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I never thought I’d say it, but it’s a good thing I have a therapist now.

few days, I delete a few more names off of it. Everyone sings a different version of the same song. They’re so happy I survived

the crash. They’re so glad I’m working on my recovery. They’re so sorry they don’t have a place to offer me, but maybe I should

check back again next year.

I feel like I’m living in a cycle. Send an e-mail. Get my hopes up. Get rejected. Feel like shit. Find another team. Send

another e-mail. Get my hopes up. Get rejected. Feel like shit.

Over and over and over.

My parents don’t know anything about it, which is just as well. My mom’s been making comments lately about how relieved she

is that I’m not driving anymore. She says she doesn’t know how she’d survive it, seeing me get into another “metal deathtrap,”

and all my dad ever asks me is if I’ve heard back from my business school applications.

I have, actually. I got into two of them. I could start in the fall, if I wanted to.

Which I don’t.

Amanda has become sort of a pillar in my life, as much as I hate to admit it. I see her three times a week now, which is beyond

pathetic and yet somehow feels like too little, and I tell her about every single rejection. Part of me almost hopes that

she’ll give up and admit I was right. But she never does. And on the third week of February, when I delete the final two F2

teams from my list and have a total fucking breakdown in her office, she listens to me curse and cry and then tells me to

make a new list, for F3.

“I was also reading about Formula E,” she adds. “It’s all electric, which I expect some drivers won’t be interested in. That’s

got to be easier to get into, surely.”

A few months ago, I would’ve snapped at her ignorance, but now it cheers me up a little.

“It’s not easier,” I say. “But thanks.”

She smiles. “How are you doing with your other homework?”

I grimace. “Do we have to talk about this today?”

“Yes,” she says evenly.

With effort, I resist the urge to sink down into the couch like a sulking child. A few weeks ago, after she spent twenty minutes

asking probing questions about my relationship with Travis, which I did my level best not to answer, Amanda frowned and said,

“You seem to have a complicated relationship with queerness.”

I grimaced at the word, then rolled my eyes and told her no, I didn’t. She proceeded to spend the next three sessions proving

why, exactly, I was wrong.

Since then, she’s insisted on devoting a great deal of time to conversations that, more often than not, make me want to claw my own skin off.

Like when I first remember being attracted to a guy, and how I felt about it, and why I never considered dating a guy before Travis.

That was my homework from last week’s session, and if I’m

honest, I haven’t tried to think about it at all.

“Well?” Amanda prompts me.

I sigh. “I don’t know. He’s not, like, some average guy, I guess. I mean, he’s famous and everything.”

“And you think that outweighed your internal resistance? That it’s ‘okay’?”—she frames the word with her fingertips—“to date

a guy, as long as he’s rich and famous?”

“I didn’t say rich,” I say dryly. “And yeah. I guess so.”

“Hm.”

That’s her disagreeing sound. “What?” I complain. “It’s the truth.”

“Part of the truth, maybe. Dig deeper.”

I make a frustrated noise. “I don’t have anything ‘deeper.’?”

She gives me a flat look. “Yes, you do. Think, Jacob. What was it about Travis that made you willing to break your self-imposed

rules?”

I look away from her. I cast my mind around for some bullshit answer to give her, because the real answer has risen up to

my mind from out of nowhere, and I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.

“Jacob,” Amanda says.

I lick my lips and spit it out. “I was always in control.”

The words hang in the silence that follows, which stretches out long enough that my palms start to itch. I wait for Amanda

to press me for more, but instead she puts down her notepad and nods.

“Good,” she says quietly. “Very good.”

At the end of the session, instead of heading home, I drive to a nearby park and go for a hike. It’s way too cold out, and I’m not dressed for it at all, but going back to my house right now would be impossible. My mind is too full of spinning thoughts.

I walk quickly to try to stay warm, keeping my eyes on the frozen ground. I know all the poisonous snakes in New Mexico hibernate

in winter, but I’m still convinced I’ll step on one every time I hike here.

That’s what my mind feels like right now, actually. A huge pit full of snakes I don’t want to step on. I snort at the image,

and the tense muscles in my shoulders relax just a little.

