by Kat Ransom
Cole’s life was a thousand times the mess mine was, he just hid it better, dealt with it better, coped better. Both of us camouflaged who we really were, but when we were together, we fit. We clung to one another.
He put an end to the reign of terror Makenna and I endured, straight away. Teenage me thought he was my soulmate, that we’d be together forever.
Now?
Well, now he’s just the reason I’ll have a hangover in the morning.
He’s also the reason I’ll be perpetually single if I don’t stop subconsciously comparing every other man to him or driving them away because it’s better to do the leaving than to be left.
I fill Makenna in on the pending interview with Imperium this week, and she doesn’t speak until half her bottle of merlot is gone. “Obviously, you have to go,” she twiddles her fingers.
She’s still thinking of ways around it, whereas I’ve resigned myself to it at this point. There is no way out of it without disrespecting Professor Tillman and jeopardizing my professional credentials with him and, therefore, the university.
“I do, but it’s just an interview, right? I won’t get the job. The odds of me seeing him at corporate headquarters must be slim to none.” I’m not sure if I am trying to convince Makenna or myself.
“We need contingency plans. What if they offer you the job?”
“I thought of that, so I will blow the interview, totally cock it up,” I nod, spurred on with my ploy by spiced rum.
“I don’t see you being able to blow an interview, but okay,” Makenna shakes her head. “The real question is what you’ll do if you run into him.”
“Do you think kicking him in the balls is too extreme?”
“Not at all. That would be ideal, actually. You’ll get your revenge and get blackballed by the company. They’ll probably issue a restraining order,” Makenna nods.
This is making way too much sense as my head gets foggy, and the room begins to spin.
“It’s been six years, Makenna, what is wrong with me?” I wrap my hands around my friend Jerry and take another swig. I have actually researched this extensively, looking for a reason why I cannot get over Cole Ballentine.
I am a highly functioning, smart, capable woman, for God’s sake. My eyes and hair may still be dull brown, but I’ve filled out pretty nicely, I think. I’ve been out with other men. I’ve had unfulfilling sex with some of them.
None of them ever do it for me, though. Not physically, not emotionally, not anything—it’s like all the electricity has been cut, and I’ve been working off a back-up generator for six years.
Certainly, none of them haunt my dreams or make me replay memories over and over like a motion picture in my mind.
I could date a million men, sleep my way across the UK, and none of them would make me feel the way Cole did. None of them would ever know me the way he did, none could light my soul on fire the way he did with one glance.
None of them would ever hurt you as much, either.
“Please,” Makenna sputters, sending merlot down her chin. “I’m still hung up on Doug Masters, and he was a world-class douche.”
“Total douche,” I agree with a bob of my head. “Remember when we put methylene blue in his soda and made him piss blue for a week? What a little bitch,” I giggle like an idiot.
Doug’s biggest ambition in life was making bongs out of large vegetables, and my beautiful, creative friend was far too good for his dumb ass.
“Umm, you put methylene blue in his drink. You always rose to the occasion in times of crisis. Me? I sat around crying for weeks on end like a loser.”
“Mmm-hmm, that’s right. Don’t mess with my crew,” I waive my Sailor Jerry at the screen. I’m such a gangster. “If you’re a loser, though, what the hell am I, Makenna?”
“Please. At least I only have to see Doug when I Facebook creep on him. You have to see Cole on TV, in magazines, watch him flaunt around with hot wom… sorry,” she cuts herself off when she sees my face go ashen.
“It’s okay,” I blink. Part of me is relieved to hear someone else fess up to Facebook creeping since I am guilty of that, as well.
Because you are a crazy person.
“I mean, really, most people don’t have to deal with that shit, Emily. It’s not right.”
She has a point. I’ve considered it before but thought I was pacifying myself.
When most boyfriends leave you, they fall off the face of the earth. They crawl back under whatever rock they emerged from. They don’t go on to become successful F1 drivers achieving their dream all over NBC, Sky Sports, and ESPN every week.
