Page 39 of Tipping Point

I don’t see them.

I’m disappointed. The realization of it jars me.

* * *

FINN

We’re six races in out of twenty-three. That means I have seventeen races left. I have spent the past fifteen years of my career with a singular focus.

To right a wrong.

And now, after everything, and experiencing this strange sense of freedom, I’m battling more guilt than ever.

Because I’m enjoying myself. Because right after the race, I looked for Camille.

I am betraying the promise I made myself.

I book a car and make my way to the airport, out towards the private terminal, and it comes to a smooth stop next to a small private jet. The driver jumps out to open the door for me and I am welcomed by an air hostess who accompanies me inside.

It smells like a new car inside and I take a seat on one of the large leather armchairs, kicking my legs out in front of me.

I am immediately served a whiskey.

I always use the same company when I go to visit her.

I have four hours of peace and quiet and I spend it doing a play-by-play of the race in my head.

When we land at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, another car is already waiting, and it takes me straight to the care facility.

Her name is Grace, and she has natural auburn hair and green eyes. Angry red pitted burn scars cover half of her head. One ear is practically burned off. It splotches angrily down her neck. It covers sixty percent of her body. Only ten percent of mine.

Her muscles have atrophied away to practically nothing and she can’t breathe on her own.

She isn’t aware that I’m here. She’s nothing more than a beating heart.

“Mr Brennan?” It’s the nurse. He’s standing on the threshold of the room, and I can hear the question in his voice.

“Please,” I say. “Come in.” I take a seat in the armchair next to her bed. He makes his way inside and shakes my hand. “It’s good to see you again.”

It’s been a year since I was last here.

He gives me a sympathetic pat on the shoulder and asks if I’d like anything to eat or drink.

I shake my head.

He brings me a jug of water all the same.

I take my pill. It’s an antidepressant I started taking about a year after the accident. I used to think that depression meant you felt sad. That the pill picked you up.

Depression for me meant that I felt nothing at all. But in a different place altogether. One where the air was too thick to breathe, one where thoughts swirled together in a whirlpool, and where they faded mid-way, no resolution or end. It felt like I bounced away from answers, couldn’t grasp reason. Like floating lifeless in a void, heavy limbed and uncaring.

The depression I have now feels like I’m drowning, restless and aching.

I prefer it any day over that lifeless void.

And it takes more than a pill. The life I lead keeps me alive. Exercise, good food, sleeping well. Every aspect of the life I lead contributes to help the pill do its job.

For the life of me, I don’t know how others less fortunate dealt with it.

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