Page 97 of The Player Penalty
Her nose wrinkles with disgust. It’s endearing, but I stay quiet.
“Are you still jealous of my past? We can talk about that more if you want.”
“Talk about women you’ve slept with? No, thank you. We can’t change what happened before; talking about it will only make me miserable. Right now, we need to make sure my dad doesn’t push to get you fired. Then we need to yell at everyone.”
I chuckle. “All that matters is you believe me.”
“No, it isn’t,” she says with a fierceness that turns me on. “No one believed you either. You deserve better than that, Julian. You haven’t done anything wrong, and it’s not fair you’re judged for the actions of others. You aren’t your dad. You’re ahardworking member of the team. Boone Rivers is lucky to have you.”
“You know about my father?”
“Sarah told me the entire story a long time ago,” she says.
“You never mentioned it.”
“What difference does it make? I know the man you are, not the fake story people tell each other because they want some gossip. I know what it’s like to explain, over and over, and not be believed. The more you insist, the less they believe.”
My throat closes up, so I can’t speak. Sarah insisted her father, Tom Rivers, take me on as a driver. It’s the only reason my career didn’t end like the rest of my family’s. For all that, despite everything, it’s always there. We cheated, and if someone did it once, doesn’t that mean they will do so again?
“Do you want to know my side of the story?” I ask.
“Only if you want to share. You aren’t obligated to explain yourself to people. Your actions show who you are. They did with me.”
“That isn’t always true. Maybe it should be, but it isn’t.” I sigh. This isn’t a secret. A random web search will tell people just about everything. “You know about my father.”
She nods. “Your father was abusive, Julian.”
“He never hit me. He never so much as touched me.”
“Abuse isn’t always physical.”
It’s like someone threw me into the sea years ago, and Lily came along to throw out a life preserver because I’m pathetic like that. “I guess that’s true. Shit. You’re the first person to say it. It’s strange. He taught me to drive, and he’s a great teacher. Foreverything I’m about to say, that part is true. He can race, and he can teach others how to race. One of the best we’ve ever seen, you know?”
“I know his name.”
“Dad has this talent. He knows your weakness and will call it out in the worst ways. As a kid, we’d end up crying over it, and then he’d get angry because we couldn’t take a joke. If we didn’t understand a school assignment, he’d call us stupid or tell us we would never get a job. If we didn’t like a certain food, he would have my mother make it for dinner. Then, he would make us sit at the table and eat every single bite. He would yell if we didn’t finish a chore and then yell for us to stop because we shouldn’t need to be told. We couldn’t win. I stopped bringing friends home because I couldn’t stand the pitying looks they would give me. Some of this sounds mild, but it was every day. Every day, no matter what. ”
Lily’s voice softens. “Your friends understood his behavior was wrong, even if none of you had the language to express it. That’s not unusual. That’s why I want to specialize in my teaching.”
She’s alluded to that a few times: giving children the means to communicate and advocate for themselves in a world that doesn’t always want to listen.
“It got better once I started winning races in my teen years. I started racing for the Cup Series full-time at only twenty-one. Wow, more than a decade already.”
“That’s younger than I am now.”
“You have more wisdom than I did at that age. That’s not an exaggeration, by the way. So, a few years later, my younger brother came in, taking Dad’s ride when he retired. It was thetwo of us, both decent, nothing special. But I got better, and he didn’t. Then, I made the playoffs, and he didn’t. That repeated the next year and the year after that. So, Dad decided he wanted both sons in the playoffs and came up with this scheme. Our third driver would wreck or spin, causing a caution. I was supposed to pit, allowing my little brother to move up and get in the playoffs.”
“Only you didn’t,” Lily guesses. “You didn’t participate. I know this part. You ignored the instructions coming from your radio and stayed out.”
“I stayed out, and my brother didn’t get that chance in the playoffs. Anyway, officials listened to our radio chatter and didn’t believe it was all an accident. We were busted, and there was no point in lying. I cooperated and confirmed everything. We lost sponsorships and couldn’t pay the bills.” That sickness in my stomach, the never-ending pit of misery and hurt that wouldn’t leave me during that time, comes back. I can still taste its bitterness. “Dad ordered me to shut up about it. He said it would all blow over if we denied it long enough. I knew it wouldn’t, even if he didn’t. My choices were to come clean and condemn him or to go along with it. I went with the former. I saved my career and lost my family. They’ve never forgiven me.”
“You once said you were estranged but never said why.”
“Now you know. It was the right choice, and I don’t regret it. Well, mostly, I don’t. Sometimes, I think of them during the holidays or after a win.”
“Do you think there’s a chance of fixing this?” Lily shakes her head, changing her mind about the question. “No, that’s the wrong question. Do you want it to change?”
“I spoke to him one last time after it was all done, and I signed on here atRMS. He said I was dead to him and that heonly had one son. My mother was there with us, and he told her the same thing. I expected her to argue with him, but she didn’t. Her expression was sad, but she went along with it. She always did, and she always will. That was our last conversation. I still call him, sometimes, despite that.”
