Crashed

CHAPTER 1

Numbness slowly seeps through my body. I can’t move, can’t think, can’t bear to pull my eyes from the mangled car on the track. If I look anywhere else, then this will all be real. The helicopter flying overhead will really be carrying the broken body of the man I love.

The man I need.

The man I can’t lose.

I close my eyes and just listen, but I can’t hear anything. The only thing in my ears is the thumping of my pulse. The only thing besides the blackness that my eyes see—that my heart feels—is the splintered images in my mind. Max melting into Colton and then Colton fading back to Max. Memories that cause the hope I’m grasping like a lifeline to flicker and flame before dying out, like the darkness smothering the light in my soul.

I race you, Ryles. His voice so strong and unwavering fills my head and then dissipates, glittering through my mind like ticker tape.

I double over, willing the strangling tears to come or a spark to fire within me, but nothing happens, just lead dropping through my soul and weighing me down.

I force myself to breathe while I try to fool my mind into believing the past twenty-two minutes never happened. That the car never cartwheeled and pirouetted through the smoke-filled air. That the metal of the car wasn’t cut apart by somber-faced medics to extricate Colton’s lifeless body.

We never made love. The single thought flits through my head. We never had the chance to race after he finally told me the words I’d needed to hear—and that he’d finally accepted, admitted to, and felt for himself.

I just want to rewind time and go back to the suite when we were wrapped in each other’s arms. When we were connected—overdressed and underdressed—but the horrific sights of the mangled car won’t allow it. They have scarred my memory so horribly for a second time that it’s not possible for my hope to escape unscathed.

“Ry, I’m not doing too good here.” They’re Max’s words seeping into my mind, but it’s Colton’s voice. It’s Colton warning me of what’s to come. What I’ve already lived through once in my life.

Oh God. Please no. Please no.

My heart wrings.

My resolve falters.

Images filter in slow motion.

“Rylee, I need you to concentrate. Look at me!” Max’s words again. I start to sag, my body giving out like my hope, but arms close around me and give me a shake.

“Look at me!” No, not Max. Not Colton. It’s Becks. I find it within myself to focus and meet his eyes—pools of blue fringed with the sudden appearance of lines at their corners. I see fear in them. “We need to go to the hospital now, okay?” His voice is gentle yet stern. He seems to think that if he talks to me like a child I won’t shatter into the million pieces my soul is already broken into.

I can’t swallow the sand in my throat to speak, so he gives me another shake. I’ve been robbed of every emotion but fear. I nod my head but don’t make any other movement. It’s utterly silent. There are tens of thousands of people in the grandstands around us, and yet no one is talking. Their eyes are focused on the clean-up crew and what’s left of the numerous cars on the track.

I strain to hear a sound. To sense a sign of life. Nothing but absolute silence.

I feel Becks’ arm go around me, supporting me as he directs us out of the tower on pit row, down the steps and toward the open door of a waiting van. He pushes gently on my backside to urge me in like I’m a child.

Beckett scoots in next to me on the seat and pushes my purse and my cell phone into my hands as he fastens his own belt and then says, “Go.”

The van revs forward, jostling me as it clears the infield. I look out as we start to descend down the tunnel, and all I see are Indy cars scattered over the track completely motionless. Colorful headstones in a quiet graveyard of asphalt.

“Crash, crash, burn …” The lyrics of the song float from the speakers and into the lethal silence of the van. My blank mind slowly processes them.

“Turn it off!” I shout with panicked composure as my hands fist and teeth grit, as the words embed themselves into the reality I’m unsuccessfully trying to block out.

Hysteria surfaces.

“Zander,” I whisper. “Zander has a dentist appointment on Tuesday. Ricky needs new cleats. Aiden has tutoring starting on Thursday and Jax didn’t put it on the calendar.” I look up to find Beckett’s eyes trained on mine. In my periphery I notice some of the other crew seated behind us but don’t know how they got there.

It bubbles up.