I let out a long breath. Despite what Amanda must think, I’m not actually an idiot. I know I have issues with being bi. And

I’ve always known, in a distant sort of way, that someday I’d have to face up to them. But the truth is, the thought of dating

a guy doesn’t scare me nearly as much as the thought of dating anyone seriously. The thought of... opening up to someone.

Even thinking the words makes me cringe. I’ve never been—to use Amanda’s stupid therapy words—“emotionally vulnerable” with

anyone. My high school girlfriend and I dated for three years and had a great time together, but she was an easygoing, pragmatic

kind of girl, and I was away a lot of the time for racing. I liked her a lot, but I never felt like I lived or died on our

relationship. More than anything, we felt like good friends who just happened to have sex.

Since her, I’ve never dated any girl longer than a few months, and I’ve never had anything but one-night stands with guys.

And if I look back on the girls I’ve dated... honestly, I knew going in that I wasn’t in any danger of falling for any

of them. That’s probably a large part of why I went out with them in the first place. I was always nice to them, always respectful

and attentive and all that, but I never really cared . I never let things get serious. I never wanted anything serious.

Then Travis Keeping walked into that TV interview at the Austrian Grand Prix, with his insane answers to that reporter’s game (what kind of psychopath likes rain more than sun?) and his empty Photos folder and his weird spa music.

He was so obviously interested in me, and so shockingly different from the stoic figure he cut in the press, and from our very first moments together, I felt in control.

It’s a shitty thing to admit, but it’s true. I had all the power, and all the experience. Because it wasn’t just that he was

a huge F1 star. He was a huge F1 star who’d never kissed anyone, never slept with anyone, never even had a close friend before

me. And for some reason, he was ridiculously into me, and not even remotely able to hide it. I had all the control, and I

knew it.

I think that feeling of control lured me into a false sense of security. I was so confident I had Travis on a string, I didn’t

notice the warning signs. Thinking about him all the time. Texting him more and more frequently. Finding any excuse to go

to London to spend time with him. I told myself it didn’t mean anything, that it was just a fun, casual thing, but the truth

crept up on me, as it so inevitably does.

The first time I realized I was in trouble was in Montreal. It was always one of my favorite Grand Prix weekends. I liked

the city, the track, the restaurants. A girl I knew from high school, Talia, worked as a chef there. She and I had kept in

touch a bit over the years, and I sent her a message a few days before to see if there were any new restaurants I should check

out.

My message wasn’t meant to be suggestive—if anything, I had a half-baked plan of taking Travis to whatever place she recommended—but

she sent back a winky face and said she’d love to go with me to check out a new place.

My first thought when I read her message was, I can’t, I’m not single .

My next thought was Fuck .

It was coupled with an enormous wave of panic, and if I’d been an emotionally mature, self-actualized person, I would have

realized where the panic stemmed from and told Talia no, I couldn’t go out with her, because I was already dating somebody

else.

Instead, I said yes to prove to myself that I could, and tried to convince myself that Travis wouldn’t care. Or that even

if he did care, it didn’t matter, because I had to make it clear to him that whatever we had between us wasn’t a serious thing.

That he didn’t have any power over me, didn’t have any hold on my heart.

But that damn look on his face when I told him. Like I’d slapped him, or pulled the rug out from under his feet.

I pretended not to notice, not to care, but then it was ten o’clock that night, and I was sitting across from this pretty,

interesting, perfectly dateable girl, and all I could think of was Travis. Alone in his hotel room, being sad about me. I

had all the power in our relationship, and I was using it to hurt him.

A mature person would have politely excused himself from dinner and headed straight to Travis to have a serious talk. Instead,

I got plastered to silence my fears, and made a slurred, barely coherent admission in his doorway. All yours , I told him. All yours .

I don’t remember the trip to his hotel, or what I said to Talia when I left the restaurant, but I do remember the look on

his face after I told him that. And I remember the look on his face the next morning, when I sat down next to him on the couch

and hooked my chin over his shoulder. I had made him happy, really happy, and damn it if it wasn’t like a drug. I got addicted

to it, that feeling of making him happy. I let myself open up to him, because I liked how much he liked it.

And then, six months after our first night together, he stood in his kitchen in London and told me he loved me.