Fast Time

by Shey Stahl

  It was about me. Not us. When there should have been an us.

  As I sat in the parking lot outside my doctor’s office in Charlotte, I checked the results of last night’s race and noticed Axel won again. The headline on the World of Outlaws website was, “A champion crowned! The Kid gets fast time and breaks track record.”

  KID WINS CHAMPIONSHIP

  Port Royal Speedway

  With nearly five-thousand cheering fans at Friday night's World of Outlaws race at Port Royal Speedway, Rager Sweet tried to hold off an uprising Axel Riley, but “The Kid” proved too much for the veteran outlaw driver and PA Posse member.

  With five to go, Riley maneuvered around the 29-year-old Sweet and scored his 1st World of Outlaws STP Sprint Car Series Championship, locking him into the title prior to the Finals in Charlotte.

  “I can’t thank my boys enough. [Crew Chief] Tommy Davis – He works really hard to try to get us that next little step that we need to win more races and win races not from the front row,” said Riley who started the A main from the front row. “We had a really good car all night and it showed. I'm only as good as the people around me and I’ve some of the best. It's feels good to finish the year off on a positive note."

  Riley entered the night with the fast time award under his belt. In the Dash, he advanced his No. 00 Donco Controls car for another Dash win. When the green flag fell on the feature, Riley had a good jump on Sweet. The World of Outlaws STP Sprint Car Series returns to action on Friday night, November 6th, at The Dirt Track at Charlotte for the Bad Boy Buggies World of Outlaws World Finals, the final races of the season.

  The picture of him holding the trophy in the air made me smile and gave me hope. He was still wearing his wedding ring. His smile was soft, slightly higher at one side of his mouth, and my heart stumbled as I was reminded of the child in him I once knew. It was reassuring when I saw this side of him comforted by the innocence. He hadn’t lost that in the rush of the lifestyle he had.

  They still had the World Finals, but Axel had won the championship. Finally. In the seven years he’d been in the series, he finally won. In the ninety-one races so far, Axel had pulled through with forty-one feature event wins and eighty-one top ten finishes. He now had a three-hundred-and-sixty point lead on Rager in second place, and a five–hundred-and-forty-seven point lead on his dad in third place.

  They weren’t catching him. It felt good to see him winning. I’d watched Axel struggle for wins and to prove himself for years. And now he had, without me there. The sad thing was, we were living our lives, separately.

  My phones screen faded, timing out and my ring finger caught my attention.

  Bare.

  It hurt to think that I had lost that, too. And now what? I was going to raise the boys on my own? Was that fair to Axel?

  No.

  Grief was such a bastard. It made you do things you wouldn’t normally do. Looking at our situation now, I understood what I had done and how I’d pushed Axel away. I hadn’t given him a chance to be there for me.

  I left the boys with my mom in Indiana and drove to Charlotte just two weeks before my due date, also, the day after that race in Ports Royal when I knew Axel was going to be in town.

  I had no idea where I was going to find him, but I started with the shop. Part of me was scared to go to the house, nervous about what I would find. What if he’d moved on and someone was there…then what?

  But what I did first was probably worse. I needed to talk to Jameson.

  WHEN I APPROACHED Jameson, he was standing at the counter with about ten shocks laid out. I was nervous. He was intimidating by nature, just as his father was. I needed to do this though. This family didn’t deserve my behavior and if I was going to ask for forgiveness, I needed to start somewhere.

  “I never meant to hurt him and I’m sorry for what I said to Sway,” I blurted out, not wanting to dance around the subject.

  Jameson set the wrench in his hand down, nodding and rested his palms against the edge of the counter, but hadn’t turned around. He didn’t say anything at first and I knew he wasn’t going to offer up anything. “I know that.”

  Okay. He said something at least.

  “How’s he doing?”

  He turned to look at me and then he noticed my stomach and his jaw tightened. “Does he know?”

  I shook my head, chewing on my fingernails. I wanted to tell him it wasn’t what he thought.

  My nerves got the best of me and I leaned into the wall. “Do you know where he is?”

  “No.” Jameson scratched the stubble on his jaw. “Haven’t seen him around today.”

  The air compressor kicked on in the shop, sending my nerves sailing with the loud humming. I was about to walk away when I stopped myself and turned back around to find him staring at the floor. “For what it’s worth…” I paused, again, and our eyes met. I saw Axel in his expression and the way his brow creased. “I never meant to hurt him. I wasn’t trying to. I was lost and didn’t know what else to do. I reacted badly.”

  Jameson looked past me, at the wall when he spoke. “Is it his?”

  Naturally, he would want to know this. I’d caused his son pain over the last year. The last thing he’d want was for me to tell him I was pregnant with someone else’s baby.

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t hurt him any worse than what’s already been done. Be honest with him.”

  For a moment, I didn’t say anything and Jameson gave me this look, like he was sorry almost, but not. Understanding maybe? Reassuring me I could do this?

  “I’ve lost a lot of people over the years, but I could never imagine the pain of burying your son. Grief is not something you can control.”