“Beckett, I need my phone. Dane is going to forget and Zander really needs to go to the dentist, and Scooter ne—”

“Rylee,” he says in an even tone, but I just shake my head.

“No!” I yell. “No! I need my phone.” I start to undo my seat belt, so flustered I don’t even realize it’s in my hand. I try to scamper over him to reach the sliding door of the moving van. Beckett struggles to wrap his arms around me to prevent me from opening it.

It boils over.

“Let go of me!” I fight against him. I writhe and buck but he successfully manages to restrain me.

“Rylee,” he says again, and the broken tone in his voice matches the feeling in my heart taking the fight out of me.

I collapse into the seat but Beckett keeps me pulled against him, our breathing labored. He grabs my hand and squeezes tightly, the only show of desperation in his stoic countenance, but I don’t even have the wherewithal to squeeze it back.

The world outside blurs, but mine has stopped. It’s lying on a gurney somewhere.

“I love him, Beckett,” I finally whisper.

I’m driven by fear…

“I know,” he says, exhaling a shaky breath and kisses the crown of my head. “I do too.”

… Fueled with desperation …

“I can’t lose him.” The words are barely audible, as if saying them will make it happen.

… Crashing into the unknown.

“Neither can I.”

The whoosh of the electric doors to the emergency room is paralyzing. I freeze at the noise.

Haunting memories flicker from the sound, and the angelic white of the hallways bring me anything but calming peace. It’s odd to me that the slideshow of fluorescent lights on the ceiling are what flash through my mind—my only possible focus as my gurney was rushed down the hallway—medical jargon sparred between doctors rapidly, incoherent thoughts jumbling, and the whole time my heart pleading for Max, for my baby, for hope.

“Ry?” Beckett’s voice pulls me from the panic strangling my throat, from the memories suffocating my progress. “Can you walk in?”

The gentleness in his tone washes over me, a balm to my open wound. All I want to do is cry at the comfort in his voice. The tears clog my throat and burn my eyes and yet they never well. Never fall.

I take a fortifying breath and will my feet to move. Beckett places an arm around my waist and helps me with the first step.

The doctor’s face flashes through my mind. Stoic. Unemotional. Head shaking back and forth. Apology in his eyes. Defeat in his posture. Remembering how I wanted to close my eyes and slip away forever too. The words “I’m sorry” falling from his lips.

No. No. No. I can’t hear those words again. I can’t listen to someone telling me I’ve lost Colton, especially when we’ve just found each other.

I keep my head down. I count the laminate tiles on the floor as Becks leads me toward the waiting room. I think he’s talking to me. Or to a nurse? I’m not sure because I can’t focus on anything but pushing the memories out. Pushing out the despair so maybe just a sliver of hope can weasel its way into its vacated spot.

I sit in a chair beside Beckett and numbly look down at the constantly vibrating phone in my hand. There are endless texts and calls from Haddie, ones I can’t even think to answer even though I know she’s worried sick. It’s just too much effort right now, too much everything.

I hear the squeak of shoes on linoleum as others file in behind us, but I focus on the children’s book on the table in front of me. The Amazing Spiderman. My mind wanders, obsesses, focuses. Was Colton scared? Did he know what was happening? Did he call out the chant he told Zander about?

The thought alone breaks me and yet the tears don’t come.

I see surgical booties in my periphery. Hear Beckett being addressed.

“The specialist needs to know exactly how impact was made so we best know the circumstances. We’ve tried to catch a replay but ABC stopped airing it.” No, no, no. Words scream and echo through my head and yet silence smothers me. “I was told you’d be the person who’d most likely know.”

Beckett shifts beside me. His voice is so thick with emotion when he begins to speak that I dig my fingers into my thighs. He clears his throat. “He hit the catch fence inverted … I think. I’m trying to picture it. Hold on.” He drops his head into his hands, rubs his fingers over his temple, and sighs as he tries to gather his thoughts. “Yes. The car was upside down. The spoiler hit the top of the catch fence with the nose closest to the ground. Midsection against the concrete barrier. The car disintegrated around his capsule.”

