“I’m sorry,” I whisper, then I’m out the Paddock Club door, gone, the watch on my wrist ticking like I’ve swallowed a time bomb.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I make it to the ground floor—down the Paddock Club’s stairs and through the crowd outside and there aretoomany people—before Arthur catches me, a hand around the elbow, gentle yet firm. Everyone around us is wearing red T-shirts and baseball caps, an ocean of Cavalli red and Leone yellow, and when I see the little golden lion logos, I cough out a humorless laugh that sounds as broken as my heart. The fan event has us surrounded.
“Lilah, stop,” Arthur says. “Talk to me.”
Someone looks over and notices Arthur. Then another person. The flow of the crowd is disrupted, one fan after the other stopping to see what everyone else is stopping to see.
Me.
They’re looking atme. Wondering who I am. The strange, small woman doing her best not to melt down in front of Arthur Bianco, who should be grinning in front of a camera right now but isn’t. My skin feels unbearably tight as I grab Arthur’s arm and drag him to a shaded doorway, swipe my Ignition badge, and push him through. It’s dark, cold. We’re in a supply closet, surrounded by Formula 1 advertising gear: posters, flyers, plastic cups.
Once the door’s shut, Arthur starts talking. “I’m sorry about how he is. This is why I wanted you to stay behind. But what he said about you isn’t true. You’re wonderful, Lilah. You’re perfect.”
He thinks I’m upset about Holmes’s insults? Speechless, I press my palms into my eyes and shake my head.
“Please don’t let him get to you. I’m going to go meet with Leone—I’ll get this sorted.”
By picking pain, by not walking away when his uncle admitted to harming him, by only focusing on which car he’s going to drive next year. “We need to go to the FIA.” My voice shakes, and I force a breath down to ease the ache. “Or-or the police. I don’t know.”
“Why?”
“Because you can’t keep living like this!” As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I’m startled by just how much I’ve wanted to say this to him for weeks. Since we met, I’ve known something was wrong with Arthur, felt the dark outside the glow of the bright, happy circus. Suspected the lies whispered behind doors, on radio channels, in closed meetings. “Arthur, you aren’t okay. You can’t go meet with Leone right now. Your uncle almost ended your life, and he just admitted that in the Paddock Club.”
He drops his voice. “Lilah, I… I know. But that isn’t something I can do. No one would believe me over him, and drivers—all of us deal with abusive assholes in our families. This isn’t any worse than what others have dealt with to drive.”
I lower my hands, staring at his wide eyes and broken pain. “Why do you need to drive withLeone?”
His tongue darts over his lips, breathing uneven. “It doesn’t matter that Holmes hit me on purpose. It was my fault. I lost control of the car. I didn’t drive well enough. Unless I drive for them again, Lilah, it’s going—I’ll never get over it.” He pauses, inhaling, like he didn’t know that he felt that way until he said it out loud. “I’m—I’m sorry to be this stubborn, I am, but you don’t understand what it’s like to fail in front of everyone.”
“Don’t I?” I flash him a sad smile. “Look online. Everyone knows the truth about me and nobody knows the truth about you.”
“Youdo,” he says, like that’s enough, like that’s ever been enough for anyone. “You’re the only one I want to see me. Changing the world’s mind about Holmes is a lost cause. And—and I can sign a yearlong contract with Leone. One year. Prove that I’m not a failure, then go to another team.”
Here’s the great big secret that anyone who’s been thrown away by their family can tell you: It’s humiliating. Yes, the throwing. But also, how much paranoia is stored in your body afterward, breaking down your ability to accept promises that life will turn out okay. Because maybe, if I was anyone else, I would accept what Arthur’s saying. I’d see his vision of the future, him at Leone, happy and healthy, me on the sidelines, cheering and clapping.
But I’m me, Lilah Graywood, professional realist, a camera with a body, and I can see the pinhole shot at our happy ending getting smaller and smaller, a tunnel closing in the distance until the speck of light is swallowed up. I can see Arthur locking himself into another contract with another team that doesn’t give a shit if he lives or dies. I can see him hiding his pain from me in locked bathrooms and dark corners.
He’s setting himself up for the same pain he’s always known. Family patriarch, to abusive team, to almost dying, rinse, repeat.
“No,” I whisper, and the word feels wrong coming out of my mouth. I’ve so rarely said it. “I’m not doing this with you, Arthur. I can’t pretend that I’m okay with this decision. I’m sorry. I’m not trying to—to force you to expose your secrets, I promise. This isn’t about the film, or my career, or any of that. I care about you, so much, and I want you to get everything you want and more—but not if it’s hurting you. Not if you can’t breathe when you think about it. You can’t keep going through life on autopilot, hidinghow badly you’re hurting. For a job. For work.” My lungs burn, but I keep going. “And you’re right. I do see you. I’m not going to stop seeing you, even if you pretend that the last five years of your life never happened.”
“I don’t want that, I shouldn’t have said that.” He goes to touch me then stops, balling his fingers into his palms. “But I’ve seen you, too. You love being on the road with us, you love this sport, and everyone loves you, too. Trust me. Trust me that it’s going to be good. You, and me, in Italy, at Leone. What’s one year and then I’ve fixed my mistake?”
I want to trust him. God, I want to. But I feel like I’m holding a film strip of Arthur and me up to the light, searching for the one clue I’ve missed in washed-out amber negatives, the puzzle piece that means he can go back to Leone and the future he wants without submerging himself in his past, so deep he suffocates. And isn’t this how love is supposed to be? Helping each other heal—stopping the person we love from breaking more bones—showing them that they deserve better?
“You need to listen to other offers,” I say. “This isn’t your only option.”
“It’s the only one I want.”
“But what about what I want?”
“I was serious, what I said to you. I want it all with you and I see it, Iseehow to get there,” he whispers. And I look at him, leaning and intense and endlessly hazel, his lips pressed together, hopeful. “I’d marry you today. Just let me do this, Lilah. Let me make our happy ending.”
The film negative rips down the center.
That’s the piece of the story I’ve always been missing.
