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Chapter Twenty-Nine

Darien

‘H e held up a ridiculously heavy plate yesterday with only

his bad hand. I think the steering shouldn’t be much different at this point. Once we build muscle, we’re on the right track,’ Shantal says to Celina the day after we return from the temple.

The air between the two of us, Shantal and me, holds a lot more electricity after that. The kind of moment we shared out there at the temple wasn’t one that you can fabricate. I didn’t have to say anything, do anything. I guess I just … felt it. I might not know exactly what’s had Shantal so preoccupied, the secrets I can just barely make out dancing behind her eyes when I look them dead-on, but I felt it so, so deeply.

Nevertheless, her big mouth spilling this newest development – the plate, that is – happens to be the cause of all my pain and suffering to come, because Celina doesn’t let up once she hears that I’m able to move, not even when we travel to Japan for the next race.

‘We’re getting that arm back in commission. I don’t care if it means I have to pull Shantal from the team and sit her down in front of you for you to move ,’ she grumbles as she brings us dumbbells, picking up one with which to demonstrate the exercise. ‘Let’s do rows. Keep it easy, just pull up. I want to see those movements before I put you back at the wheel.’

I complain and groan through it all, arm exercises that last the next two weeks with an aim at bringing memory back to my muscles. Shantal comes in and out of my training sessions, and she sits down in front of me without having to be pulled away by Celina. She lies down on her belly across from me, props her chin up on her hands, and meets my eyes as Celina spots me through my first push-ups post-accident. She encourages me, murmurs kind words, acknowledges my struggle at every turn. At the beginning of it, I can barely manage to curl a dumbbell. By the fifth day, I’m somehow starting to bench again, even if it’s with Shantal taking part of the weight from above me.

Celina decides I’m finally ready to get into a simulator back in Rio at the end of those two weeks. It’s like being a baby learning to walk again, figuring out how to get around. She is permitted to be present, but it’s only me behind this wheel. Me, my own trainer and, naturally, Demir overseeing the ordeal.

‘You’ve gotten plenty of low-weight practice in. We’re on the most realistic setting on the steering now,’ Celina explains. Her brow creases as I tug on my balaclava and helmet. She gives the side of the helmet a double-tap. ‘Be smart.’

With her help, I lower myself into the simulator set-up. I know this cockpit like the back of my hand – Shantal tailored it to match the car exactly, and now, so will the weight on the steering. The seat is just like the one on my Heidelberg, designed to fit me exactly. As perfect as it is all meant to be, it feels foreign.

For the first time in way too long, my feet start to seek out pedals, and my hands curl around the steering. It reminds me abruptly of the violence of the accident, the eerie similarity of the entire situation to how we lost my dad. A glare flashes in my frame of vision, and I know it’s just light hitting the visor on my helmet, but I see the strobe-like headlights instead. The truck.

‘Darien?’ calls Celina, resting a hand on the faux chassis. ‘You all right?’

I swallow hard and nod. It’s okay. You can’t crash on the sim . ‘Yeah.’

I flex the fingers of my right hand, then rotate my wrist as the door to the room opens and Demir walks in. He’s way too put together for seven in the morning, and he’s beaming. ‘Good to see you back, Darien.’

‘That’s the hope.’ I manage a nervous smile in return as the team boss joins Celina behind me.

‘Ready?’ my trainer asks.

‘Let’s do this.’

I take a deep breath and grip the wheel tight. A weak thread of pain still creeps up the places in my arm where they put the pins, but I choose to ignore it.

Help me out, Papai .

My heart thuds double time as the practice track right in our backyard loads up on the enormous screens: Heidelberg Hybridge Ring itself, this time without the mods that Shantal used to work me up to the real intensity. This is it, as real as it possibly could be. I have to calm down. I need to prove to Afshin that I’m worthy of a chance to stay in this race and on this team.

I snap down my visor. The path ahead is clear. I know this racing line – we’ve walked the track so many times, done so many laps on the sim, driven around it endlessly during winter testing days. I’ve always picked up track layouts fast, that’s not what could screw me up. So now, I just have to drive.

The sim has me on a rolling start. I picture Shantal’s smile, everything she’s been putting into encouraging me and standing by me, every time her eyes met mine as I pushed myself harder than I thought possible, fortifying my mind and my soul in moments of weakness.

My front tyres cross the line, and I floor it.

I cruise down the straight, ease into Turn One a bit clunkily and through P?o de Acúcar, regaining my sea legs with much less struggle. The track is absolutely stunning, and I realize as I coast across it that this is the way that it was meant to be driven. Winning is crucial, yeah. But you realize that what is more crucial, just as my mother told me, is time. Enjoying every second as it comes to you.

Taking the back straight of the sim, I almost feel wind around me. I’m racing outdoors, pushing against the breeze to make my way towards that final turn. I come out of it in a bit of a jerk, though my recovery’s slick. I exit onto the finish, gliding right across the track.

It’s my first lap back, and maybe it’s not perfect, but it’s my kind of lap.

I whoop and raise my hands as soon as the screen pauses and displays my time. Celina cheers, her and Afshin applauding. Cel wraps her arms around me in the sim.

‘Damn good drive,’ she mutters, rare notes of pride in her voice. ‘Well done, Dar.’

‘What hope .’ Afshin beams at me with a hand pressed to his heart. ‘I suppose all that’s left for me to say to you, Darien, is obrigado .’

I grin up at him as I rip off my helmet. ‘So we’re back?’

‘Well, hold on, there.’ He chuckles. ‘You know as well as I do that what you just drove was only the first step.’

Oh . My face falls slightly, but I attempt to keep up the smile, ignoring the fact that this realistic steering weight already has my wrist so stiff I can barely rotate it. ‘Oh, yeah. True.’

‘As you know, races are races, and I’d like to take a bit of a gamble,’ says Afshin primly. His arms are folded now, which lets me know this is very much not a gamble he can afford to mess up. ‘Celina has informed me of your desire to get back in the car this season, and as we all know, you have quite a bit hanging on your performance in the remainder of the races. The sponsors have acknowledged the nature of your injury, but you know as well as I do that cash is king here, and they won’t be making exceptions. Either you bring them the standings they desire – evidence that you, Heidelberg, and Redenc?o deserve this – or they’ll pass on us.’

‘Uh, I …’ I gulp. The removal of my balaclava is far less frantic. I peel it off almost ashamedly. ‘I understand.’

‘So with that, Darien, I want to give you a proposition.’ He glances at Celina with a curt nod. ‘I’d like for you to at least drive the practices in Imola, and if those go well enough, the qualifier and the race. I’ve run this by Celina. She sees this as a gamble, just as I do, but she is willing to greenlight you as you are. You’ve made an exceptional recovery in a sixth of the time you were given.’

For a moment, my heart soars. I’m going to be back, I’m going to race again. Imola is in a week. I’ll be back behind the wheel in a week. ‘Thank you, Mr Demir.’ The words tumble out of my mouth as Afshin offers me a hand to shake, and I take it.

Then that same thread of pain shoots through my arm, but this time, it’s definitely not weak.

I’m so screwed.

But I need to take this risk. This is a lifeline for me. I want this Championship, this title, as badly as the rest of the team, along with the opportunity of a lifetime it’ll unlock. I’m not willing to lose what I have left of my dad, either. And for me, this is the only way I can keep that.