The collective gasp of the thousands of people in response still rings in my ears.

“Is there anything you can tell us?” Beckett asks the nurse.

The unmistakable noise of metal giving under force.

“Not right now. It’s still the early stages and we’re trying to assess everything—”

“Is he going to be …”

“We’ll give you an update as soon as we can.”

The smell of burned rubber on oiled asphalt.

Shoes squeak again. Voices murmur. Beckett sighs and scrubs his hands over his face before trembling fingers reach over and pull the hand gripping my leg free and clasps it in his.

The lone tire rolling across the grass and bouncing against the infield barrier.

Please just give me a sign, I beg silently. Something. Anything. A tiny little thing to tell me to hang on to the hope that’s slipping through my fingers.

Ringing cell phones echo off of the waiting room’s sterile walls. Over and over. Like the beeps on the life supporting machines that filter out into the waiting room. Each time one silences, a little part of me does too.

I hear the hitch of Becks’ breath a moment before he emits a strangled sob that hits me like a hurricane, shredding the paper bag I have preserving my resolve and faith. As hard as he tries to push away the onslaught of tears that threaten him, he’s unsuccessful. The grief escapes and runs down his cheeks in silence, and it kills me that the man who has been the strength for me is now crumbling. I squeeze my eyes shut and will myself to stay strong for Beckett, but all I keep hearing are his words to me last night.

I shake my head back and forth in a panicked disbelief. “I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “I’m so, so sorry. This is all my fault.”

Beckett hangs his head momentarily before wiping his eyes with the palms of his hands. And the gesture—pushing away tears like a little kid does when ashamed—wrings my heart even more.

I can’t help the panic that flutters as I realize that I’m the reason Colton’s here. I pushed him away and didn’t believe him—made him tired the night before a race—and all because I was stubborn and scared. “I did this to him.” The words kill me. Rip my soul apart.

Beckett lifts his red-rimmed eyes from his hands. “What are you talking about?” He leans in close, his conflicted blue eyes searching mine.

“Everything …” My breath hitches and I pause. “I messed with his head the last couple of days, and you told me that if I did, it was on me—”

“Ryl—”

“And I fought him and left him and we stayed up so late and I put him in that car tired and—”

“Rylee!” he finally manages in a harsh tone. I just keep shaking my head at him, eyes burning, emotions overloading. “This is not your fault.”

I jolt as he puts his arms around me and pulls me into him. I fist my hands into the front of his fire suit, the coarseness of its fabric rough against my cheek.

“It was a crash. He drove into it blind. That’s racing. It’s not your fault.” His voice breaks and falls on deaf ears. His arms are around me, trapping me, and claustrophobia threatens. Suffocation claws.

I stand abruptly, needing to move, to release the unease scavenging my soul. I pace to the far end of the waiting room and back. On my second pass the little boy in the corner chair scoots off his seat to pick up a crayon. The lights on his shoes flash red and grab my attention. I narrow my eyes to look closer, to take in the inverted triangle with the S in the center.

Superman.

The name feathers through my subconscious, but my attention is drawn to the television as someone changes the channel. I hear Colton’s name and I suck in a breath, afraid to look but wanting to see what they’re showing.

It seems like the whole room stands and moves collectively. A mass of red fire suits, faces conflicted with emotion, focus on the screen. The announcer says there was a crash that halted action for more than an hour. The screen flashes to the image of the cloud of smoke and cars careening off of each other. The angle is different than ours was on the track and we are able to see more, but as Colton’s car comes into the turn, the broadcast cuts the footage. All of the shoulders around the television sag as the crew realizes that what they were anxiously anticipating will not be shown. The segment ends with the announcer saying that he is currently being treated at Bayfront.

I see Colton’s lifeless body on the gurney, Max’s beside me in his seat. The similarities of the situation knock the wind out of me, pain without end. Memories colliding.

