by Shey Stahl
I was to the point where I didn’t care anymore. I couldn’t take it any longer. Why couldn’t he see that?
Everyone wanted to tell me, ‘Be thankful for the children you have. At least you have two healthy boys.’
Well, I wanted to say to them, ‘Which one of your children can you live without? Pick one, bury them, and tell me how you feel. Are you thankful for the two you have left?’
No. You’re just sad.
Because something was taken from you.
Something you cherished.
Something you were never ever going to get back.
Every time I heard a race car, I thought of that night. I wasn’t there, but I imagined things and I knew my imagination was worse.
I thought about those guys showing up at the track and wondered if they knew they might not leave it. My heart dropped at the memory as it hit me again with the same force in it did back then.
Our life was continuing to move forward, but inside, I didn’t feel like I could.
There wasn’t a moment that went by when I thought to myself, you’re just victimizing yourself here. You can and you will make it through this.
Only I didn’t. I’d stay in bed for days because it was easier. I couldn’t stop it and I couldn’t predict how it was going to make me feel from day to day. I’d have moments when I would have this unbelievable strength that seemed to come out of nowhere. Moments where I thought I could move on.
And then they were followed by the lowest of lows, the darkest of days.
Something happened to me when I lost Jack. It wasn’t physical and I had a hard time understanding it because it was more of a mental alteration. It was not wanting to get out of bed or seeing a sunny day because God forbid that sunny day be a day where I saw kids playing outside who reminded me of Jack who’s gone.
I reached the point where I didn’t want to smile, because if I smiled, it meant I was forgetting this pain and him, and I couldn’t do that.
Axel
Knocking - A sound that occurs when the air/fuel mixture is igniting too soon. It is usually caused by a poorly timed engine, the use of low octane gas, or the build-up of carbon deposits on the piston tops. If your engine is “knocking,” whether through repair or the use of higher octane fuel, it needs to be addressed immediately.
LILY HAD THIS IDEA that I didn’t understand what she was feeling. That was bullshit. I understood completely. If anyone did, it was me. He was my son, too. I wanted to hold her, but I couldn’t make myself do it. I was hurting too, but she hadn’t even considered that. She ignored it.
When February rolled around, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to stay away. It wasn’t going to work. We always made the trip down to Florida and this year wasn’t any different. It was the start of Speed weeks and the season. Of course I was going to be around my family. I needed to be for my own damn sanity.
For some reason, Lily agreed to go and we took the kids to Disney World. Though I wouldn’t be racing, we agreed to still go to the track because both our families would be there.
The entire trip Lily was numb to the world. Just when I had thought she was making some progress. She was sad and I understood that. I was sad too, but I wanted to help her. Ease the sadness any way I could.
It was hard to move on. Even harder to let yourself move on. I didn’t want to. But at some point, I had to. I couldn’t stay on my knees forever. I had to stand.
I searched constantly for something to say to her to ease the pain and mine, but no words could make this any better or easier. So I said nothing.
Maybe that was the worst thing I could have ever done.
EVERY YEAR THE OUTLAWS started their season in Barberville, Florida. Only this year, it wasn’t easy for me because I wasn’t racing, but my family was.
Lily agreed to go to the race. I thought, for some stupid reason, she could see we had good memories at the tracks, too. After all, it was this track where when we were kids, we were reunited with one another every year. She had to see that, right?
We left the boys with Lily’s mom back at the hotel and I wanted to show Lily a good time, help her see these good memories. In the pits, I stood next to Rager’s hauler looking at his car while he laid on the floor.
“What’s wrong with him?”
Dad looked at Rager. “Stomach flu.”
I knew what my dad was going to say, I could tell by the look in his eyes. He didn’t want to tempt me, but he also needed that car on the track tonight. “If you want to race, you can.” He gave a nod to Rager’s car. “Think Lily would mind?”
I hadn’t said whether I would or not, but I was leaning against the car when Lily came out from the pit bleachers and saw dad hand me the helmet. He wasn’t giving it to me to pressure me. He was simply giving it to me.
Lily saw the exchange and reacted as though I hadn’t considered her feelings. She glared at me, and if it were possible, I swear her eyes turned black. Only they didn’t. It was just the hatred she had for me. “You son of a bitch…I should have known you dragged me down here so you could race.”
And then she walked away from me.
Turning back to my dad, his lips were compressed in thought. “I was going to ask how you two were doing…guess that answers my question.”
I guessed it did.
Lily
Arm Restraints - Straps attached to a driver's arms to limit range of motion and keep the arms and hands inside the car in case of a flip.
JUST LIKE AXEL, I GREW up in the pits of a dirt track. I was never scared around the cars. I imagined Jack wasn’t either. Half the time my parents never knew where I was at the track. I remembered being seven years old and playing under the bleachers in the pits. They never knew where we were there, but they also didn’t worry. We’d walk around the sprint cars while they were running and never bat an eye. Didn’t seem dangerous.
