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I make it back to the hotel, and there’s this weird repetition in my head. I keep thinking, “I’ll talk to Heather, I’ll talk

to Heather,” over and over, as if that’ll somehow make it okay. As if she can fix this for me. But when I open the door, she

isn’t there. I fumble for my phone and text her, asking for her hotel number. About five seconds later, she texts back.

I don’t text back. I can’t bring myself to tell her what’s happened, not through a text. And it feels too pathetic to ask

her to come back.

I walk circles around my hotel room, Jacob’s awful words ringing in my ears.

This isn’t that big a deal, alright?

I know you think this is so fucking serious, but that’s just because you’ve never dated anyone before.

I’m not your fucking property.

There’s a horrible pain in my chest. Heartbreak, I understand the word now. My heart actually does feel broken. My whole body feels broken.

I’m so consumed with misery, the sharp knock on the door makes me jump. Heather is standing in the hallway with a huge bag

of takeout food hanging from one arm, and her forehead slightly sweaty, like she’s hurried to get here.

“Is everything okay?” she asks. “Is Jacob alright?”

“He’s fine,” I say thinly. “He’s fine, we just—”

Broke up.

I can’t bring myself to say the words, but she must read it in my face, because her eyebrows fly up.

“You’re kidding.”

I shake my head, not quite trusting myself to speak. She stares at me for one long moment, then drops her takeout bag onto

the floor and throws her arms around me. I stand stiffly for a few seconds, then I wrap my arms around her small frame.

“Shit,” she says. “Travis, that’s shit .”

“Yeah,” I agree in a strangled voice. “Pretty much.”

She hugs me tightly for another moment and then releases me. “What happened?”

“I don’t know.” We crouch at the same time to pick up her abandoned takeout. “He just—he said he wanted to end things.”

“That can’t be all he said.” She crosses to the en suite kitchen to lay the food out on the table.

It isn’t all he said, but I don’t want to repeat his words to her. But she’s looking at me expectantly, and piling Indian

food on a plate for me, so I force myself to answer. “He said we were never a big deal,” I say. The words taste sour on my

tongue.

Heather makes a disbelieving noise. “Weren’t you two together for, like, a year?”

“Yes!” I say, frustration spilling into the word. “A year. That’s not something casual.”

“No,” she agrees. “Sit, eat.”

I sit down across from her but don’t touch the food. I have no appetite at all. “It’s his parents,” I say angrily. “Or his

brother. They must’ve said something to him.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

I pick up a piece of naan and tear pieces off without eating them. I remember the way Jacob’s eyes flicked to the nurse, and

the way he pulled his hand away from me.

“What is it?” Heather asks, watching me.

I tear off another piece of naan. “It’s just... even if they did say something to him, he’s not a kid. He could stand up

to them.”

Heather winces. “True. But it’s hard for some people to go against their parents, no matter how old they are.”

“Yeah, I know, but—” I break off abruptly, stumbling over a sudden thought.

“What?”

I shake my head. I was going to say, “But if he really loved me,” but Jacob never told me that he loved me. I said it to him,

but he never said it back.

And if he heard me say it all those months ago, then he knew all that time how I felt. He would’ve known that if he said it

to me, I’d say it back.

But he never did. He never actually said that he loved me.

Heather is talking again, suggesting I go back to the hospital and talk to Jacob again, saying, “He might not have meant it”

and “He might need some time,” but I shake my head. I saw the look in his eyes at the hospital. He’s done with me. And I’m

not going to humiliate myself any further by begging him to change his mind.

“Can you get us a flight out?” I ask, cutting Heather off mid-sentence. “First thing?”

She opens her mouth as though about to disagree, then seems to think better of it. She reaches out and squeezes my arm. “Course

I can.”

She heads off to her room shortly after. I think she can sense that I want to be alone.

I pace pointlessly around the hotel room after she’s gone. I should pack, or get a shower, or do something , but my muscles are heavy, dead weight hanging from my bones. I sink down onto the couch, and then I just lie there, staring

up at the ceiling, until the sun slips from the sky and the whole room goes black.

The next F1 race is in the UK—Silverstone, my pseudo-home race. I’m not British, really, but I do have my permanent resident

card. I was born in Canada, just outside of Toronto, but I only lived there for six years before my dad moved us to London.

I’ve been to a few Canadian cities for karting and racing, and I’ve wanted to do a road trip across Canada for the longest

time.