I turn to see the Westins walk into the waiting room. Colton’s regal and commanding mother looks pale and distraught. I swallow the lump in my throat, unable to tear my eyes from the sight of them. Andy supports her gently, guiding her to sit down as Quinlan grips her other hand.

Beckett’s at their side in a flash with his arms wrapped around Dorothea and then Quinlan in quick but meaningful embraces. Andy reaches out and grabs Beckett in a longer hug, teeming with heart-wrenching desperation. I overhear a choked sob and almost break from the sound of it.

Watching the whole scene unfold causes memories to flicker through my mind of Max’s funeral. A miniature pink casket laid atop a full-sized black casket, both blanketed with red roses, remind me of the words I can’t hear again: ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Makes me remember the hollow, empty hugs that do nothing to comfort. The ones that leave you feel over-sensitized, raw when you’ve already been scraped to the core.

I start to pace again amidst the hushed murmurs of “how long until there is an update?” Faces usually so strong and energetic are etched with lines of concern. And when my feet stop I’m looking into the eyes of Andy and Dorothea.

We just stare at each other, faces mirrors of each others’ disbelief and anguish, until Dorothea reaches a trembling hand out for mine. “I don’t know what … I’m so sorry …” I shake my head back and forth as words escape me.

“We know, sweetheart,” she says as she pulls me into her arms and clings to me, both of us holding each other up. “We know.”

“He’s strong,” is all Andy says as his hand rubs up and down my back to try and comfort me. But this—hugging his parents, all of us comforting each other, the tear-stained cheeks and muffled sobs—makes it all too real. My hope that this is all a really bad dream is now shattered.

I stagger back and try to focus on something, anything, to make me feel like I’m not losing it.

But I keep seeing Colton’s face. The look of absolute certainty as he stood amid all of the chaos of his crew—the same crew that sits around me, heads in hands, lips pulled tight, eyes closed in prayer—and admitted his feelings for me. I have to stop to try and catch my breath, the pain radiating through my chest, in my heart, just won’t stop.

The television pulls at me again. Something whispers through my mind and I turn to look. A trailer for the new Batman movie. Hope reawakens as my mind reaches into its depths—into the past hour.

The Spiderman book on the table. The Superman shoes. The Batman movie. I try to rationalize that this is all just a coincidence—that seeing three of the four superheroes is a random occurrence. I try to tell myself that I need the fourth to believe it. That I need Ironman to complete the circle—to be the sign that Colton will pull through.

That he will come back to me.

I start searching, eyes flitting around the waiting room as hope looms and readies itself to blossom, if I can just find the final sign. My hands tremble; my optimism lies beneath the surface cautious to raise its weary head.

There is sound toward the hallway and the noise—the voice—causes every emotion that pulses through me to ignite.

And I’m immediately ready to detonate.

Blonde hair and long legs breeze through the door and I don’t care that her face looks as devastated and worried as I feel. All of my heartache, all of my angst rears up and is like a rubber band snapping.

Or lightning striking.

I’m across the room within seconds, heads snapping at the growl I let loose in my fury-filled wake. “Get out!” I scream, so many emotions coursing through me that all I feel is a mass of overwhelming confusion. Tawny’s head whips up and her startled eyes meet mine, her enhanced lips set in a perfect O shape. “You conniving bit—”

The air is knocked out of me as Beckett’s strong arms grab me from behind and yank me back into his chest. “Let me go!” I struggle against him as he grips me tighter. “Let me go!”

“Save it, Ry!” He grunts as he restrains me, his reserved yet firm drawl hitting my ears. “You need to save all of that fire and energy because Colton’s going to need it from you. Every goddamn ounce of it.” His words hit me, punch through the holes in me, and sap my adrenaline. I stop struggling, his grip around me still iron clad, and the heat of his breath panting against my cheek. “She’s not worth it, okay?”

