This is the last hurdle to the Championship, and I really, really need you to concentrate. Win this, and it’s all in your hands at the end of the season. Please,’ she repeats.
Cel’s as desperate as I am.
We’ll take a win right now, any win, after the recovery I had to make just so I could race. There’s no question Heidelberg will take home the Constructors’ at the end of this – Miguel and I are the top points earners on the grid. But that Drivers’ Championship battle now sits at mere points between us. That makes Abu Dhabi winner takes all. I win, I secure my contract, the Ring, and a bright future for Redenção and its homegrown talent. For my home. This victory could beeverythingfor me – it just doesn’t feel that way. Celina was crucial to how rapidly I healed on the outside, but so was Shantal, and she found a way to start mending things deeper than the broken bones and bruises. How do I do this without her?
‘I’ll try’ is ultimately the only reply I can give Celina. I have to give it to myself.Your dad, Darien. Your dad. Make him proud. Do him justice.I remind myself that this is how I find him, in the race. I think it’ll do me good. But inside, the pressure only mounts.
Everything depends on this race outcome. And I’m missing half of my heart for it.
The start dawns upon us as the sun drops closer and closer to the horizon. After the formation lap, lined up on the grid, I start at a not-so-ideal P4, but I’ll have to make the best of it. In front of me is the rear wing of Diana’s Revello, and beside me, Peter’s car of the same livery. I’m surrounded by friends, but in this moment, with seconds till the race start that could change the trajectory of my career for ever, all I see are opponents.
When you’re part of a sport that requires that kind of aggression from you, and you find someone who’s in your corner no matter what, who you can count on even when you’re in the midst of the battle, you hold on to them. You hold on to them for dear life.
The first red light flashes on.
Five.
I ask Shantal if she thinks racing is risky, dumb. She tells me it’s a part of me no one can take away.
Four.
Shantal offers a prayer for my health in Singapore, even when I don’t think I’ll get that health back.
Three.
She tells me about her sister, and all I can do is hold her.
Two.
We’ll see each other again. Even if it’s years later. Decades. Even if she has a family of her own.
One.
She kisses my cheek before the race at Silverstone.Go fly.