  Jameson understood my pain, and Axel’s. He was letting me know he was acknowledging that what happened was an act of grief. I would never have dreamed of hurting Axel the way I did, had my mind not been gone.

  “So you don’t know where he is?”

  Jameson’s eyes moved from the floor to mine, and I knew he was lying. “No.”

  He wasn’t going to tell me and I knew why. Axel was at the cemetery. I could have been wrong, but the distance in Jameson’s eyes told me so.

  I’D KNOWN AXEL RILEY my entire life. There was not a resentful harsh bone in his body. He was a sweet guy, rarely raised his voice. He was pure and loved strong. He probably hated me and I wouldn’t have blamed him if he did. But I missed him. I missed our crazy unplanned life with our silly arguments and him waking me up in the middle of the night to have sex, all because it was our only moment alone and he just couldn’t wait until morning.

  I missed him.

  I knew exactly where to find him when I left the shop. I just had this gut feeling I should look there, a sign from Jack, maybe, and sure enough, he was at the cemetery sitting under the same tree beside Jack’s grave that he’d sat with me under the day of the funeral. The tree where I collapsed at the thought of never seeing my son again.

  Jack’s buried in a beautiful place nestled next to a small flowing creek bed, and when you looked at it, it’s almost surreal thinking places like this existed on earth. It’s too beautiful. Much like the majority of the cemetery, the grave was surrounded by overgrown grass, wild flowers, and trees. It reminded me of Axel’s parents’ property when they were clearing the land to build Hayden and Casten’s house, and Jack used to spend hours out there with Jonah, trying to find as many worms as he could. He loved the dirt.

  For a moment, as I laid my eyes on my son’s final resting spot for the first time in months, I stared at it trying to imagine what he would look like now. How much he would have grown, what he’d be doing, had he still been alive. The thought made me smile because instantly, I was granted an image of him that put all that to rest. It was one of him sitting on the tailgate of his father’s truck in the pits, watching sprint cars. He was happy. I knew that much.

  Axel didn’t move when I approached. He was lying on the ground, staring up at the sky, reminding me o
f Jonah. Lately, Jonah had been lying in the grass for hours at a time because he was trying to decide which cloud Jack was on so he could talk to it.

  Slowly, I walked toward him. In his hand was a toy sprint car with 9J on it, the number Jack always insisted on racing to be just like Jameson.

  When I was within a foot of him, I stopped, not knowing if he would want me any closer. I hadn’t seen him since the day I left. Even when he came to get the boys, my parents were there to greet him. He looked different, leaner, older. My gaze traveled over him slowly, watching his chest rise and fall, his breathing even, despite his body tensing when he noticed me standing there.

  “I didn’t come to start a fight,” I said my voice quiet.

  That’s what you say to him? You haven’t seen him since February and you provoke him by assuming he will want to argue?

  I wanted to start over, maybe say I was sorry, start with that, but then he spoke, his stare never leaving the sky.

  “It doesn’t appear that way.”

  I had nothing to offer him right then. Not only would he not have heard it but I didn’t have anything to say that would have made him feel any better. The fact of the matter was I’d slept with his best friend. I’d filed for a separation without even talking to him. If our situation wasn’t bad enough, I’d tried to destroy it completely.

  He wouldn’t look at me at first. I had a feeling he hadn’t been looking at anyone recently.

  I was standing there for a few minutes when he turned his head, slowly, just slightly and careful. I hated the look in his eyes. So cold. So hurt. So… everything I had caused him.

  “How could you have done that to me? You ripped out my heart, Lily.”

  “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

  I was afraid to look at Axel. Afraid of the look that might be in his eyes at that moment.

  “I’m sorry we lost him. I had no right to blame you. We lost him. We both went through that. I blamed you because I wanted someone to blame. Saying it was an accident wasn’t doing justice for me. I had to blame someone.”

  He crawled toward me, wrapping his arms tightly around me, clinging to my body. “I’m sorry! I’m so fucking sorry, Lil.”

  I couldn’t say anything because I was sorry, too. I didn’t want to keep doing this without him. I couldn’t. I needed him back in our lives.

  We needed him.

  I had to tell him. Pulling the coat back, he noticed my stomach.

  “Axel, do you even remember that night?”

  He shook his head, staring at my stomach and the bump. “I try not to.”

  “Do you remember what happened at the hotel?”

  “I remember leaving the track and waking up on the bathroom floor of the hotel room with a broken hand.”

  “So you don’t remember us fighting and having sex?”

  His eyes went wide, appalled. “We had sex after you slept with Shane?”

  I nodded. “Yes. We did.”

  He looked disgusted with himself, absolutely mortified he would have done that.

  “Is that… so you’re pregnant?”

  “Yes.”

  “What if it’s Shane’s baby?”

  “It’s not, Axel.”

  “But you don’t know for sure.”

  “No.” The lump in my throat threatened to take over. I almost vomited thinking about that night and what I did. I searched for a plausible explanation for that night, but I had nothing. “He didn’t finish. We came to our senses pretty quickly and then you came in.”

