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“Come on, Willa,” she said cheerfully, lifting her eyebrows and smiling broadly to make sure Willa felt secure and didn’t sense the anger growing in the room. “Let’s go take a bath and get ready for bed.”
The bathroom door closed, and I turned to Darren again. I didn’t know what to do or say, or how I was supposed to respond to any of this. There was no playbook here; I had no idea how we were supposed to move forward from this.
“Once the test is over, we’ll open the results together. Now, if those results come out and show you’re not lying to me and this isn’t some ploy to get my money, you and I are going to have a very long talk and figure some stuff out. Until then, stay out of my way. Do you understand me? I don’t want to be near you. I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t even want to see you. Working at the garage is going to make that difficult, I understand, but you do everything you can to avoid me, and I promise you I will do everything I can to avoid you. If you need something, you talk to my father or to Quentin. I have never been as angry as I am right now, and I have no idea what that’s going to mean or how it’s going to manifest.”
I tried hard not to be offended, but it was a challenge when there was so much in that little speech to piss me the fuck off. Remembering my daughter was just in the bathroom down the hallway and would be able to hear if I went off on him, I forced myself to stay calm. This was supposed to be about her. The whole reason we were doing this was because I wanted her to have her father, or at least for him to know he had a daughter. He was angry and hurt. My feelings aside, he was entitled to that reaction. I needed to remember that and give him the chance to work through it. Even if it felt like he was dragging me over sandpaper.
I held out the folder with all of Willa’s information, and he snatched it from me. Without another word, he stormed out. That’s all I could take before I was crying. I dragged in a few breaths, trying to settle myself down. Knowing Kira was taking care of Willa and would get her settled down for bed at least took pressure off, and I was able to just sit there and try to get calm.
27
Darren
I never realized just how exhausting anger and stress could be. I guess that was one of the benefits of not having as impulsive and fiery a personality as my brothers did. They were known to occasionally explode, some more than others, and seemed to experience more stress and anxiety than I did. At least, that’s what I thought. Then this happened to me, and I felt the full force of going through something so intense. After I left Kelly’s house, I was so full of adrenaline and rage it was like I could have done an Ironman competition and then built a house with my own bare hands. But that didn’t last for long. I couldn’t sleep at all the night after I got the life-changing news and was up bright and early the next morning to go get my blood drawn.
Getting regular blood draws was something I was very used to. Ever since I started racing, I submitted to getting my blood drawn on a fairly frequent schedule. This was for a few reasons. Ever since we were young, Dad had insisted all four of the brothers be responsible and accountable for their own health and well-being. He made it extremely clear he wouldn’t tolerate any sort of controlled substance, and that became even more pressing when I started racing. It had been a tradition of the company since well before I even got on the back of a motorcycle to check in with the racers randomly to screen for drugs or anything else that he might not approve of.
Even though I’d never used any type of drug and would never consider taking a performance-enhancing substance of any kind, out of respect for my father and for tradition, I kept up with the checks. Getting my blood drawn regularly was about more than just ensuring I had a clean bill of health every time I got on my bike to race. It was also about making sure I was ready to face whatever might happen in that race. As evidenced by the catastrophe with Greg at the last race, these events could be extremely dangerous. I was very fortunate to have never been involved in something truly dangerous or have my life at risk. But others had.
