Page 27 of Fast

Mom finishes putting tape over the top of a box—what else?—and puts the tape gun on top of it, wiping her hands on the legs of her denim overalls.

We look at each other for a tense moment. Last time we saw each other was two years ago, when we met for Christmas at my grandparents’ house in Massachusetts. It was a tense reunion. She was still angry at me.

“You lied to me, and for what? Sneaking out to Bridgeport with a ‘boy,’ to go to a motorcycle race? While I thought you were safe at your friend’s house a couple of blocks away?” She had yelled the second I came through the front door.

I was exhausted. After the crash at the racetrack, things had gotten out of control. The guys I had been staying with that weekend were reeling when one of them got killed in a crash on the racetrack. They totally forgot about me, and to be honest, I can’t blame them at all.

Chance and Ares were clinging to each other in complete shock. Heather had to be taken away in an ambulance when she realized what had happened. It was probably a small mercy that she had been in the restroom when Atlas was hit by a rogue bike that wasn’t a part of the race.

I didn’t even see Levin in the mayhem that followed the crash, but I can only imagine how devastated he was. It was clear in the short time I had known them that they were a tight-knit unit.

Atlas’s father was there, watching the race, too.

I had met him very briefly that morning. He used to be a famous pro hockey player and after the crash, he was literally assaulted by the press. He had to be escorted to the police station to protect him from the mayhem and to formally identify the body.

I was literally the last of their concerns in that horrible moment and I still feel bad for sneaking away.

I’ve tried to find them on social media for the past two years to apologize for bolting, but if they have any social media presence, I haven’t been able to find their accounts.

I found a profile for Heather, but it was set to private. I thought about sending her a friend request, but I chickened out. She was nice to me that weekend, but I didn’t know what to say to her. Nothing I could say could lessen her loss, and I took the easy way out.

My problem at the time was that without them giving me a ride home, like they had offered, I needed to get back to Shell Cove before Mom could find out that I had lied to her.

Cal was being questioned by the police, and he wasn’t an option, anyway. I didn’t know back then, but the bike that caused the crash belonged to Cal’s team. It was apparently stolen from their garage at some point before the race.

That racetrack had very lax safety and their security wasn’t any better. There were no cameras anywhere other than the actual track, so whoever caused that crash was never found.

I had boarded a bus back to Shell Cove, but when I got home, I was confronted by Mom. She was furious.

She had seen the streaming of the Blue Lightning race. How she found it didn’t even matter—one of her friends’ husbands saw it reposted on a streaming channel he follows and her friend recognized me.

Mom said I was out of control. She had had enough of my disobedience and I was grounded indefinitely. That was no surprise. I expected that much.

A week later, though, she shipped me to a boarding school in Connecticut. I had immediately called Dad to plead with him to help, to let me move in with him, anything but an all girls boarding school.

My parents had been hating each other and fighting since their divorce, but go figure, that was the one time they were in total agreement.

I held one hell of a grudge and didn’t talk to either of them for months.

After that disastrous reunion with Mom the first Christmas after I was shipped off, I spent every school vacation with my roommate’s family. That was my only option if I wanted to avoid another one of Mom’s lectures. I would have loved to spend some time with Dad, wherever his work might have taken him, but every time we managed to arrange something, he flaked at the last minute.

Mom and I look at each other for a tense moment.

She hasn’t changed much. If anything, she’s cut her hair short, and she looks younger than ever.

“Zara.” She opens her arms.

I don’t even think. I fly into her embrace as everything around me is blurred by the tears I didn’t even realize were welling in my eyes.

“Mom,” I sob, inhaling her familiar scent.

We stay like that, hugging each other and weeping for what feels like forever.

“Did you have a good flight back?” she asks, holding me by my shoulders to take a good look at me. “You look so grown up.”

“Yeah, the flight was fine. Do I have to thank you or Dad for the first-class ticket? Coach would have been just fine, though.”

She shrugs. “It’s a new beginning. I wanted you to come back in style. Your father wasn’t the one who paid for the upgrade, though.”

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