Page 27 of Furious

The video stops then, and the collage moves on. The next picture is of Mom and Dad on the side of the track, making funny faces at the camera. Then there’s one of him kissing her on the cheek. Her eyes are closed, and his attention is fully on her. They were always—always!—so cute together.

I grip the brown paper bag in my hand more tightly, willing myself to look at the next few photos. Then, there’s a series of race moments: me getting into my car, the checkered flag dropping, my car pulling away from the pack. Then, there’s a video of the last few seconds of the race. The camera bobs around as Mom jumps up and down and her voice and Dad’s deeper one cut through all the other yells of the crowd. “GO JOJO! PUSH!” Mom shouts. “You’ve got this!” Dad shouts.

Of course, I couldn’t hear them in my car, but I still remember that last turn, the way I went a fraction too wide, my feet slamming on the gas as I shifted, fighting against velocity and physics as I wrestled the wheel back. On the video, it’s a blurry second of footage as my car nearly spins out, and then I surge forward, barreling over the finish line a nose ahead of the next car.

I remember how relief had flooded my system after that win. How I felt giddy and exhilarated and exhausted all at once. But on the video, I just hear Mom and Dad cheering, hugging each other, and then Mom’s voice comes in right before the video cuts off: “I knew it! I knew she’d win this one! She’s fucking phenomenal! So much faster and such a better driver than I ever was at her age.”

Dad’s reply is cut off by a roar from the crowd and then the video montage ends. For the second time that day, I wipe away tears. This is why I never watch those montages my phone makes—because even though they’re good memories from times of great joy, they’re so incredibly hard to see now Mom’s gone.

“Hey, you okay?” says a familiar voice behind me.

I spin around to see El Blum holding two cups of coffee. I sniffle, close my phone’s photos, and then take a long steadying breath.

“What are you doing here?” I ask more gruffly than I mean to.

El eyes my tears, and then thrusts a coffee toward me. “Inviting you to a race,” she says, forcefully cheerful, which I’ll take one thousand times over pity.

“What? Now? It’s not even ten in the morning.” I can’t help it; my eyes linger on her lips, which are sparkly with chapstick. I wonder if she tastes like strawberries.

“Motocross starts early,” she says, shrugging. “Plus, after you kicked my ass so thoroughly on Rainbow Road last night, I figured maybe I should show you my track.”

I look her over—is she serious right now?—and grin. “So, you really want me to skip out of work, so we can go see a race?”

“I guess I really do. You in?”

I’m not sure how I’ll convince Grandma Jolene to let me go, but there’s no way I’m turning this down. “Of course I’m in. Wouldn’t miss it for anything.”

El grins at me and my heart gives a little sputter, not unlike the Hornet’s engine before I got it working.

CHAPTER TEN

El

Devil’s Paradise is my two-mile-long home track full of sharp turns and bermed corners, tabletops and whoops, doubles and triples, and that goddamn sand section that feels as familiar to me as the topography of my backyard, even after months away. It all comes back in an instant when I pull into one of the grass lots beside the track, smell the race gas, and hear the satisfying braaap of the revving bikes in their practice session—one of the best sounds in the world.

We roll by competitors parked along the perimeter fence, unloading bikes and equipment and coolers from their truck beds. As we climb out of the car, Jo nods at a young rider in a bright aqua jersey sandwiched between her parents and her 85cc two-stroke; the top of her head only comes up to their chests. “So that was you, huh?”

“I was maybe a foot shorter than that when I started on a 50cc. My first race, I’d only had my hand-me-down bike for a few months, but I wanted to be like my big sister. I remember being scared shitless at the gate. My kneepads were knocking against the bike, my legs were shaking so bad.”

“Oh God, me too. I still get nervous before a race. I was nervous at Putt by the Pond, even.”

“You were?” I’d never have guessed; Jo seems so effortlessly sure of herself, just like Max. Not that Max never got scared at the gate—she told me she’d just learned to love that part, like climbing the first hill of a roller coaster and enjoying the fear, and I would learn to love it too. I bet Jo does. But I don’t know if I ever will. I got older, and my brain got better at cataloging everything that could go wrong, the mistakes I might make, and the ways I’d never live up to Max’s reputation on the track, all while idling at the starting gate. I muscled through with hours and hours of practice, with manuals and motocross autobiographies and YouTube instructional videos. And I do love riding, I always have. I’m not afraid to crash. But if I’m honest, it’s only gotten harder over the past year to shut out the part of me that decides a jump is too much for me before I’ve even tried it.

“Well, maybe I wanted to impress you.” Jo winks.

I melt.

“How old were you, your first time?” I turn to grab the picnic backpack out of the trunk so she won’t catch me blushing as I amend, “Your first race, I mean.”

“Four and a half.”

“You’re kidding me!”

“Jeff Gordon started racing at five, and he was winning championships a few years later. Mom wanted me to get ahead of his record early.”

“Did you win your first race?”

Jo shoots me a half smile. “Not even close. I could barely reach the pedals, but Mom still hung up my participation ribbon next to her giant trophies.”