It was different once I had a child because suddenly everything I thought was safe became a weapon. Something that could harm this precious life I’d brought into the world. I was paranoid they were going to get hit by the cars. Axel, he never paid attention in the pits, mostly because he was in the work mindset.
When we were at the track that night, I imagined the horrific scene that must have played out in Cottage Grove. I envisioned him lying in the dirt bleeding, helpless…it was like my brain wanted to imagine his death and was more than likely far worse than what really transpired that night.
I tried to sit in the pit bleachers and watch the race with Arie, I did, but when I heard the throaty rumble of the cars, I knew I couldn’t sit there. With a heavy sigh, I stepped down from the bleachers intent on finding Axel, maybe get a beer to relax me. Something had to help.
Making my way between Rager’s hauler and Jameson’s, I saw Axel with the helmet in his hands, leaned against Rager’s car.
I didn’t care that he wasn’t in it. I knew what him having the helmet in his hands meant. He was getting in the car.
If I meant anything to him, if the boys did, he wouldn’t have climbed back inside the car. To me, that was his way of silently telling me it was over. When I married Axel, I told myself I would endure anything to have him in my life. But this…
As I stomped away from the hauler, Arie caught me by the arm.
She looked at me, her eyes so distant they were in another world. “Don’t hurt Axel any more than he’s already been hurt.”
I was so pissed at her; she needed to mind her own business.
How dare she tell me how to act! She was the one so hung up on Rager, and wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but it was okay for her to hurt everyone else in the process? What a hypocrite.
“I really think you just need to mind your own business.”
I WANTED THE PAIN gone. Completely. I just wanted it gone for one goddamn second when I didn’t have to feel. So…I turned to the one thing I knew could help me. What I swore I wouldn’t turn to. For so long I refused to drink alcohol. Afraid that if I started trying to numb
the pain, I wouldn’t stop.
Everyone offered me drinks. Even at Jack’s funeral. They said, “Here, this will help.”
But I refused for the simple reason that I might not be able to stop.
I found the only silence I could find in Shane’s hauler, it was the one place hidden from everyone and parked the furthest away from the JAR Racing boys.
Staring at the bottle in my hand, the one Shane kept locked away for special occasions, I slowly removed the cap. Even then, I sat there holding it, wondering, if I took a sip, could I stop?
The side door opened and I jumped at the sound, my heart in my throat that it was Axel. I couldn’t face him right then. But it wasn’t. It was Shane, still in his racing suit.
I sighed in relief, but didn’t smile. Shane didn’t notice me at first, as he walked inside and slammed his helmet on the counter. “Damn it!” He cursed, leaning his head forward to rest on the upper cabinets lining the wall.
He must have blown an engine in the last chance qualifier. My feet shifted on the floor and he finally noticed me. “Oh, hey, Lily.” He looked surprised to see me in here, his face a mask of confusion. “I didn’t know you were in here.”
He stared at me and I knew what his next words were going to be. “Are you okay?”
If he asked, I would have broken down like any other time someone asked me that. I probably would have started sobbing and he would have tried to comfort me. I wasn’t okay and I might never be again.
My eyes dropped to the bottle, and then back to Shane’s.
Laughing, and breaking the silence between us, he pointed to the bottle. “Are you going to stare at that or share?”
Removing the lid, I took a drink then handed it over to Shane.
He laughed, a sound I wished I could hear fall from my lips, and took it from me, drinking straight from the bottle just as I had done.
I intended on that one drink. The feeling of amnesty, that one second when the burn turned to consolation. That was when I knew it wasn’t going to be enough.
One drink turned into ten and before I knew it, Shane and I had drunk a fifth of tequila. In fifteen minutes.
Physically I was relaxing. The alcohol surged through my blood leaving my body in a jelly state and my words slurring. Fire spread throughout me, the effects warming my cheeks.
Moments later, Shane and I were in a deep conversation about the use of steroids in professional sports. Like it mattered at all to me, or why I could even argue about it with someone, wasn’t irrelevant. It was the fact that for once, my conversation wasn’t directly related to my son or my husband who had chosen racing over me.
It was on nothing. It was on a silly thing like steroids.
Shane threw his head back, knocked it against the cabinets as we sat on the floor together. Rubbing the back of his head, he laughed. “That hurt.”
For some reason, when he laughed like that, I did too.
The sound of my laughter made Shane smile and he moved closer. His black hair fell in his eyes. Pushing it from his face, he smiled gently, one side higher than the other. “It’s good to…”
I stopped him and pressed my fingers to his lips. I didn’t want to hear him say anything that would bring memories back. I wanted to stay gone in this feeling, the one of talking about steroids and drinking tequila straight from the bottle.
We stared at one another and then I kissed him.
“Lil, what… what are you doing?” Shane drew back, caught off guard.
My hungry hands were acting on their own. I didn’t want to see grass green and when he looked at me, I saw brown, something different and I was okay with that.
There was a pain in me and it was so deep that it was all I felt. I was the pain, an open wound with no way to stop the bleeding no matter how much pressure I applied to it.