I can’t find my words—don’t think I’m capable of coherency at this point—so I just nod my head in agreement, forcing myself to focus on a spot on the floor in front of me, rather than on the long legs off to the right.

“You sure?” he reaffirms before slowly letting go and stepping in front of me, forcing me to look into his eyes, to test if I’ll be true to my word.

My body starts trembling, held captive to the mixture of anger, grief, and the unknown coursing through me.

My breath hitches as my lungs hurt with each breath. It’s the only hint of the turmoil I feel inside when I meet the kindness edged with concern in Beckett’s eyes. And I feel so horrible that he’s here trying to take care of me when he loves Colton and is reeling from the unknown just as much as I am, so I force myself to nod. He mimics my action before turning around, his body blocking my line of sight to Tawny.

“Becks …” She sighs his name and her voice alone chafes over my exposed nerves.

“Not a fucking word, Tawny!” Beckett’s voice is low and guarded, audible only to the three of us despite the numerous pairs of eyes watching the confrontation. I see Andy rise to his feet from the other side of the room as he tries to figure out what’s going on. “I’m letting you stay for one reason and one reason only … Wood is going to need everyone he has in his corner—behind him if he …” he says, choking on the words, “when he pulls out of this … and that includes you, although right now after the stunt you pulled between him and Ry, friend is a very loose term when it comes to you.”

Becks’ words take me by surprise. I hear the noncommittal sound she makes before a momentary silence hits … and then I hear her start to cry. Quiet, sorrowful whimpers that break through the hold on me that Beckett’s voice couldn’t.

And I snap. My reassurance to Becks that I’d save my strength vanishes right along with my restraint.

“No!” I scream, trying to push Beckett out of the way and take a swing. “You don’t get to cry for him! You don’t get to cry for the man you tried to manipulate!” Arms close around me from behind, preventing me from landing my punch, but I don’t care, reality’s lost to me. “Get out!” I shout, my voice wavering as I’m dragged away from her stunned face. “No!” I struggle against the restraining arms. “Let me go!”

“Shh-shh-shh!” It’s Andy’s voice, Andy’s arms that are holding me tight, trying to soothe and control me at the same time. And the only thing I can focus on—can grasp onto as my heart races and body shakes with anger—is that I need a pit stop. I need to find Colton. I need to touch him, to see him, to quiet the turmoil in my soul.

But I can’t.

He’s somewhere close, my rebellious rogue unable to let go of the damaged little boy within. The man who has just started healing is now broken, and it kills me that I won’t be able to fix him. That my murmured words of encouragement and patient nature won’t be able to repair the immobile and unresponsive body that was loaded onto that stretcher and rushed to somewhere within these walls—so close yet so very far away from me. That he has to rely on strangers to mend and heal him now. Strangers that have no idea of the invisible scar tissue that still lingers beneath the surface.

More hands reach out to touch and soothe me, Dorothea’s and Quinlan’s, but they’re not the ones I want. They’re not Colton’s.

And then a terrifying thought hits me. Every time Colton is near, I can feel that tingle—the buzz that tells me he’s just within reach—but I can’t feel anything. I know he’s physically close, but his spark is nonexistent.

Be my spark, Ry. I can hear his voice say it, can feel the memory of his breath feather over my skin … but I can’t feel him.

“I can’t!” I shout. “I can’t be your spark if I can’t feel yours, so don’t you dare burn out on me.” I don’t care that I’m in a room full of people, being turned around and encircled into Dorothea’s arms, because the only one who I want to hear me, can’t. And knowing that causes desperation to consume every part of me not already frozen with fear. I fist my hands into the back of Dorothea’s jacket, clinging to her while I plead with her son. “Don’t you dare die on me, Colton! I need you dammit!” I shout into the now sterile silence of the waiting room. “I need you so much that I’m dying right here, right now without you!” My voice cracks just like my heart, and as much as Dorothea’s arms, Quinlan’s hushed murmurs, and Andy’s quiet resolve helps, I just can’t handle it all.

