Page 59

I hated that Kinsley was experiencing all this for the first time, and alone. She didn’t say anything when I entered the room. Quietly, she stared at Caden—a tube down his throat and so completely different than when I saw him twelve hours ago eating a donut and laughing.
Some people might imagine you’d scream and cry after been given the news. But sometimes, the only peace you can find was within the quiet.
Kinsley drew in a ragged breath. “How am I ever going to explain this to him?” Her red eyes moved to mine. “I’m so thankful he’s alive, but is he? Can anyone be alive when the one thing they want in life is taken from them?”
I didn’t have an answer for her. At least not one I thought would provide her comfort. I reached for her hand and squeezed it.
Here, hours ago, I’d been so thankful for this lifestyle we had, and now it was slowly falling apart. As I sat there with Kinsley, a feeling of peace came over me as we stared at Caden, quiet and still, but in that moment, all I could do was pray, for him, for Rager, for us. Above all was an overwhelming peace inside me that everything would be okay. It was as if someone was inside my head, screaming at me, it will be okay.
“We’re gonna be okay,” I told her, trying to find comfort for her, and me. “We’re in this together and we’re gonna take it minute by minute, okay?”
Her tired eyes drifted to Caden. “Okay.”
I didn’t know what else to say to her. I couldn’t even bring myself to believe what I said.
Kinsley briefly let go of Caden’s hand to wipe tears from her eyes on a waded-up tissue. “Have you heard about Rager yet?”
“He’s still in surgery.” I thought of Rager, and my dad, Caden, Grandpa Jimi, Jack… everyone I’ve ever prayed for. But one thought remained the same. Rager. I felt him with me in that second, as if his fingertips were on my back, guiding me through this and reassuring me if these were my last days with him, his presence would be the last thing I felt. I could recall the sound of his laughter, the way he smirked and the weight of his body on mine. I let his whispers, his I love yous I’d heard this morning be the soundtrack to my silence now.
Thermal Resistance – Temperature rise per unit of power loss.
We’d been here so many times you’d think it would get easier. It didn’t. Every time was like the first. My brother Axel once told me that you can’t predict your life. You could hope it would turn out one way, and then when it didn’t, you’re left spinning out of control. There was a high that came with winning. But there was always a low. You couldn’t stay that high forever.
Was this our low? Again? How much heartache and suffering could one family endure before they threw in the white flag and said, that was enough.
Time crept by, minute by minute, hour by hour where I feared the worst. I sat with Kinsley trying to make sense of the race and how it happened. It had been live on DIRTVision but removed immediately at our request. I watched the replay, twice, as I hadn’t been looking when it happened. It didn’t show who Caden got into with when he was leading the race and at about four seconds in front of Rager. Whatever happened, while Caden had done a series of snap flips, Rager hit him on the top of the roll cage, having nowhere else to go.
Hours after we’d heard about Caden, I still didn’t know Rager’s condition other than he was still in surgery for a head injury.
I feared the absolute worst. Brain damage. I’d seen it happen to other drivers before. One minute they’re the same, the next their life was altered forever as well as those around them.
As the sun began to stir in the sky and fill the black with shades of blues and lighter shades, I stepped outside for some fresh air. On a bench near the emergency room doors, I hid from the media hovering, and skipped through the thousands of messages I had on my phone. I couldn’t even bear to open a single one of them.
I went through my photos from yesterday morning. I wasn’t even sure why because the instant I saw his face on my phone, I started crying again. Impossible to stop tears that had my nose running and snot stuck to my cheeks. Why did I do that to myself? Maybe because when you’re down, you reminisce about the good times?
There, on my phone, were hundreds of photos of this last year from when we left the shop in February, the group photo we took of the entire team in front of JAR Racing, to the ones of Rager with the kids. From Volusia, to Calistoga, Vegas, Tulare, Pevely… Devil’s Bowl, the selfie we took alongside the freeway when Caden zip-tied their air ride to make it to the next city. Or outside that shady truck stop between Perris and Tucson where Caden accidently locked himself in the bathroom with a lot lizard and refused to ever use a public bathroom again. I still have the picture of him stripping down to his boxers and throwing his clothes in a dumpster.
I swiped past the ones of Devil’s Bowl when Dad threw the snake at Rosa and she began plotting his murder. The ones of Caden and Kinsley on the floor of Dad’s hauler holding their newborn baby. And deleted the ones Willie took of his dick again.
Speaking of him, he sat next to me on the bench outside, tired eyes and a half-assed smile. “It might be a bad time to point this out, but Rager’s going to make it.”
“How do you know?” Tears formed in my eyes.
“Because he once told me I’d never see you naked as long as he’s alive. And I would never get that lucky, so he’s going to make it. Either that, or he’d probably kill me first to assure that doesn’t happen, and then die. But I don’t think that will happen. He’s too badass to die.”
“Willie?”
His shoulders rolled forward as he looked over at me and sighed, as if he too was exhausted. I noticed he was drinking a beer, at four in the morning. “Yeah?”
“Shut up.”
He was trying to make me laugh, but instead, I cried and laid my head on his shoulder. He kissed the side of my head and wrapped his arm around my shoulder. “Okay.”
For some reason, I let this wild, beer-loving, crazy, mullet-wearing dude who joined JAR Racing one day and became a morally challenged big brother figure in my life, comfort me.
WITH MY STOMACHtied in knots, I made my way back inside the hospital.
I talked to Lane again, and my dad who both hadn’t left the hospital yet. They both said Rager came around as they removed him from the car. He asked for me.