Page 166 of First in Line

Only then do I realize how cold my hands feel.

“What’s happening to us?” I whimper, wrapping my arms around my belly, desperate to protect her.

Heavy footsteps resonate in the hallway Jada left through, and when I look, I see three paramedics running toward me, two of them carrying a stretcher. Jada is by them, running to reach me first.

Everything spins, harder than it did before. For the first time since I woke up, I’m not in pain. The tightness that lingered in my lower belly is gone. In fact, I can’t feel anything. Not even the hard smack of the floor on my temple as my lax body falls onto it.

“She’s crashing!” someone shouts. Hands tug at me, moving me around like I’m a lifeless doll.

This can’t be happening. I’ve been doing everything the doctor said. I’ve been taking care of my baby. I’m a good mom. I’ve done everything I could.

Jada calls out my name, but I can barely hear her. She must have turned around because it sounds like she’s all the way at the end of the hallway. Or maybe even downstairs.

This isn’t real. It doesn’t feel real anymore. None of this is happening. I’m imagining it.

I’m a good mom.

With my legs folded against my chest, I scroll through the content on my laptop’s screen. My back is starting to hurt, pressed against the hard edge of the couch. I’ve been sitting like this for two hours straight, unable to stop looking.

We’re back in Tuscany, following Jackson’s crash in Zandvoort. Everything is the same as the first time we were here, but nothing feels like it did before. It was just us two before, blissfully ignorant of everything that went on past these walls and the land that surrounds them. We were two people in love who lived outside of reality. In our own little world.

And even though it’s technically still true, I haven’t felt that way since we got here. Not even for an hour.

Because this time around, the rest of the world knows about us. About me, specifically. And it has been all over the news. A hundred times more than his crash. It seems to be the only thing the Formula world can talk about. The woman who finallysnatched Jackson Reyes. The ex who returned for his money. The white trash from Colorado who slept her way into Formula One royalty.

I never realized how cruel people could be. The human mind might be vile by default, and we work our way up, learning to be kind and compassionate. But many of them never even try to do that. They’re perfectly fine with their vicious thoughts.

When I find a video I haven’t watched yet, I click on it. It was posted only three hours ago, but forty thousand people have already watched it. After a quick ad, it starts. A woman in her twenties stands before a curated background, shelves filled with Formula One memorabilia, books, framed photos…

“It looks like Jackson Reyes, the infamous bad boy of Formula One, has finally been snatched,” the woman explains. “Reyes, who has a reputation for being quite the Don Juan, was last seen with Ukrainian model Dasha Glavan earlier this year, in February.” Along with the explanation comes a paparazzi photo of Jax with his arm around the shoulders of a tall and slender woman with dark hair. It stays on the screen long enough to sting before the YouTuber resumes.

“Since then, there have been no rumors of him dating another woman. And that’s a little suspicious when you know him. You can find in my older videos a recap of all his known conquests last year. For those who recall, it was a whopping twenty-three women. And that’s only the ones we know of.”

Okay, that also stings. Maybe even more than the photo with the model.

“However, things took an unexpected turn last weekend at the Dutch Grand Prix,” she continues in her annoyingly shrill voice. “Reyes was seen walking around with a woman, apparently giving her a tour of the Altron pit. And while Jackson is a bit of a ladies’ man, it was the first time we’ve ever seen himbring someone to the paddock and pit. The only ones so far were his mom and dad, Jada and Mitchell Reyes.”

Again, she shares pictures, which were snapped on Sunday. Some look professional, some from afar with a phone, but we’re clearly recognizable in all of them, in the garage, at the pit wall, or even before that, walking together.

“Then, a bit later, Reyes was spotted by the Altron three-story motorhome in the paddock, kissing his female guest,” she says with an air of mystery.

This time, it’s two photos of the same moment at different angles. It’s from when I kissed him, right before he left for the race. I’ve already seen those pictures dozens of times, obsessively reading articles and watching videos I know I should stop clicking on, but they still sit wrong with me.

It felt so right to kiss him then, to fully embrace this thing between us… But seeing us like this, knowing those pictures have been circulating all over the internet, feels like a violation. It’s like they stole a piece of us.

“And of course,” the woman continues, “we all heard what happened in Zandvoort when the broadcast shared Jackson’s radio feed in the moments that followed his crash.”

Instead of pictures, she shares an audio clip. It crackles as it did that day, Jackson’s voice gruff, still in shock. “Evie, I’m okay. I’m alright, princess. I’m not hurt.”

It throws me back to three days ago, when I heard those words in the headset, my heart slamming against my ribs as I stared at the screen in the Altron garage, watching Jax exit his wrecked car.

The crash wasn’t as bad as the one I witnessed in Spa, but it still tore a small piece of my soul out. Especially since this time, the fault clearly came from him. And Jackson doesn’t make this kind of mistake. Ever.

The woman on the screen claps her hands and rubs them together. “So, of course, everyone began wondering, ‘Who is Evie, and why would Jackson Reyes address her before anyone else?’ Well, the internet sleuths have been at it. And they found her. Meet Evangeline Gillian,” she explains, a picture of me from Cynthia’s website appearing beside her. “She’s a small-time architect in Colorado—near Florence, where Jackson grew up. She doesn’t have social media, so there wasn’t much to find online aside from her LinkedIn. However, that didn’t stop the Sherlock Holmes among us from making a shocking discovery.”

Right before she can share what the discovery is, there’s an ad break. “Motherf—” I let out, catching myself. While the DivaCup ad runs, I grab the bottle of wine and refill my glass.

I’m two sips in when the woman returns. “Believe it or not, but the enigmatic Evangeline Gillian was once Evangeline Reyes. Yes, you’ve heard that right. She and Jackson were married. It’s likely no one ever found out because there are so many Jackson Reyes, but if you put his name and hers in the search engine, you’ll find a license from the state of Nevada, dating backelevenyears.”