And he has to do it without Rylee, the one person he desperately wants to be there.

Or does he?

Fear is a brutal bitch to face.

It squeezes your lungs so you can’t breathe, locks your jaw to bear the brunt of your stress, and cinches your heart so your blood rushes through your body.

The guys are at my back pretending to be busy. Ignoring the fact that I’m standing in front of my car, staring at the cause of my biggest fucking fear right now and my greatest goddamn salvation. I need it more than ever between the bullshit Tawny hit me with and not having the one person I want most but don’t want to taint any further around.

Rylee.

She said she’d he here when I got in the car for the first time. I need her here, need to know she’s here to come back to at the end of the run. The salve to my stained soul. But how in the fuck could I call her and ask her when I’ve pushed her so far away?

So here I stand, surrounded by my crew but battling the shit in my head all alone. And of course my mind veers to the vultures at the gates that shoved cameras in my face and spewed Tawny’s bullshit lies about Rylee when I left the house earlier. Then it slides back to Rylee and how much I want her here right now.

Fuck this, Donavan. Quit being such a pussy and get in the goddamn car. You’ve faced shit ten times worse than this. You’ve got this. Man the fuck up and get in the car.

I take a deep breath and squeeze my eyes shut momentarily as I lift my helmet and push it down on my head. My silent acknowledgement to the guys that I’m ready to tackle this.

It takes me a minute to buckle my helmet; my hands tremble like a motherfucker. Becks steps forward to help and I glare at him to back the fuck off. If I can’t fasten this then I don’t deserve to get behind the wheel.

I slide my hand up the nose toward the cockpit. I knock softly out of habit to ease my superstitious mind.

Spiderman. Batman. Superman. Ironman.

Four knocks, one for each of the superheroes that the little boy in me still thinks will help protect him. They pulled me through the last crash, I know they’re good for it.

I take a deep breath and try not to think as I lift one leg and then the other so I can drop into the driver’s seat. I sit there, try to make myself numb so I can’t feel the fear coursing through me and trickling down the line of my spine in rivulets of sweat.

Becks steps up and locks the steering wheel in place and thank fuck for that because now I have somewhere I can put my hands and grip so that they stop shaking. I feel his hand pat the top of my helmet like he usually does, but before he clicks my HANS device he pulls my helmet up so I’m forced to look at him.

I see the fear flicker in his eyes but I also see resolve. “All you, Wood. Take your time. Ease into her.” He nods at me. “Just like riding a bike.”

A bike my ass. But I nod at him because I have a feeling I could argue the point just to cause a distraction from actually having to do this. I focus on the wheel in front of me as he studies me, gauging whether I really am okay being here.

“I’m good,” I lie. And he stands there for a minute more before the guys bring the crank out and we fire the engine.

The reverberation through my body and sound in my ears of the engine’s rumble is like coming home and making me question myself all at once. Kind of like Rylee.

I hold onto that thought—to the idea of her being here when she’s not—as I rev the motor a few times. It sounds the same and yet so very different from the memory still hit and miss in my mind from the wreck.

The crew gets over the wall and it’s just Becks and me. He leans over and pulls on my harness, the same way he has for the past fourteen years. It’s comforting in a sense because he doesn’t act like anything is different, knows that this is what I need. Routine. The sense that everything is the same when it’s a clusterfuck in my head.

He raps the hood twice as is his habit and walks away. I don’t follow him because if I do, I know I’ll see the falter in his step. And his hesitancy will reaffirm my fear that I’m not ready.

I give it some gas, let the car rumble all around me to clear my head, and psych myself to do this. And I sit here long enough that I know I look like a pussy who shouldn’t be in the car so I put the car in gear and begin to ease out onto pit row. My heart is in my throat and my body vibrates from more than just the car. Nerves and anxiety collide with the need to be here, to do this, to be able to outrun my demons and find the freedom-laced solace I’ve always been able to find on the track.

I exit pit row and squeeze the wheel, frustrated that my fucking grandmother can drive faster than I am.

“That’s it, Wood. Nice and easy,” Becks says, and it takes everything I have to shut him out, to listen to the car like I always do and try and hear what she’s telling me. But I can’t drown out the bullshit in my head so I close my eyes momentarily and tell myself to just push the gas and go.

And I do. I push it, flick the paddle as I change gears, and enter the high line into turn two because I’m not going fast enough to have to worry about drifting into the wall.