First-loves change us all, I suppose.
They leave a mark on your heart and soul that fundamentally alters your chemistry. An indelible blotch etched deep inside that can’t be scrubbed away no matter how much Sailor Jerry you scour it with.
Maybe you only get one true love. Perhaps you give so much of your heart away that there is simply nothing left for anyone else.
Would Makenna be haunted by Doug to this day if she had to see him on the cover of magazines every time she went to the grocery store?
If I’d ever felt the same about anyone else, I might get over it. Maybe I need to try harder.
Logically speaking, Cole is just another bundle of DNA walking around the planet. A stupidly handsome bundle of DNA, but flesh and bone just like everyone else. There is no science supporting the concept of soulmates or eternal love.
I’ve looked.
Magic and fairytales do not exist. Certainly not in jolly old England, like I once hoped.
I wish my heart understood logic and reason, but it continues to beat to its own drum without regard for cold, calculating science. It’s filled with the all-consuming consequences of giving itself over, entirely, to someone who was supposed to protect and cherish it.
“I’m being an idiot,” I mumble.
“You’re the smartest person I know, shut the hell up,” Makenna fires back, which makes me giggle more.
I need to stop drinking, I’m not a giggling kind of girl.
“I still want your curly hair,” I smile and touch the screen like I’m petting her. Shit, I’m drunk.
“There’s enough of it to go around, I’ll ship you a pound or two,” Makenna’s chin drops as she burps. “You know what? Fuck him, Emily.”
“Fuck him? Like you think I should fuck him again? That sounds nice,” I close my eyes and imagine fucking Cole again.
Those few months we had together after my first time, spending every day together culminating in being naked in his arms, they’re never too far out of my mind. He took the last little piece of me and, from that day forward and ever since, Cole Ballentine has owned every cell in my body.
Stolen them.
That was right before he accepted the offer to the Imperium Junior Driver Program and moved to Europe, leaving me all alone in swamp-ass-Florida.
Why I can’t turn the feelings off, I will never understand. My brain and my heart have long since given up being friends. I know love isn’t a choice, but you’d think self-preservation would kick in after enough time, and it would heal.
Sometimes I think it has, but then I’ll see a photo of him, or a video, or a race. I’ll swear I see him in a crowd, a flash of those electric blue eyes. Then I’m right back in high school with my best friend, my first and only love, with the man who still owns me.
He just doesn’t want me.
I mean, that’s what I have to believe because he left me with no other option that will satisfy my brain. After he became my everything, Cole Ballentine ghosted me. He made me promises, he made plans for us even after he left. He held my heart in his hands and swore me his forever. And then he just… stopped.
He stopped returning calls, texts, emails. There was no reason, no explanation given. There was no big fight or breakup. There was only a cold, abrupt, silent end to my world and I was left alone to fill in the gaps of why.
WHY WHY WHY
&n
bsp; Three little letters can cause so much destruction. And when asked of humans, of love, I get no answers.
Maybe I seek answers to WHY in science now instead. I get answers then, indisputable facts of WHY something is the way it is.
“No, don’t fuck him-fuck him. I mean like fuck that rotten sewer rat,” Makenna clarifies. She’s slurring her words too. It makes me feel better that I’m not the only drunk idiot right now.
“Maybe I will fuck him-fuck him. And then I’ll leave his ass this time,” I shake Sailor Jerry at my screen.
“Yessssssssss,” she hisses and raises her bottle in solidarity.
I’m not thinking clearly, at all, but boy would it be nice to enact this plan and get properly fucked again for a change. How glorious it would be to come home after sex and not have to arrange a second date with Mr. Hitachi and his Magic Wand because the first man can’t get the damn job done.
“If I can’t get over him, I may as well get under him, eh, eh?” I snort.
