Page 78 of Revved up & Ready

Cam

Think they’ll give me points for this? –caption from Cam’s social media post–a video of him doing donuts in a go-kart, May 7th

“Nervous?” I ask, pulling off the highway toward the go-kart track.

“No,” Sadie answers, looking away.

“Why do you bother lying to me?” I ask.

Her voice is somewhere between a laugh and a curse when she responds, “Why do you ask questions if you already know the answers?”

“Alright, I won’t make you talk—”

She cuts me off. “I’m not worried about anyonecrashing,” she whispers the last word, the way she always does. “No one will get hurt.Right?”She looks at me for confirmation.

“No one will get hurt,” I promise.

“So that part, I’m not nervous about,” she says on a shaky breath.

I give her a sidelong glance. “You sure, Winslow?”

“Okay, I’m a little teeny tiny bit nervous about that part. Just the idea of being at a track, of racinganything, makes myheart all flittery,” she admits, wiggling her fingers and hands frantically in front of her chest.

Thebraaap,braaap,braaapof revving motorcycle engines carries over our conversation as I turn into a parking space. The sound lights me up inside in the best way, but at the same time, I worry about her.

We’re at a smaller track today—one I raced on countless times when I was in the 600 class. It has a go-kart track adjacent to the motorcycle track. One of my buddies who works here hooked us up for the afternoon, along with seven go-karts. But I hadn’t thought about how hearing the motorcycle engines while she’s racing go-karts might affect Sadie.

“Is it going to bother you that there are motorcycles here too?” I ask. When her eyes go wide, I realize my mistake. “They’re on a different track. You’ll only hear them.”

“Oh,” she sighs in relief. “In that case, I think it’ll be okay.” Unbuckling her seatbelt, she turns to face me. “I think I’m actually going to have a lot of fun.”

I squeeze her hand. “I think you will too.”

A dimpled smile fills her face. “Sometimes I’m just nervous. Like my body has nerves that haven’t met my brain yet. Does that make sense?”

“Sort of,” I answer, trying to place the feeling. “It’s not an experience I’ve had, but it sounds exhausting.”

She shrugs. “You get it.”

I make her promise to tell me if she needs a break or if there’s anything I can do to help her feel safer as we gather up helmets and head out to the track. She surprises me by lacing her fingers with mine as we walk.

I’ve held her hand before, but I can’t remember a time she initiated it, or a time we did it when no one else was around. At this point, we’ve done a hell of a lot more than hold hands, butit still sends a rush through me when she intertwines her fingers with mine.

Squeezing tightly as we pass the motorcycle track, she leans her head into my shoulder. “It’s like exposure therapy,” she says, watching the motorcycles. “I have to get used to it at some point.”

Has to get used to it at some point.Even if she was truly my girlfriend, I wouldn’t force her to be around something that upsets her so much. “You don’t have to,” I say.

She smiles brightly at me, dropping my hand as we reach the go-karts. “I guess not, but I want to.”

We start out with the most in-depth safety talk anyone’s ever made about go-karts. It’s been years since I drove one, and I spent hours last night researching everything I thought she’d need. Knowing she would ask, I even memorized statistics about how rare deaths and injuries are. It’s not that no one ever gets hurt on go-karts—there are precautions to take—but it’s nothing compared to racing motorcycles.

Toward the end of my talk, she starts to get antsy, bouncing on her toes and glancing back and forth at the karts.

“You ready to try?” I ask.

She nods. “I thought you’d never ask!”

“You want to follow me the first few laps to get a feel for it?” I ask.

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