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Chapter Twenty-Five

Darien

‘L et’s wake slowly. Let’s just open our eyes. There we go.’

The voice is monotone, fading in and out like it’s coming through a broken speaker. I try to obey it. Light flickers in my frame of vision, and then a face.

The face is bearded and slightly wrinkled. It belongs to a tall man in a white coat. He holds a pen flashlight. ‘Good,’ he says.

Well, that’s got to mean something. I can only manage a groan in reply, and when I do, a sharp pain stabs my right side.

‘Do you know where you are?’

My eyes begin to adjust to the sterile white lighting. Hospital, probably. I croak out the single-word response.

‘Good,’ the doctor repeats.

Wait … what the hell?

I start to make out cords. Cables connected to the ceiling on my right, holding something up, maybe. I follow the cables to a big white hunk of plaster and gauze. A cast. My cast.

My arm.

Oh, shit .

My pulse pounds in my ears as I shift my gaze further to the right. Casted to the elbow; all I can see are my fingers. My right arm is unmoving.

‘No,’ I choke out. ‘No, no, this …’

‘Magalinho.’

A new sound. My mom’s voice.

M?e steps in front of me, her brow knitted, her eyes red. It looks as if she’s aged years on worry alone. If I’m in the hospital, in America … how long’s it been? Long enough for her to fly over? ‘You were in the car on the … on the way to the club, they said. You were driving, but you did not do anything wrong. And a truck – it came from your right, it …’ My mother purses her lips. It hits me as she turns away that this is causing her immeasurable pain because this is how we lost Pai. My stomach sinks even deeper. God .

‘Dr Lopez,’ my mom says.

‘Darien.’ The tall doctor comes back into view. He’s balding, bespectacled, and stressed. ‘Darien, your right arm was—’

‘How long?’

‘I’m sorry?’ He leans in.

‘How. Long,’ I say again through gritted teeth. The beeping of some excessive machinery beside me quickens in pace. It feels as if my entire body is shaking.

‘How long …’ Dr Lopez clears his throat. He looks away from me. Is he embarrassed? Why is he embarrassed?

‘Six months. The least. It’s possible that … your arm may not function the same, even after a full recovery.’

Six months .

Six months is a lifetime. Six months is the rest of my season gone. Six months is I let down this team, and I let down Brazil.

That’s not even accounting for the possibility of being forced into an early retirement. Of losing the only thing I have left from my Pai.

I want to throw things around and have a complete meltdown, like a little kid; but I can’t even do that, I’m so fucking immobilized. All I can do is look up at the ceiling and fight off hot tears that pour down my face anyway. ‘Leave,’ I whisper, my voice rough. ‘Can everyone please leave?’

M?e is torn. But she leaves, and the doctor follows. I don’t know what to do right now. All I know is that I don’t want any of them to witness what I’m going through.

It’s about half an hour later that someone else enters the room. I’ve already told the doctors I don’t want visitors, but someone has flagrantly disregarded that. I get ready to lash out, until I realize who it is, and everything makes much more sense.

Diana Zahrani looks as bedraggled as my mom, and seeing me doesn’t help. Her eyes squint in pain, even though her face remains unchanging. She’s clearly just wrapped up a race session, maybe the qualifier: I can tell because she’s still wearing her fireproofs and race suit, the arms tied around her waist.

‘I wanted to wreck you on the track this weekend.’ She bites her lip nervously. ‘But Darien, you idiot, I didn’t know someone else would beat me to the punch.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I manage, but she just shakes her head, her curls bouncing in their ponytail.

‘I talked to Celina.’ Her voice is a murmur lost to the sounds of the machines. ‘None of us like this.’

‘I can’t just sit here,’ I whisper. ‘I can’t.’

Diana looks up at the ceiling, exhales. ‘I know you can’t.’

I’m lost. I don’t want to sacrifice racing. Not this last shred of Pai that I’ve clung to for so long.

‘I need this, Diana.’ I lock eyes with her, my pupils full of hurt. ‘I need to be on the grid again. Soon.’

She clasps her wrist, the adjustable bracelet around it sliding down towards her palm. ‘That’s what everyone thought you’d say. I talked to Shantal, too.’

Crap . Shantal.

I wonder if she’s as wounded as I am. In the end, part of her job relies on my performance. She needs Heidelberg to show up this season, to win the title and, like she had said, there is a degree of responsibility that she assumes for us. There’s also the strange new tension growing between the two of us, which I suddenly resent when I realize that tension may only be hurting her further.

‘What’d she say?’

‘Not much. She’s freaked out. What did you do to take up this much real estate in her head, Darien?’ Diana’s tone is just slightly teasing, an attempt at lifting the mood. I try for a smile, but all I can think about is ‘freaked out’. About the state she’s got to be in right now. She didn’t bargain for all this drama when she chose to come to Brazil.

‘Exactly what do you need from me?’ Diana finally asks, pressing a reassuring hand to my covered leg. ‘I want to help, wherever I can, okay? But the way back from something like this …’

‘I want to race. I’ll do whatever it takes.’

‘Yeah.’ The sound of the word doesn’t even come out of her mouth. She lowers her gaze.

‘Just tell me you know of some way, something I can do. Please.’

She looks back up at me.

‘Listen, Darien, no one wants to take options from you.’ She sucks in a breath. ‘But you have to consider the position Celina is in, as your trainer and as your friend. She’s got to be terrified. To push you to the limits you want to be pushed, that’s a risk for everyone involved. You’re going to be in extreme pain.’

‘It’s a risk I need to take, Diana. You know I need to take it.’ I look up at the cables, exhale hard. ‘What about Shantal?’

‘Well, she’s shocked, like I said.’ Diana gives me a matter-of-fact look. ‘But bless that girl’s heart, she doesn’t seem like she’s willing to settle on you just “not racing”, either.’

I let that sink in. I’ve always thought there wasn’t a soul in the world who sympathized with the fact that I didn’t have any other option beside the race. I never have, not even as a kid. Driving is my only direction. If I don’t drive, I could lose this entire training facility and the partnership, the chance to give kids like me a way into the sport. I could lose my shot to make my father proud.

But I think Shantal understands it all, even though she has fears. I’ve never told anyone everything about my dad, about how my mother recuperated, to anyone. Never even told her, and yet, she seems to know . So maybe I won’t have to say anything to her about why I need to race. Maybe she requires no explanation as to my adamance. Somehow, she’s already gotten it.

Diana closes her eyes. She sits down on the side of the bed and gives my good hand a squeeze. There is a deep guilt in my chest when I realize that as much as Diana being here helps, I want it to be Shantal. I wish it were as easy as touching her. Stroking her hair, her face, holding her to me.

‘I know,’ Diana says quietly. ‘Take the risk. That’s all you can do. This kind of recovery will be hell, but push. And Darien, you had better know that for reasons far beyond my comprehension, that woman standing outside is willing to take your side through all of it.’