Shane returned my kiss after a minute, his hands fisting in my hair. By his actions, the way he pushed himself back, he wanted to stop himself. Shifting, he moved to his knees and brought me with him so we were lying down on the floor of the hauler. That was when I felt him, hard, right there and moved my hips grinding against him.
We both knew this was wrong. So wrong.
Any other time Shane would have stopped me. He loves Miya. Us, together, wasn’t something that either of us would have considered. It was the newness, the anticipation, the unknown that drove us forward—making irrational thoughts turn to irrational decisions. Or maybe it was just the bottle of tequila.
His chest rumbled when he groaned, his arms collapsing giving me his weight against the floor. I took it because I needed it. I needed to feel something more than what I was.
Shane’s mouth parted from mine, the questions he had were evident on his face. “What about Axel and Miya?”
My mind heard nothing. Right then I didn’t care about either one. I cared about my pain. Fuck Axel. I cared that for one moment, I didn’t have to look at him and be reminded of my baby.
Shane wasn’t moving, only kissing my neck while I unzipped his racing suit and looked up at him, pleading with my eyes.
Both of us stopped thinking and our emotions took over when my hand dipped inside his racing suit and palmed his erection. Soon my jeans were undone and he had my panties off.
He looked at me again, watching my reaction when he was there. At least he had enough sense to put on a condom.
His erection was there, waiting. He was the first person besides Axel to ever touch me like this.
When he was inside me, I started crying.
“Should I…stop?” Shane certainly didn’t seem like he wanted to because he didn’t stop moving.
Yes.
“No.” I brought his lips to mine and kissed him, wanting my brain to shut off. With a heavy sigh, brought back to the moment, Shane stopped instantly.
This was wrong and we knew it.
I pushed back on his shoulders, silently letting him know we couldn’t. This had to stop now. Right now. Though the damage had been done, it had to stop.
By the look on our faces, mine aching, his baleful, we knew what we had just done despite not continuing.
“Lily, we shouldn’t have…” Regret filled Shane’s eyes, sitting back on his knees.
I wanted to feel something other than pain; it was my only logical reason. I could barely look at Axel anymore because of how sad he made me feel. I wanted to…I didn’t even know what I wanted in that moment.
My heart pounded in my chest, painful beats that I heard so loud I couldn’t hear anything else he said to me. My palms went to my face and I started to cry for what I allowed to happen.
Breathing heavy, Shane jumped when the hauler door opened. “Shane, you in here man?” Axel asked. “Dad needs to borrow a rear shock.”
Oh, God. No. Please no…
His eyes went from Shane, to me, and then the floor.
I didn’t think I could feel more pain than what I felt when we buried Jack. But when I looked at Axel and saw his pain, it was close.
Shane looked at me and his face went white. “Oh, God, I’m going to puke.”
Axel’s eyes moved to Shane, a murderous expression I would have never thought he would have been capable of took over.
Axel shook his head, his threat and growing anger palpable. “You goddamn son of a bitch!”
Axel was not aggressive. He rarely did anything to get him fired up but some things did.
This did. This was that breaking point.
Inhaling a deep breath through my nose, I willed him to leave, as if I had any power over him. Only I didn’t because he didn’t move. Instead, he stood blocking my way out, like he was going to make me deal with this right now, in front of him and his brother, who appeared out of nowhere and inside the hauler.
Axel could barely keep from screaming at me. “You fucking pushed me away. You did that! And now this?”
He hated me right then. I felt it. His intensity was frightening because the look he gave me wasn’t Axel. It was a man who’d finally l
ost everything.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” He grabbed my arm when I walked by.
Casten raised his hands and stepped between us. “Axel, man, just let her go.”
He didn’t so I shoved him back, fighting back tears. “Fuck you, let go of me!”
Only he wouldn’t. He just stared at me, waiting for my reply.
After a beat, Axel smiled at me raising his hands. “Fine. I’ll let go.”
There was far more meaning in that statement than most realized.
Casten knew it as well.
The moment I pushed past him, my thought was, what have I done?
I had taken eight years of faithfulness to one man and destroyed it in five hasty, regretful minutes. I thought…I didn’t know what I’d thought, but this feeling I had was nothing like what I wanted it to be.
Looking around me as I trudged to the pits and back to the car, I was met with face after face of disappointment. People knew. Racing was a small community. They all knew what had happened.
Axel
Relief Driver – When a race car driver is unable to finish a race, a relief driver can be placed in the car so the team can still finish.
MY SKIN PRICKED FROM nerves, but it felt like someone had injected me with ice water, shocking my veins. Every muscle in my body felt both tense and heavy like simply lifting my arms wasn’t possible.
Lily looked at me, her expression emotionless. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I’d walked inside that hauler to see my best friend, Shane, and my wife. He was zipping his racing suit and she was pulling her panties on.
Shane was rushing around as my eyes remained transfixed on the woman who’d just ripped out my fucking heart. “You fucking pushed me away. You did that! And now this?”
I had never been so mad in my life. I was ready to kill Shane. I never imagined she would do this to me. And with Shane.
How could she?
