Page 68 of Tipping Point

It’s mandated by the Grande Prima to make sure no underlying injuries go unnoticed, since most internal injuries aren’t immediately apparent when you’re running on adrenaline.

In Texas, fifteen years ago, I had vaulted over the car, unaware of my broken collarbone, wrist, and fractured ribs.

Erik comes to see me to tell me the car’s safety standards have passed the test and there won’t be an internal investigation because the cause is pretty apparent.

He’s blood red in the face, voice shaking, and ignores Lachlan studiously.

“D.N.F?”

He nodded. A “Did Not Finish” in terms of score. Zero points.

When they finally clear me, I join him on the way back to the paddock where Reuben gives me a good-natured handshake. He placed twelfth and is grinning ear to ear. We don’t score points for anything after tenth place, but you would swear he’d single-handedly kept us in the running.

I sit through a very tedious debriefing and am happy when we wrap it up.

I’m sore all over.

When I get up to make my way back to the hotel, Erik holds up a hand to me, asking me to hang back. After Jack and Reuben and our aeronautical engineer have shouldered their way out of the room, Erik approaches me cautiously.

I know what’s coming.

“Finn, I think you should just speak to someone. I know a very good phycologist that has helped drivers in the past-”

“No thank you, Erik.”

I watch as discomfort flits across his face, followed by resolve.

“I’m just worried that this could affect you long term. I would be happy to cover-”

“No, thank you Erik.”

He sighs and shuts his mouth.

I know what he means.

I’ve been driving great all season. If this puts me off, they can kiss any chance of a good placement in the manufacturer’s league goodbye.

I frown. He has his heart on it.

With a pang, I realise, so do I.

It’s not that I’m opposed to the psychiatrists. I saw one for a year after the accident. After Grace. We couldn’t connect. I dreaded the thought of starting over with someone new. And since I had made up my mind all those years ago, I couldn’t see the point.

I wave and head out. A car is waiting for me, and it takes me to the Luxury Dune Hotel. It’s gorgeous there. The suite isn’t on a floor in the main building. It’s a whole private villa in an exclusive area behind the hotel. I walk straight through the open French doors in the sitting room and kick off my shoes before I hit the white sand of the beach.

I whip off my shirt at the edge of the water, and I walk straight into the sea. When the salty water hits my waist, I sink under the surface and hang there for a second, suspended in time.

In Texas, fifteen years ago, I had battled every human instinct, forced myself through willpower alone to stay hunched over Grace while the flames licked my flesh away.

Everything about that situation had screamed death.

The only other time in my life I had fought instinct so fiercely was when I had forced myself to walk away from Camille.

Everything from that situation had screamed life.

I think, for the thousandth time, about how she tasted, the waxy warmth of her, the tremors in her thighs that I had pressed close to my cheeks.

The creamy skin of her stomach, and how I had known when she reached for me, I had made a mistake.

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