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Story: Overdrive

Chapter Fifty-Four

Darien

I pick at the corner of the H on the back of my steering wheel, where the white sticker is starting to peel up.

‘Hey, Ricky?’ I catch one of my mechanics as he’s passing by. ‘You got some of the adhesive for this? It’s coming loose.’

‘Sorry, pal, you can’t glue that one down.’ He almost seems to cringe in sympathy for me. ‘We’ll have to make a new sticker. Do you wanna remove that for the time being—’

‘No,’ I reply, way too quickly and way too insistently. ‘I don’t, I’ll keep this one.’

There are two races left in the season, and this, Brazil, is one of them. My steering has weathered overtakes, near-misses, and collisions with the wall of my garage. It’s taken until now for the sticker to start to peel. I don’t want to replace it. If I do, it won’t be the same one Shantal held, her fingers tracing the curves of the letters she’d written herself.

‘Everything looking good?’ a new voice interrupts my thought.

I nod brusquely, setting the steering wheel to the side so I can address Raya. ‘Yeah. Yeah, all good. Hope you’re, um, excited to watch the race?’

‘Quite.’ Raya Almeida is the visiting tech specialist from Conquest. I’d first heard we would get a Conquest drop-in last week, during the last race weekend, and I’d been so sure it would be Shantal. It had to. We had texted here and there, though she’d neatly dodged the matter of what was going on regarding her parents several times. A month had passed. She had to be coming back soon. Right? Instead I heard that it was Raya, a S?o Paulo-born Brit with deep connections to the Brazilian football team, flying out to observe our team. She’d decided to take up residence in the number sixty-seven garage for the afternoon of the race.

Qualifier had gone poorly for me. At my own home track, some sort of mental block had screwed with my judgement, causing my turns to go wide and my normally late braking to kick in a hair too early. I ended up P6 on the grid, where I’m about to start today. I’m not proud of it, but it’s a home crowd. I have to perform.

‘Um, Raya, can I have my phone?’ I ask her, chewing on the inside of my cheek nervously. ‘Just wanna, uh …’

She nods, although she’s unamused. ‘Sure.’

Once she’s passed the phone in its royal blue case my way, she speeds off to Miguel’s garage, and I jab at my contacts page till I find Shantal under M . I press the ‘call’ button and hold the phone to my ear.

I don’t know what I expect, but after a short dial tone I hear: ‘The number you are trying to reach is unavailable. Please leave your message after the beep.’

Shit, man. I throw the phone to the side and sit myself down on the chassis of the Heidelberg, burying my face in my hands. I think of how freeing it was to kart with her, to remember what I loved about the race.

No pressure, I repeat to myself like a mantra. No pressure, no pressure, no pressure, but it’s happening, my centre isn’t holding and, even with everyone here – my mom, my tia and tio , my whole family is going to be in the damn paddock – I can’t fix myself. Not without my centre.

‘Dude, I hope that Raya chick hasn’t gone looking for me,’ says Miguel with a snort.

I look up, my expression telling him: Let me be depressed alone, please .

He doesn’t accept it. He sits his insistent ass right down next to me, tips a head towards the steering wheel. ‘Her name’s peeling.’

‘I’ve been made well aware.’

‘Yeah.’ He shrugs, giving my arm a wary pat. ‘But it’s just a sticker. It’s not the stuff that really matters.’

I put up the fight of my life in Brazil, the kind of fight that I make sure my home crowd will never forget.

S?o Paulo is nothing but blue skies and scorching track temps today, the kind of weather that causes sweat to bead up beneath my helmet and soak the collar of my race suit. My pulse is pounding overtime as my gloved fingers find the corner of the H, the chapped corner lifting far too easily for my comfort.

‘Let’s get on it, Darien, on it,’ Afonso’s voice urges me over the radio.

I close my eyes, and I search for her until she stands right in front of me, her hands taking my face in their gentle grasp as a faint wind plays with her waves of hair. She nods, a proud smile tracing its way across her full lips, seeping into her deep brown irises.

I can feel my heart rate even as I let my eyelids flutter open. The first red light is just going on. I take the clutch, my composure returning in small waves. She’s here, even when she’s not. She drives with me, every lap.

And when the five lights go out, I’ve never been more certain of my motivation than in that moment. Because my father might’ve left, but his faith endured through the gift he’d given me. Her strength.

I pick my way into fourth, then dart around Peter and Miguel to wind towards a precarious P2 going into the first curve. My start poises me to get close to Diana, up next in P1. The chase is grating, with Afonso calling out modes lap after lap. We drive similar cars, but she has a full trophy case, finesse, a World Championship. That’s enough to prolong this endeavour, about ten laps deep as it is before I get even remotely close enough to claim a healthy dose of DRS on the straight. It’s exactly what I need for my front wing to skirt closer to Diana’s rear one.

‘Good gap, go ahead,’ Afonso announces.

I bear down on the gas, my car shooting into the curve so abruptly that I come side-by-side with Diana.

Instead of using the straight, I keep level with her down the next stretch of track, and the second we hit the turn, I brake as late as I can, swinging my Heidelberg out in front of her Revello in a ballsy move that’ll certainly get me both good and bad press after. It’s worth the hassle. It brings me up into P1. I hold on for dear life, taking the race to the very end, defending with everything I’ve got when Diana creeps up on me two laps before the finish.

When I cross the line for the last time, retrieving my flag for the victory lap, part of me thinks Brazil is happier than I am. The audience is roaring, on their feet in ecstasy, waiting for my celebration, while I raise a hand their way, assuring them I’ll do something.

Will she see it? Somehow?

Maybe not.

I take the chance anyway.