“Why are you here, Audrey?” I ask.
“When Full Tilt Racing wants to know when their best racer is coming back, I go find out. Especially when my hardheaded brother is dodging me and giving very vague answers. But I’m also here because I know he’s not okay.”
“Where is he?” I ask as my hungry gaze searches what I can see of his house to find him.
Her lips press together, and her eyes seem to soften. “He called me after he saw you at the coffee shop. He told me he needed some time…lots of time before he’d ever set foot back in a race car.”
“He told you what was going on? About who I really am?” I ask in a hushed tone.
She nods as a sympathetic smile touches her lips.
My shoulders drop in disappointment. The more people who know my identity before I’m ready to expose myself, the more dangerous it can get.
She reaches for my hand. “I won’t say a word. I’m sorry about London.”
I set my jaw and clench my teeth to keep my tears from falling at the mention of her name.
“This isn’t a game, Audrey. I know you’re just trying to protect your brother, but I’m trying to survive. I need you to understand that,” I say firmly as a door opens from down the hall.
Dash walks toward us in his bare feet, shirtless, and the top button of his jeans undone showing me the flex of every muscle as he walks. The sight makes me weak at the knees. But that’s how it’s always been between us. All logic goes out the window when we’re together.
“What are you doing here, Lennon? Shouldn’t you be with Hendrix somewhere?” he asks as he stops in front of me. Even in his bare feet he towers over me, but instead of the steady man with a side of reckless he usually is, he’s swaying.
I scrunch my nose involuntarily. This isn’t the time to lose control. Not for him, not for any of us, but especially not for me.
“I came to talk…to apologize. But clearly, you aren’t in the headspace for it,” I tell him.
“I don’t want to hear your apologies, Valkyrie. You’ve already dragged me straight to hell. I don’t need your pity. This is me…waving my flag in surrender. I can’t fight a one-sided battle,” he says.
“You’re drunk,” I tell him from between clenched teeth.
Audrey chooses this moment to sneak away.
“Yeah, so what? I needed to try to erase seeing him kiss you from my mind, because this time, you knew who you were. I hated having to endure whatever happened between you before you remembered, but after you did…”
He trails off and shakes his head.
“But no matter what I do, it’s burned in the back of my eyelids.” He swallows hard and the pain he’s carrying is palpable but it’s so misguided.
“All you’ve wanted to do is remember and now all I want to do is forget,” he adds with a humorless laugh.
“You really mean that? You’re going to spin out at the first bend in the road, Dash?” I ask. I feel like I’ve been punched in the chest.
He guffaws. “This isn’t the first bend for us, baby. Not even the third or fourth. I think it’s time we face the truth. We don’t belong together, no matter how we feel. This whole thing has revealed the ugly truth to me. Sometimes love isn’t enough.”
I’m stunned into glacial silence. I can literally feel the coldness bloom in my chest and start to spread its icy path through my veins. He just froze what was left of my heart. What’s happened between us is anything but typical. It’s downright horrendous. We’re rivals, but it’s only ever been on the racetrack, behind the wheel of our cars. But still, when everything’s said and done, I always believed we’d make it…our love would zoom past anything else in our way. Love is supposed to be the shining star…the guiding light everything else looks to as a path is carved out. I guess I was sorely mistaken.
His nostrils flare as he waits for me to speak, but I have no words. I know this is likely the last time I’ll ever see him this close except in my dreams. So, after staring him down for what feels like an eternity, memorizing the angles of his face and the brilliant mix of dark and light colors swirling in his eyes, I walk to the door trying to accept this is goodbye.
This man…even when I didn’t remember myself, my heart recalled him. And now, because of some psycho with an axe to grind, it seems all he’ll ever get to be is a memory.
When I get there, Audrey is hot on my heels. “Don’t leave like this, Lennon. He’s hurting and he doesn’t realize what he’s saying. And you didn’t get to say what you came here to say,” she tells me.
It’s my turn to swallow hard. “It doesn’t matter now. You just reminded me if I hurt him, I’d never race again. From where I’m standing, he put the hurt on me, whether I deserved it or not. He’s made his feelings about us quite clear with the help of some liquid courage it seems. Those confessions are the most honest. I need to leave.”
I open the front door and take a step out as she grabs my hand to stop me. I turn and glance at her over my shoulder with tears swimming in my eyes and my chin wobbles. I can only be strong for so long knowing this is over not just because of my stalker, but because I overreacted to my memories and said things I can’t take back. “Take care of him. Please.”
She squeezes my hand with tears in her own eyes before nodding. And it’s how I lost the love of my life. By attempting to survive a cruel game I never knew I was a part of but assumed I could win. And now…now I truly have nothing left to lose. And if I’m going down, I’ll be taking my stalker all the way down with me.
