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How many times am I going to find myself here? It’s almost as if I watch him every time realising he’s a little too emotionally invested in what’s going on between us and then he shuts himself down completely. Cuts me off.

At what point do I accept that he means it? How many times do I need to be shut out before I’m done? If he can’t even acknowledge that this is more than sex, that we are more than two people who just stick their dicks in each other, then what’s the point?

There really isn’t one.

I should know that by now.

It’s time.

Time to move on.

It starts with deleting all of our texts. Every shared memory of the last several months, gone. Every bit of banter, every flirty message, every random meme is banished to somewhere they can never come back from.

A few of his things got mixed up with mine because I had to pack while I was feeling very sub-par and didn’t have the energy to separate them out: a hat, his Deep Heat, a couple of T-shirts. I find a bag and chuck the items in, leaving it by the door to drop off at his room tomorrow.

I want to include a hoodie of his that I’ve basically adopted and to which I feel very attached, but in the end I keep it. Then I change my mind and put it in the bag.

I change my mind again and pull it out, holding it to my nose like a pathetic teenager crying over a first crush.

I’m not sure what I’m expecting it to do – it’s not like it’s going to magically make Harper appear or change his mind. He won’t decide he wants to be with me just because I’m clinging to an inanimate object of his. So, I ball it up and chuck it into the bag again.

Yet it does nothing to loosen the grip he has on my heart.

To the point I find my thumb hovering over his name in my phone contacts. I’m desperate to call him and tell him to come back so we can talk.

But what’s the point? That’s the thought I keep coming back to. There is no point with Harper. He doesn’t want to commit to me and I have to accept that.

Kicking my bags under my bed, I hate that I haven’t unpacked properly like I usually do. The energy I normally have to make a place my own little home for the two weeks we’re here has been zapped by something painful in my chest.

I won’t label it heartbreak. I won’t let Harper break me. He can’t. He doesn’t have that power.

It’s a lie I’ll keep telling myself until I believe it.

Elijah’s been messaging me recently saying he’s doing much better and is back in the gym. He needs to get signed-off from his physical therapist and then he can get back in the simulator. Maybe Anders will pull him back in for the rest of the season and Harper will be out. Maybe he’ll take London’s position as our back-up driver – or maybe he’ll be sent back to the lower tier. That would be the ultimate preference.

I wouldn’t have to deal with him at all, then; there’d be so much less temptation. No more mistakes, like in Italy.

Trying to settle back into bed is hard.

When I saw him fumbling around outside my door this evening, all dressed up and panting like a dog, I thought the few days of distance we’ve had in Singapore because of the change in living situation had worked their magic and he’d come to tell me he missed me and wanted to be with me and that he love?—

Obviously I got ahead of myself. For a split second he seemed determined and brave, and full of a light and warmth I’m not used to seeing in him, but then that all vanished in the blink of an eye. It was so fast that I doubted whether it had ever been there, at all. I must have imagined it because I wanted it so much.

Of course he’s out with Johannes tonight. And I know it’s not to talk about whatever was bothering Johannes the last time Harper ran off to be with him. Harper was dressed to go out out. Maybe he’s kissing another guy right now. Maybe he’s shagging someone else right now.

I really should be trying to sleep. Free practice is early tomorrow and I’m already feeling drained. I’m still recovering from the crash and I need all the help I can get – both physically and mentally. I think of Elise’s worry and how I’ve added to her burden. I can’t let Harper mess me up anymore.

Closing my eyes doesn’t help, though. Even squeezing them shut doesn’t delete the memory of the scene in the hallway. It’s on a fixed loop in my head and I can’t stop it.

I struggle to get comfy. The bed feels too big and the other side is too cold for me stretch out into. I toss and turn until pure exhaustion finally wins out and the world around me fades.

Until my phone rings out on max volume and I’m scrambling for it from under my pillow. Hope bubbles inside me that I’ll see Harper’s name on my screen. He’s changed his mind and he needs me?—

I couldn’t be more wrong.

My whole body is frozen. Elise never gets the time change wrong, so if she’s calling me in the middle of the night then?—

‘Elise?’ My voice is ragged. I already know what she’s going to say. Fear paralyses me, dread dripping down my spine.

‘I’m so sorry, Ki,’ she chokes out, and I feel my whole body curl inwards, my free hand fisting the twisted-up bedsheet.

She doesn’t need to say any more.

Mum’s gone.

It’s there in the way my sister sobs down the phone and I’m consumed by loss and a need to be with her.

The emptiness in my heart grows more than I thought it possibly could after tonight.

Yet I don’t cry. The beginnings of grief numbs my every emotion until I can’t feel a thing.

‘I’m coming home, Elise. I’ll be on the next plane out of here.’ It’s not very often that I flaunt my wealth or leverage my power within Hendersohm, but I’ll do anything to board a private jet on a runway right now if it will get me home faster to my sister.

‘But this weekend!’ She tries to protest.

‘I don’t care about this weekend.’ I’m shocked by how much I actually mean it. I’ve never missed a race in my life. I missed the births of both Cassie and Jesse, my sister’s engagement party, and Jesse’s christening, but nothing will keep me from this. ‘I’m coming home. As quickly as possible. I’ll figure it out. I’m on my way, Elise, I promise.’

She sobs quietly into the phone and I can’t breathe. ‘I love you, Ki. I’ll see you soon?’ she croaks out in between sobs.

‘Soon. Love you.’

The line drops and I feel like I might be sick.

I get out of bed and start throwing things in a bag. I call Kelsey, the team organiser, while I’m doing it and when I tell her what’s happened she works some magic and gets me a plane that can take me to a private runway in Norfolk. She’s arranged a car to meet me, too, and I’m halfway to the airport before I can stop and think.