“Now, now, Emily, what would the Major General say?” Makenna puts her hands on her hips and tucks her chin down, performing her best impression of my overbearing father in his customary, rigid stance.
I cross my arms over my chest and lower my voice to mock him, “Live up to your potential, Emily. You lack self-discipline, Emily. I won’t let you throw your life away on that loser, Emily. Failure is not an option, Emily.” I felt like one of his cadets for most of my childhood.
“Mom would support my fuck-him, plan,” I drop my arms and sigh. Not that I would ever discuss this with her, but Mom loved Cole. She still loves Cole.
When Dad tried grounding me and removing all of my privileges after finding out Cole had deflowered his pristine daughter, it was Mom who listened, sympathized, and never tattled when I simply snuck around instead.
It never dawned on him that when parents make their children lie, their children simply become excellent liars.
I honestly don’t know how Ava Walker has remained the dutiful wife of Major General Thomas Walker all these years. They’re polar opposites.
And contrary to another American colloquialism, the only opposites that attract in real life are magnets. Line up a magnet’s North Pole to another’s South Pole, and they’ll cling to one another. North to North, though, they repel and push each other away.
“Do you think my parents are like magnets?” I squint at Makenna.
“I’ve had too much wine if this is some science shit, Emily. Speak English.”
I’m really drunk and having deep thoughts about magnets.
Pathetic.
I shake my head and dismiss the silly thoughts about imaginary forces drawing Cole and I together or pushing us apart, even though he’s now only an hour away from me.
Nope, there were no force fields in play.
Just Cole leaving then forgetting all about me within the first month as his new life in Europe got more exciting. Nerdy, naive Emily Walker back at home was left behind.
I don’t dare admit this to even Makenna, but I don’t even hate Cole for it. I’m mad at myself for being so stupid. This, Formula 1, was Cole’s dream.
His dad moved to Tampa just so Cole would have access to the best karting tracks and coaches in the States. He was always on this trajectory. It was me who interfered, and I simply could not compete.
It’s easier to pretend to hate him, though.
I wish I could.
Five
“I’m standing in your corridor, I wonder what I’m waiting for. The leaves are drifting out to sea. I’m waiting for you desperately.” - Cracker - I Want Everything
Cole
It’s 8:45 am. I have more adrenaline coursing through my veins than before the start of a race waiting for the lights to go out.
I pace back and forth in front of the large windows in Edmund’s office, stopping every few seconds to watch the parking lot for signs of her arrival.
“She didn’t confirm the interview?” I ask my Engineering Director for the third time.
That isn’t like her. Something’s wrong.
“Same answer as the last two times,” Edmund rolls his eyes and goes back to his computer screen to study the latest computer model the aerodynamic team sent up.
Edmund Lloyd’s been our chief engineer since I came to Imperium as a teenager. He’s an old-school kind of guy who cut his teeth in the Formula 1 of years past. He’s worked with legends of the sport and is a traditionalist who preferred the old ways of doing things. He’d rather have raw horsepower than hybrid engines. “There’s no replacement for displacement,” is his favorite mantra. We’ve all heard it ad nauseam over the years.
Every year that F1 introduces different technical rules that he has to adapt to, he loses more hair. This year, it’s a new tire manufacturer, Concordia, that has his hairline receding even further, and the shiny bald spot on the top of his head has grown exponentially. The whole team has been struggling to get the most performance out of Concordia rubber.
I don’t pretend to understand it all. I drive the car and can tell them what feels right, how the car reacts and responds to me. But why? I leave that to smarter people.
People like Edmund Lloyd and Emily Walker.
“I still don’t understand this,” Edmund raises one eyebrow at me suspiciously. “Just a friend from high school, but you’re going to wear a path through the floor with your pacing. Since when do you pace?”
I stand up straight and crack my neck.
Get a grip, asshole.
I don’t understand what the hell I’m doing either. I should have thought this through better. I should have gotten my ducks in a row first.
