Page 25 of Broken Breath
We lost everything, some things immediately—the contracts, our plans for the future, and the respect of our peers. All of it burned, but then he sacrificed the rest.For me.
Our house in Redcar, the only place we have ever called home. The garage with the busted heater and the walls papered with old bike parts and motocross posters from his racing days. He sold the couch he always passed out on, the kitchen table we barely used, and even the crappy television to buy the van and cover our expenses this season.
And now it’s just Dad, me, the van, and the noise in my head.
We don’t talk about it. Any of it. We’re not afeelingskind of duo, but we don’t have to be for me toseewhat it costs.
He should’ve had more. He was head mechanic for my factory team, running his own crew and happy to do it. And now? Now he has to wake up next to a stack of tires and live out of a van with a son who is trying to duct tape his reputation back together.
After all the drama last year, what he needed was a break, a bit of peace, a damn garage with heat and a decent kettle. Instead, he got this.
Christ on a bike.
I press my palms into my eyes and hold them there for a long time. Then, I scrub them down my face, vainly hoping I can wipe away the overwhelming guilt.
I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to repay him.
Especially if I don’t start winning.
Yawning widely, I stretch my arms until my shoulders pop, then reach for my hoodie, dragging it over my head. The fabric clings for a second before settling against me. Something about it makes me feel better, comforting me in a way nothing else would.
I can race for him and me and fight like hell to make sure every second I spend on a track is proof that he was right to believe in me. To stay. To sacrifice.
At least I have time to recover before the next one.
Todayis not important. Mondays never are. That’s when they pack up the pits and hit the road. Tuesdays are usually reserved for travel, maybe a half-decent nap when the roads aren’t garbage. On Wednesdays, they set it all up again. Thursday is track walk, picking apart every inch of dirt, root, and risk. Then Friday for practice, Saturday for qualifying, and Sunday is race day.
We repeat the whole damn thing for three weeks straight, followed by one short break and the final gauntlet. It’s a short season with a brutal pace and zero room for error.
Good thing I already kicked things off with a massive one.
Quietly, I ease the van door open and step out into the cold bite of the Scottish morning. The air hits my legs like knives. Shorts and a hoodie were a stupid choice.
Everything is still around me. There are no generators humming, no engines kicking, and no voices drifting from the team tents.
I check my watch to see it’s only four in the morning.
That’s all it takes to circle me back to failure.
Fourth-fucking-place.
Only the top three get the glory, the big checks, and the spotlight. Just a few more seconds. Hell, one cleaner line, and maybe we wouldn’t be stretching groceries to the end of the week or praying quite as hard that the van doesn’t die on some godforsaken back road.
Maybe Dad would look at me with hope in his eyes.
But I blew it.
And yeah, part of me wants to pin it on the rookie, wants to say his wild line threw me off, that he came out of nowhere and messed with my head, but the truth is uglier. It was all me.
I hesitated. I second-guessed. I played it safe for onefucking second too long, and in this sport, that’s all it takes to lose everything.
My hands curl into fists, knuckles aching with the need to hit something. Anything. The silence around me is too loud, pressing in like it knows what I’ve been trying not to think.
They’ll never forget what they think you did.
Shite.
I clench my jaw so tight it hurts, trying to crush the thought before it grows teeth, hanging onto the one truth that has gotten me through this.
