I’ve almost got the words on the tip of my tongue when Arthur appears on screen.
He pulls himself out of the car. Orange in the gray, standing on the driver’s seat. Then he starts to run toward the other wrecked cars—one red, one gold. “I’m okay,” Arthur says, shaken up but speaking.
Relief drenches me. He’s okay. He’s okay. I’m okay. But what is he doing?
“Get back in the car,” I hear Holmes say over the radio, sending a jolt down my spine. “Rightnow.”
Arthur doesn’t listen. He approaches the two cars, the flipped-over Leone on top of the Cavalli, and my stomach sinks as I realize it’s Jean Baudelaire and Rafael Ramirez; they were in front of him and behind him on the grid. That shy, baby-faced smile.
Delaney grabs my shaky hand in hers and holds it tight.
The livestream cuts to another angle, and now Arthur’s helping medics and mechanics pull the cars apart, and his visor is open, a cut of skin between the orange, and I think he has to be helping Rafael out—but then he’s grabbing on to an arm in a gold race suit and hoisting Jean up, out, and onto his feet.
“Oh my God, thank you,” Delaney exhales, and my breath hitches.
He’s helpingJean. Arthur ran out of his car for his old teammate. His rival.
I think he’d do it for anyone, though.
I think this isn’t just a crush.
In the mist, Rafael appears beside them, then James Hawke, the driver who had his tire forcibly removed, and that makes four. All four drivers are safe. I cling to Delaney’s side as they leave the track and red flags wave between the fenced barriers. I keep my eyes on Arthur, the tiny orange pixels that mean he’s alive, he’s okay, he’s walking, partly because I physically need to keep watching him or else I might pass out. And partly because the announcers are explaining the last sixty seconds in excruciating detail, every angle of the crash playing out on the television screens. Arthur’s car getting hit again, and again, and again, and I can’t watch it. I will die if I have to see any more of that.
Suddenly, there’s a firm squeeze on my shoulder. Delaney. “They’re coming this way. Are you all right? Do you need to sit down?”
I nod, my throat stuck. “No, I’m good. I can—I can handle this.”
Her eyes drift over my mouth, as if she knows something she doesn’t want to say, then she nods back and goes to talk with the group forming by the garage door, and I twist my hands behind my back as I pace to the shadows. I don’t want to be around people and I can’t keep still and I want to see him and I want him to tell me that it was all a joke, a prank, typical Arthur, what a lark. Adrenaline is rocketing through me, and I shift my weight back and forth between my toes and heels until—
Arthur and James appear up front. Arthur is still in his race suit, only the collar undone and the zip pulled down so he can get more air. His hair is plastered to his balaclava-creased forehead, sweat and water dripping down his sharp nose and pale cheeks, all the color drained from his skin. He keeps twisting his wrist and wincing, like he’s checking and re-checking if whatever hurts still hurts.He’shurt.
People start to clap. I try to join in, pasting on a mechanical smile as Arthur works his way through the crowd… toward me.
No.
He’s looking right at me. Is he going to—?
He walks past me.
Doesn’t throw off a cocky one-liner or flirty quip or an explosive, cutting truth. He ignores me completely as Merlin guides him through the back, the smell of rain and fuel and what might be blood lingering in the air.
That’s when I notice the eyes.
Everyone in the garage, from Cameron in his mission-control chair to Sarah to the strangers I haven’t met—they’re all looking at me. Because rumors do travel fast in Formula 1, and if I hadn’t been sure the team was onto us before, hadn’t been convinced that Arthur and I needed to reel it back to make it to the wedding, I could be sure now.
Embarrassment seeps into my cheeks as I shrink into an empty chair. Then I get up and scamper to the back door. I need space, air.
All those eyes. The staring. The curious pity.
Poor, sad me. Left again.
I push through another door and find myself in the walkway to an employee parking lot. A gazebo stands like a lighthouse in the pouring rain, and I run over to it, grateful for the first time in my life to see a tiny cigarette logo denoting that this is a smoking area.
Leaning against a white post, I try to catch my breath. God, I’m being ridiculous. Arthur just helped pull a man out of a wrecked car while he himself was injured, and I’m only thinking about how I feel. That’s so selfish. I told myself that I could ignore this—and I can. I will. I have to, for Arthur, for my friends. They all want to go to Leone together, and if I close my eyes, breathe through my mouth, block out my thoughts, there won’t be this patheticfeelinggnawing in my chest, burning through my skin, begging me to find a man who doesn’t want to talk to me right now.Find him. Tell him your feelings. Once he knows, he’ll be the one who wants to stay.
Hope is so annoying. It doesn’t make any narrative sense at all.
“Lilah?”