I push away and stare at them before I stumble blindly down the hall. I know I’m losing it. I’m so numb, so hollow, that I don’t even have the energy to argue with Beckett and refire the hatred I feel for Tawny. If I’m to blame for Colton being here, then she sure as fuck needs to share some of that blame too.

I turn the corner to head toward the bathroom and have to push myself to move. I press my hands against the wall for support or else I’ll collapse. I remind myself to breathe, tell myself to put one foot in front of the other, but it’s nearly impossible when the only thought my mind can focus on is that the man I love is fighting for his life, and I can’t do a goddamn thing about it. I’m hopeless and powerless.

I’m dying inside.

My guiding hands hit a doorjamb, and I stagger between its frame and into the nearest stall, welcoming the cocooning silence of the empty bathroom. I unbutton my shorts, and when I shimmy them over my hips, my eyes catch sight of the checkered pattern on my panties. My body wants to quit, wants to slide to the floor and sink into oblivion, but I don’t. Instead, my hands grip onto the belt loops of the shorts still hanging off of my hips. I can’t catch my breath fast enough. I start to hyperventilate and get dizzy, so I brace my hands against the wall but nothing helps as the panic attack hits me full force.

You can bet your ass that’s one checkered flag I’m definitely claiming.

I welcome the memorized sound of his voice. I let his rumble permeate through me like the glue I need to hold my broken self together. My breath drags in ragged rasps between my lips as I try to hold onto the memory—that incredible grin and the boyish mischief in his eyes—before he kissed me one last time. I bring my fingers to my lips wanting to make a connection with him, fear of the unknown weighing heavy in my heart.

“Rylee?” The voice jolts me to the here and now and I just want her to go away. I want her to leave me intact with my memory of the warmth of his skin, taste of his kiss, possession in his touch. “Rylee?”

There’s a knock on the stall door. “Mmm-hmm?” is all I can manage because my breathing is still forced and irregular.

“It’s Quin.” Her voice is soft and uneven, and it kills me to hear the break in it. “Ry, please come out …”

I reach forward and unlock the door, and she pushes it open looking at me oddly, her tear stained face and smudged mascara only emphasizing the devastation looming in her eyes. She purses her lips and starts laughing, in a way that’s borderline hysterical so when it echoes off of the tile walls around us all I hear is despair and fear. She points to my half-shoved down shorts and checkered panties and keeps laughing, the tears staining her cheeks an odd contrast to the sound coming from her mouth.

I start laughing with her. It’s the only thing I can do. Tears won’t come, fear won’t abate, and hope is wavering as the first laugh falls from my lips. It feels so wrong. Everything is just so wrong and within an instant, Quinlan—the woman who hated me at first sight—reaches out and wraps her arms around me while her laughter turns into sobs. Gut wrenching hiccups of unfettered fear. Her tiny frame shakes as her anguish intensifies.

“I’m so scared, Rylee.” It’s the only thing she can manage to get out between hitches of breath, but it’s all she needs to say because it’s exactly how I feel. The defeat in her posture, the fortitude of her grief, the strength in her grip reflects the fear that I’m not able to express, so I cling to her with everything I have—needing that connection more than anything.

I hug her and soothe her as best as I can, trying to lose myself in the role of patient counselor I know so well. It’s so much easier to assuage someone else’s despair than to face my own. She tries to pull away, but I just can’t let go. I don’t have the wherewithal to walk out the doors and wait for the doctor to report news I’m terrified to hear.

I fasten my shorts and look up to meet my own reflection in the mirror. I can see the haunting memories flickering in my eyes. My mind flashes to a shattered rearview mirror, sun reflecting on its blood-specked, jagged edges as Max gurgles his last breath. And then my mind grasps onto a happier memory with another mirror. One used in the heat of passion to demonstrate why I’m enough for Colton. Why he chooses me.

“C’mon,” she whispers, breaking my trance as she releases me but moves her hand down to wrap around my waist. “I don’t want to miss an update.”