Jacob and I used to talk about doing it over F1’s summer break.

Heather and I checked out of our hotel in France the day after Jacob ended things, and we’ve been in London ever since. My

place feels barren and empty now that I’ve boxed up Jacob’s things. He didn’t ever leave much stuff here, but there were some

sweaters and toiletries and pictures on the fridge of places we’ve been, and stuff I only bought because of him, like the

Xbox and the old N64. Heather suggested we burn it all, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Burning it would be helpful

if I was angry, but I’m not angry. I’m just flat and hollow.

“You need to lean into the awfulness at first,” Heather advises me, one night at my place.

Her boyfriend, Hunter, is with us, too. He’s a muscly, six-foot-tall blond guy who’s really into veganism and sustainability.

It’s sort of weird, given how many burgers I’ve seen Heather eat, but they fit together. Like I used to think Jacob and I did.

“Not true,” Hunter counters. “You need to stay busy. Distract yourself with work. Go out on the rebound, see how many kick-ass

gay guys there are out there. What?” he adds, as Heather scoffs. “I know so many guys I could hook him up with. My trainer’s gay, and my nutritionist—”

“Jesus, please don’t start dating a vegan,” Heather begs me. “They never fucking shut up about it.”

Hunter grins and raises his water glass in a toast. “Damn straight.”

“I don’t want to date anyone else,” I say. “I’ll just stay single forever. It’s easier.”

“That’s the spirit,” Heather says. “Lean into the awful.” Then she hops off the kitchen counter to rummage through my cupboards

for something to eat.

She and Hunter have been here almost every day since we got back from France. The first time they knocked on my door with

their arms full of takeout containers, I only grudgingly let them in. I wanted to be alone in my misery. But no matter how

I acted, no matter how little I spoke, they kept showing up. And since Brian is gone and hasn’t yet been replaced, Heather

is acting as my trainer and cat-herder (her words, not mine). As the Silverstone GP approaches, she’s with me from dawn till

dusk, sneaking me coffee during engineering meetings and pinching me on the arm when I get too surly in interviews.

I don’t talk to Matty until Friday morning, just before FP1.

Heather has been whisked away to do some PR work, and I’m sitting alone in my trailer, throwing a ball against the wall.

Theoretically, this is supposed to be a reflex exercise, but instead I’m just losing myself in each slow, depressing thump.

“Yo, Keeping!” Matty raps on the door and pushes it open in the same movement. He’s already in his race gear, holding his

helmet loosely in one hand. His broad smile drops when he sees me. “Oh fuck, what’s happened?”

“What?”

“You look like shit. Is Jacob alright?”

Hearing his name actually hurts, as if someone’s grabbed my heart and squeezed it. “He’s fine, I guess.”

“You guess?”

I shrug.

Matty tilts his head. “O-kay,” he says slowly. “Talk.”

I exhale heavily. I wish someone had warned me that breakups were like this. It isn’t something that happens to you once.

It’s something that happens over and over again every time you have to explain it, and it’s just as painful every time. “There’s

nothing to say. It didn’t work out, that’s all.”

“Didn’t work out,” Matty repeats. “For fuck’s sake, Keeping. I told you to call me if anything happened.”

“I really don’t want to talk about it.”

Matty watches me for a long moment. “How long were you two dating?”

I shoot him a flat stare, which he ignores. “A year,” I say grudgingly.

“Were you having problems? Before the crash, I mean.”

“No.” My frustration spills out into the word. It’s something I’ve been thinking about constantly. All the signs I might’ve

missed, the warnings I might not have picked up on. “We were fine.”

Matty raises a doubtful eyebrow. “A dangerous word, fine. Every time my girlfriend says something’s fine, I know I’m in real

trouble.”

“It wasn’t like that,” I say. “Everything was great.”

Except he wouldn’t tell his parents about you , a nasty voice pipes up. He wouldn’t tell his friends .

“Hm.” Matty pulls a dubious face. Then he stands, holding a hand out to help pull me to my feet. “Tell you what, my parents

are in town for the race, and my mom’s going to make dinner tonight. Why don’t you join us?”

“I really don’t—”

“Seven thirty, sounds great,” Matty interrupts. “I’ll text you the address later.”

“I don’t think—” My feeble protest dies as Matty scowls at me. “Yeah, alright,” I mutter.

He grins and thumps me on the arm. “Attaboy. Now hurry your ass up, practice is starting soon.”