Ever since Emily moved to the UK ten months ago, I’ve been on edge, out of sorts. She’s throwing a wrench into my system, disrupting all the ways I’ve occupied my mind over the last six years.
Why did she move here?
I may have casually mentioned Emily to Edmund after one of the latest meetings discussing why the new tires suck and they talked about bringing an expert aboard. The tires are degrading, wearing down, quicker and more explosively than they should. We just can’t get them to work right. I may have left him a copy of the research paper Emily wrote at Cambridge. I didn’t understand half of it, but our factory engineers were salivating over it.
I wasn’t expecting Edmund to know the Professor Emily worked with on the paper and to line up an interview with her today. This was all abysmal planning on my part. What did I think would happen? What was I even hoping for?
I was bad for her then. I’ll be worse for her now.
But, like a selfish prick, like someone possessed by a cosmic pull, I can’t stay away from her.
Not when she’s an hour away from me in her little two-bedroom apartment on the fourth floor just off the university campus. Not when she goes out with some asshole for dinner or drinks or coffee and lets him kiss her goodnight. Giggles at some bullshit line that he feeds her, smiles at him like she used to smile at me.
Oceans separated us before. Damn good reasons separated us.
But now?
My neck is stiff, and I crack it again.
It’s 9:01, and she isn’t here. She isn’t coming. Emily Walker is not a person who shows up late.
Hell with this. I need this shit like a hole in the head.
It is what it is, it’s not meant to be. I am who I am, God knows I can’t change it. And Emily shouldn’t be with me now any more than she should have been years ago. No matter how much I want her.
“I need to be in the simulator. Sorry about the no show,” I tell Edmund.
He shrugs, never looking up from his computer, and I leave his office to make my way downstairs to the Sim. I push the elevator button repeatedly before I give up and take the stairs to my left.
“Sim time, dickhead,” Dante, my teammate, pops out of an office and slugs me in the shoulder.
“Heading down now. Hurry up so I can kick your ass, as usual.”
Dante faux l
aughs and points at me like the concept is hilarious to him as we head into the stairwell. Dante and I came up through the Junior Driver Program together, and we get along better than most teammates, considering our job is to beat the other one every race.
On the track, we fight like hell, but off, we’ve become damn good friends. I had no one when I left Florida. Despite Dante being from Italy and having a huge Italian family who dotes on him like he’s the chosen one, we have a lot in common. We both grew up here, thrown into the ring as boys, and left to our own devices and coaches to become men.
“Ciao, Evelyn,” Dante croons and winks at one of the office staff who’s walking up the stairs as we walk down.
“Morning, boys,” she blushes and sweeps her eyes over us both.
“New haircut?” He runs a finger through Evelyn’s shoulder-length blond hair, “Bellissima.”
I smack him in the shoulder as Evelyn bats her lashes at him. “Let’s go.”
He turns back down the stairs but not before sizing up Evelyn’s ass as she continues up the stairs. “I need to get laid,” he mumbles and adjusts himself.
“What’s it been, forty-eight hours?” Dante goes through women like most people change their socks.
Not that I’m judging or suggesting that I am any better.
I’m not.
“Sixteen hours, but who’s counting? What’s happening with the hot little red-headed number?”
“Nothing. Same shit, different day.” I assume he means Nova, who the gossip magazines claim is my on-again-off-again tennis-star girlfriend who just left London. We’re only “on” when our geographic locations match up, and then it’s far from a relationship.
“It’s true what they say, yes, redheads are freaks in bed?”
“More like batshit crazy, in this case.” Dante laughs and makes an assortment of lewd gestures like the crass asshole he is.
Nova’s Russian and likes it about as cold and ruthless as I do. Serves us both well until she inevitably goes off the deep end.
We hit the main floor and open up the stairwell door at the far end of the building lobby. Sunlight beams in from the wall of windows, and I squint at the brightness. Tall potted plants and trees stand between trophy cases that line the massive open-air lobby.