This is when I contemplate letting Harper know. Whatever’s happening, or not happening, between us, he deserves to hear from me that I won’t be racing this weekend.

I go to text him when a notification about him posting to his Insta story hits my phone. It’s a shaky video taken from Harper’s outstretched arm. Neon lights flash rapidly around him and it lights up the way he and another man are grinding to the beat of the music.

It hollows me out completely.

If my heart and soul hadn’t already been ripped out and torn to shreds, this would do it. It’s the final nail in the coffin of the saga of me and Harper James.

He was never going to be emotionally ready for a relationship. I should have known that from our first proper conversation in Austria. Hell, I should have known that the second he arrived and caused nothing but chaos for me and for Hendersohm.

I should have walked away completely after the first kiss. I should have locked the memory of it away in the far corner of my mind and left it there. I should have employed even a modicum of my famed self-discipline and maintained a polite and professional distance between us. I should have let him twist himself into self-destructive knots and awaited Elijah’s return. Moved on as teammates and teammates only.

Except I couldn’t help myself. Harper’s an enigma I could not resist and now I’ve been burnt by him.

Well, he can go fuck himself.

I press the two buttons on the side of my phone, screenshotting the image, and then send it to Harper. I wait to see that it’s been delivered and then I block the shit out of him – in my contacts, in WhatsApp, and on every bit of social media I’ve stupidly followed him on.

And just like that he’s gone. I only wish I could start feeling better about it right away, but there’s no chance of that with everything else that’s going on.

The fucking asshole.

Obviously he’s not to know that Mum’s just passed, but if he hadn’t been out shagging some other guy then he would have been with me and he would have found out when I did. He could have held me like he did when I had that nightmare, and I would have felt better.

I need someone to blame and Harper’s a pretty big target.

There are probably so many people I should be contacting right now. The qualifiers are less than thirty-six hours away and I’m one hundred per cent not going to be here. Anders needs to call up our back-up driver to take my place – or Elijah, if he’s really ready – and my agent, Will, needs to know I’m about to head back to England. Anna probably needs to know to put out some kind of statement about why I won’t be competing. Except I can only bring myself to focus on getting to the airport. I hope Kelsey will handle everything because I just can’t right now.

I want and need to be on this flight home.

The plane is waiting on the tarmac as promised, and as I soon as I get on they shut the doors and we start taxiing. Once the plane levels out in the sky, I sink my chair into lie-flat mode and pray for sleep so I don’t have to think about how my sister’s coping right now. I hope Mum wasn’t alone, but I also wouldn’t wish it on my twin to have to watch Mum die right before her eyes. I hope Cassie and Jesse are okay – they’ll know something’s wrong and they’re too young to understand. I hope Grant is on a flight home already, too, so Elise has help with the kids. I’ve forgotten where his conference is, but I know he’s not at home right now.

I wasn’t there.

I wasn’t there when it happened.

I shove my earbuds in and put on some calming music. I need to drown out my own thundering thoughts before I’m no use to anyone.

Eventually, the exhaustion of the day hits and I fall asleep.

When I step off the plane and into the waiting car, I reluctantly turn my phone back on. The BBC news blast about Mum’s death drops into my phone right away and the first articles also speculate that I might not race this weekend.

The driver of the car doesn’t say anything, just tips his hat at me out of respect and closes the door behind me. At least he’s judged the tone right and leaves me be on the short drive out into the Norfolk countryside.

My phone buzzes non-stop with texts, voicemails, and notifications. I can’t bear it – any of it – so I switch it off completely.

Elise must hear the car pulling up the driveway, because she’s waiting on the doorstep for me. Her hair’s scraped back into a bun on top of her head and she’s wearing her comfiest pyjamas.

It takes two steadying breaths for me to finally get out of the car, but the second I reach her I’m pulling her into a hug.

‘God, I’m so sorry,’ I whisper into her hair as she tucks herself up under my chin. In this moment I’m glad we’re the kind of twins who are affectionate, who bicker and fight but who will always love and be there for each other. I couldn’t do this without her. I couldn’t have done any of it without her.

Her sacrifice has allowed me to have the professional career of my dreams. She gave up her nursing degree and selflessly took care of everything so I didn’t have to. The least I can do is take care of her now, so for once she can just look after herself.

I start by running her a bath while Grant puts the kids to bed – he wasn’t far away, it turns out, so he beat me here. Then, between us we throw together a somewhat edible dinner and even though we eat in silence at least she’s well fed as we send her up to bed early.

‘How’s she doing?’ I ask Grant.

We’re sitting in the lounge, the TV playing some rubbish in the background that neither of us are watching. We’ve spent hours cleaning the house, running several loads of washing before finally stripping the bedding that Mum passed in. We both allowed silent tears to fall while we did it, but I’m just glad we spared Elise from having to do it. I’m also glad I didn’t have to do it alone.

‘She can’t speak about it yet. She doesn’t want to. I think she was waiting for you to get back. I wish I could bear some of the weight of the loss, but I can’t even begin to understand it, with two very alive parents.’ There’s a level of heartbreak to his voice I’ve never heard before, and I know Elise isn’t the only one affected by caring for Mum.

‘Well, I’m here now. I want to do everything I can. I don’t want her to have to do a thing other than take the time to process what she needs.’

It’s the least I can do after being so absent in the final moments.

Eventually, Grant heads up to bed to be with his wife. I know he will comfort and hold her while she cries. I’m glad.

But it’s yet another reminder, if I needed one, that I will be going to bed alone. I will cry silently to myself. I will reach out and feel the cold side of the bed and know that no one is there for me.

And I wish, I wish, that wasn’t the case.