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Rehab is awful.

It’s painful. It’s boring. It’s embarrassing.

Six months ago, I was an athlete. Twenty-three years old, in the best shape of my life. Now, I’m practically useless.

My right leg was broken in two places, and my hip. Four of my ribs were broken. Then there was the surgery to remove my spleen,

the liver laceration, the blood transfusions, the days and days spent on a ventilator.

It’s like all my stamina has been sapped away. After an hour of physio, I’m breathless and exhausted, when I used to run 5K

a day without breaking a sweat. My physiotherapist says I’m making progress, but I can’t see it. And every night I go home

to my parents’ house and sleep in my childhood bedroom, with all of the stupid trophies from my karting days looming over

me, mocking me while I try to sleep. My mother fusses over me, my father alternates between being pushy and being distant,

Paul is... Paul. And Lily’s back at home in Lovington, but she won’t stop texting, like she thinks hearing about her life

is a useful distraction.

I hate it. I hate all of it.

But most of all, I hate the psychotherapy my rehab doctor insists I do. Two sessions a week. Two hours where I sit across from the therapist, Amanda, and try not to roll my eyes too frequently.

It’s the middle of December now, usually my favorite time of the year. I walk into her office with the same objectives as

always: say as little as possible and get out of there a few minutes early.

“Jacob, welcome,” she says with a wide smile. She smiles too much, Amanda. And she fiddles with her braids (she actually wears

braids , like she’s a middle schooler) way too often. “Have a seat.”

I sit on the stupid, uncomfortable couch, and wait for her stupid, uncomfortable questions.

“How are you?” she asks.

“Fine.”

“I spoke with your physiotherapist,” she says. “He says you’re doing extremely well.”

“I can run for ten minutes,” I say flatly. “Hooray.”

She frowns. “You’re miles ahead of your projected recovery schedule.”

I shrug one shoulder and say nothing.

“Are you still in a lot of pain?”

“Not really.”

A little silence. “And how has it been living with your parents?”

I stare at her coldly. “You ask me the same questions every single time. Do you realize that?”

“Yes,” she says. “And I’ll keep asking them, until you answer me honestly.”

I let out a harsh breath. “What do you want me to say?”

“The truth.” Still in that calm, pleasant voice.

“The truth,” I repeat. My temper, always so close to the surface these days, is bubbling over. I let out a harsh breath. “My

whole life’s been fucked up, how’s that for the truth.”

“How has your life been fucked up?”

“How hasn’t it been,” I snap. I should stop talking, but it’s been twelve weeks of this shit, and I’m so, so over it. “I was

going to get into F1, do you even understand what that means? Do you understand how much effort that takes, how rare it is?

Twenty people in the whole fucking world. Twenty people, out of seven fucking billion.” I shake my head roughly and look away

from her.

“Why do you think that’s ruined?” she asks, in that stupid voice. “Your doctor anticipates you’ll make a full recovery—”

“In a year,” I snap. “Maybe two. In two years, I’ll be twenty-five, and there will be a hundred drivers younger than me who

haven’t been fucked up in an accident.” I let out a cold, humorless laugh. “My career is over.”

“I see.” She nods in a slow, thoughtful way that makes me want to throttle her. “So what are you going to do instead?”

I shrug roughly. “I don’t know. My parents think I should apply to business school and go to work with my dad.”

“Is that what you want?”

I shrug again. A stupid question deserves a stupid answer.

She taps her pen against her clipboard. “Hm. And have you been dreaming about the crash at all?”

“No.”

“Because it’s quite common, after a major trauma—”

“I said no,” I snap. “I’ve already told you fifty times, I’m not having dreams about the crash.”

Her smile dips, a rare crack in the facade. “Okay. What are you dreaming about, then?”

I roll my eyes. “What is it with you therapists and dreams? They don’t all have to mean something, for fuck’s sake.”

She taps her pen again, slower this time. Her smile is completely gone, now.

“You know, Jacob, we’ve been at this for three months now,” she says.

“I’m well aware.”

“I don’t think we’re making any real progress. Therapy doesn’t work if you aren’t willing to engage.”

“Okay,” I say coolly. “What’s your point.”

“My point is, I think we should take a few weeks off. I want you to take some time and think about what you want. About what

you’re hoping to get from your recovery.”

“Fine.” I stand. “Are we done?”

Her expression is impassive. “We’re done,” she says. “You can book another appointment whenever you think you’re ready.”

I walk out without looking back.

When I get home, my mother is in the kitchen making dinner. I head upstairs, holding tight to the stair rail. Going up stairs

still feels weird. My physio says my hip flexor is weak. He says that I need to work harder.

But the last few weeks, I just can’t see the point.

“Jakey, is that you?” my mother calls. “How was therapy?”

I have to count to five before I can answer her. “Fine,” I lie. “I’m getting a shower.”

“Do you want to use the shower in our room?”

I grit my teeth so hard, my jaw hurts. “No.”

A beat of silence. “Well, be careful of the tub rail—”

I slam my bedroom door behind me and collapse onto my bed, pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes. My heart is pounding with frustration.

Eventually, I drag myself to the shower down the hall and stare at myself in the mirror. It’s hard to do. I hate myself so

much these days.

It’s like—I can hear myself being a dick, but I can’t stop it. I feel so awful and hateful inside, it spills out into everything I say, everything

I do.

I look away from the mirror and strip off my clothes. The doctors all say my scars have healed well, and maybe they’re right.

But they’re still there. A long scar up the outside of my thigh, where they put a rod in my leg and screws in my hip. A dark

pink splotch on my side where the chest tube was. Two marks on my right side where they did surgery to repair the cut in my

liver. Three short lines where they took out my spleen. A very tiny pale dot in my neck where the central line was.

I step over the tub rail with a grunt of discomfort and stand under the shower’s spray, turning it hotter and hotter, until

it’s almost painful. I wish I could burn the scars from my skin. I looked online and there’s some sort of fancy laser therapy

that could fade them, but when I mentioned it to my parents, they told me I shouldn’t be worried about that right now, and

that I should just be grateful to be alive. My father said the scars are a small price to pay for survival. My mother reminded

me I’m better off than Antony Costa and Ellis Parrot.

And I know it’s terrible—like, bottom-of-the-barrel terrible—but most days, I don’t feel that way.

Almost every day, I don’t feel that way.

I lie on my bed for a few hours after my shower, staring up at the ceiling, and eventually my mother comes up to check on me.

I tell her I have a headache, so she doesn’t make me come down to dinner.

I hear my dad arrive home, hear snatches of their hushed conversation at the front door.

Later, my mom brings me a tray of food, and I feel like such an asshole, I can hardly stand it.

I fall asleep around two a.m.—because although I’m exhausted all the time, I can never get to sleep—and I don’t dream of the

crash. I wasn’t lying when I told Amanda I hadn’t dreamt of it.

I only ever have one dream, over and over.

I’m standing on a stage in total darkness, and all I can hear around me is people laughing, laughing, laughing.