Page 45 of Furious

Dad makes a choked sound at the car’s nickname. His fingers fly to his wedding ring, which he twists around his finger. “Your mother isn’t here to have an opinion on that.”

“But she is!” I burst out. “She’s all around us and you’ve forgotten all the things she liked!”

Dad’s face crumbles at that accusation, but I can’t stop myself. I push on.

“She would’ve hated that we’re not racing! That we’re not even driving! That all my dreams have had to change! I’ve not even told you this because I’ve been too scared to ask, but I’ve been carrying around an F1 Academy application for weeks, hoping you’ll sign it.” I pull the form out of my bag and wave it at him.

Confusion crosses Dad’s face as he tries to follow everything I’ve said. One thing really seems to land with him. “You shouldn’t be scared to ask me anything, Jo. I know we’re not very close right now, but you can ask me anything. I want you to talk to me.”

“Does this mean you’ll sign it and let me follow my dream to be a race car driver?”

“Absolutely not.” He brings the flame to his cigarette and inhales sharply.

“You have to sign it. Please.”

“I won’t, kiddo.”

“This is my chance to make something of myself. To follow my dreams!”

He gets up to stand beside me. “You’ll find other dreams, JoJo.”

“I won’t! This is what I’ve wanted since I was like five years old.”

He stubs out his unsmoked cigarette. “I’m not signing the form.”

“Dad, please! Do this for me. For Mom. For the life we had and the things we all wanted.”

Tears fall down my cheeks as I say it, and I swipe at them. A long moment stretches between us, full of unsaid things. I turn to look at Dad.

“I can’t keep you safe if you drive!” Dad says finally, his voice a jagged whisper. “Don’t you understand that? If you race, then I could lose you, too!”

It breaks me to hear the tapestry of his grief in those sentences, but my grief is here, too, sitting beside us on the porch like a living thing.

“If you hold on to me too tightly, you’ll lose me as well,” I mutter. “Don’t you see that? People like Mom and I, we’re too fast and we’re always furiously chasing something.”

“Not if I can help it,” Dad says, blinking away his own tears. “Now, give me the keys to the Hornet. You’re not driving it again until you have a license.” He holds out his hand.

Sullenly, I fish the keys from my pocket and put them in his open palm. “What about signing my F1 Academy form?” I ask, knowing it’s an impossible request.

“Might as well tear it up. I’m never signing that.”

I bite back all the hateful, angry things I want to say and shove the form back into my bag. “You’re ruining my life.”

“If that’s what it takes to keep you safe, so be it. That’s called tough love, and sometimes a parent has to do it. Now, get in the house and head to bed. We’ll talk in the morning about the consequences of your actions.”

I want to say more, but I don’t. There’s no point in arguing with him now and I’m only going to say things I regret if I stay on this porch a second longer.

I shouldn’t have said those things to Dad, I know that, but unlike him, I’m not afraid of racing. I love the risk and the possibility in every race. I’m not even afraid of losing a race. No, what terrifies me is losing myself and the careful vision of my future that Mom and I had crafted over many, many racing training sessions, long talks about track conditions, and hundreds of mornings spent together, dreaming about when she’d come cheer me on after an F1 race.

The thought makes me get up from the air mattress I’m lying on and dig into my suitcase. Grandma Jolene gave me three drawers in her craft dresser, but a lot of my clothes are still in the suitcase I brought with me for the move. Digging past sweatshirts and winter sweaters, I pull a bundle out from the bottom of my suitcase. It’s another of Mom’s racing shirts, the twin to the one Dad has on in fact. It’s folded around a tiny red jeweler’s box that I’ve not opened in months.

Carefully, I pull back the T-shirt and rest my palm on the box.

Mom had given it to me the morning of her crash. The last morning of her life. Of course, neither of us knew at the time that it’d be her last morning, and we’d gotten up early like usual, letting Dad sleep as he’d been up late the night before watching race tapes. Mom and I had made coffee and eggs and taken them to the breakfast nook in the apartment we were staying in for the race.

“Are you excited to finally get your license?” Mom had asked as she slathered jelly on toast.

I’d shrugged, not feeling any sort of way about it. “It feels almost like an afterthought, to be honest. Like, I’ve been driving for so long, this is just the official piece of plastic that says I can do it off the track.”