Page 40 of Knot So Lucky

Not literal silence—the engine's screaming, the tires are shrieking, the wind noise is deafening through the headset. But a different kind of silence. A mental clarity where all the noise of daily life falls away and there's nothing except this single point of focus.

I remember Roran's words from years ago, when we were teenagers and he'd sneak me out to the private test track our family owned. He'd drive his car—some Italian supercar that our father bought him for his sixteenth birthday—with me in thepassenger seat, racing against the sunrise as the horizon turned from black to indigo to gold.

"This is my dream,"he'd told me, voice barely audible over the engine note."Not the racing itself, though that's pretty fucking great. But the silence you find in it. The level of freedom where nothing else matters except the road ahead and your ability to master it."

I hadn't understood then. Thought he was being poetic in that annoying way teenage boys got when they wanted to sound deep.

But now, experiencing it through VR immersion, I finally grasp what he meant.

It's the silence that's so addicting.

The silence you tap into while racing toward oblivion, leaving everyone else in the dust. Where the chaos of life—the suppressants and the hiding and the constant performance—just... disappears. Where there's only the track and the car and your ability to be faster, better,more.

It's similar to what I find in sex and pleasure.

That same mental quiet where nothing else exists except sensation and satisfaction and the temporary erasure of everything complicated about existence.

Just a different sport.

One performed before the world, with everyone watching. Versus mine, which happens in shadows where I can be myself without judgment or belittlement.

Roran gets to chase his silence in front of millions. Gets to prove himself on global stages while I prove myself in garages and backrooms and behind closed doors.

The finish line approaches.

My virtual car crosses it withVelocityKingthree car lengths behind, and I finally allow myself to breathe.

The VR headset displays my final score in glowing numbers that feel almost anticlimactic after that rush of immersion.

FIRST PLACE - GhostShift88

Points: 264/300

Margin of Victory: 2.847 seconds

I sigh, the sound loud in my own ears, and pull off the headset.

Reality crashes back in with disappointing mundanity. I'm just sitting in my gaming chair, naked and slightly sweaty, staring at a computer screen. The race was virtual. The achievement is virtual. None of it actuallymattersin any tangible way.

It's just a game after all.

Not a real race. Not a real victory. Just pixels and physics engines and the hollow satisfaction of being better than strangers on the internet.

I smirk anyway, because winning is winning even when it doesn't count for anything.

The voice chat erupts in a final symphony of male frustration.

"That was fucking ridiculous?—"

"Absolute horseshit, I'm reporting this?—"

"Twelve fucking races and we couldn't beat?—"

"Fuck!" A different voice, one that hasn't spoken much during the competition. Deeper, with an accent I can't quite place. "Thorne just lost to this new ass?"

I pause, fingers hovering over the disconnect button.

Thorne?