  He stared at the ground when he spoke, an anger I knew all about contorting his facial features. “What about after?”

  “You mean since I left?” My voice drifted to a distant whisper.

  “Yes.” His tone was velvet, but edged with steel. He was holding back what he really felt.

  “I haven’t been with anyone.”

  I think all this was too much for him. He kept swallowing and nodding, and then running his fingers through his hair.

  He was freaking out.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” My eyes darted away from him, the fear of his reaction gnawing at me. “I didn’t…know how.”

  “I don’t know what you want me to say,” he mumbled, his words spaced evenly as if to have a bearing on the moment.

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  And then his temper came, which I couldn’t blame him for. “Fuck! You’re sorry? You shut me out for eight fucking months and you’re back because you’re pregnant. Is that it?”

  “No. That’s not it.”

  His eyes were icy and unresponsive. “Then what is it?”

  “I didn’t come here to fight.”

  “Why did you come here?” His question was direct, rousing my insecurities. “Do you even know?”

  I sighed, shaking my head, realizing just how much worse I’d made this. “I came here because I want this baby to know you.”

  Axel’s brow drew together in an agonized expression. “When did you find out you were pregnant?”

  “May.”

  “In May?” he repeated.

  My heart raced and I nodded.

  “And in all that time, five months, you couldn’t tell me?”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to do or how to tell you. I was scared of what it meant and then after you refused to sign the papers, I found out.”

  “And you stopped sending the papers after that,” he deduced, understanding to a certain extent.

  For over an hour, we sat in absolute silence as Axel stared up at the sky. I didn’t dare bother him or ask if he was okay.

  His head was buried in his hands, hurt so strong I could feel the pain from where I was sitting.

  “You have to admit that I wasn’t entirely to blame.”

  “You weren’t. My eyes were closed to a lot of things.”

  “What hurts the most is that I lost him, too.” His voice shook with each word. “Never once did you consider me. It was always you. How you were doing. How you felt. I lost him, too! I was there. I watched as he took his last breath.”

  I never considered that until then.

  Never once.

  AXEL’S PAIN WAS JUST as deep, maybe even horrifying because he was there. He had those memories buried in his heart. Knowing we had a lot to talk about, Axel had me come back to the house. He didn’t think we needed to talk about all this at the cemetery. I agreed. We did need to talk. I couldn’t go inside so we walked down to the lake instead and sat on the dock, him on one side, me on the other, facing each other.

  The way he looked down, I remember seeing this look the day of Jack’s funeral and the mournful way his shoulders slumped, carrying the weight of the day.

  At the time, I didn’t realize how heavily weighted he was, the pressure that was upon him to do right by me, and his children. I saw it now. He felt as if he’d failed at being a father and a husband.

  I blinked slowly. The sight of him being so vulnerable brought back so many memories of what went wrong. My heart ached for him, for us, for our boys. “When they said that this would be the hardest thing we ever faced, losing a child, I had no idea how true that was.”

  Axel sniffed, not that he was crying, just breathing I suspected. His gaze moved over mine like the changing of a season, slow, distinct, and then gone like the leaves falling from a weathered tree, finally letting go after of months of hanging on.

  His gaze left me wondering.

  What now?

  Was he second-guessing asking me to come here?

  Did he not want me here?

  My heart raced, my eyes transfixed on him, wondering what he would do or say next. I wouldn’t blame him if he told me to leave. If he told me he didn’t want us in his life. I guess in some ways I prepared myself for that, given I’d avoided him for months.

  “Do you still want me in your life?”

  With hopeless sounding words, his eyes moved from the lake, to me. He blinked, slowly. “I’ve missed you. I’ve missed us.�
�

  I needed to hear that. Needed to know that we hadn’t lost what we had spent seven years building and started when we were kids, Jack’s age, chasing each other around the dusty pits of Knoxville in the heat of the summer.

  It was a tentative touch, but he reached for me, giving me reassurance. “I’m here, Lil.” The way he shortened my name gave me hope.

  Axel

  Wing Dance – A victory celebration made by a winged sprint car driver. They typically stand on the roll bars and beat their hands on the top wing of the car. Others actually climb on the wing to celebrate.

  IT BOTHERED ME WHAT had happened that night in Florida after I caught them together. It bothered me a lot. The way I’d reacted, everything.

  I wasn’t in my right mind, but it scared me that I was that far gone that I didn’t remember. Had I raped my own wife? What? No. That couldn’t be.

  Lily sensed me confusion and asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “Did you try to stop me?”

  “No,” she answered immediately, trapping my face between her palms. “Don’t beat yourself up. I never told you to stop.”

  Slowly, we were talking. Slowly, our hearts were closing the wounds that had been raw and bleeding for months.

  “It was hard for me to talk to you because I didn’t know myself anymore,” Lily confessed. “Everything about our lives was different and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to move on, or accept that he was gone. And when they did, that made me even more depressed because he was gone. Forever. It seemed no one understood my pain.”

  Biting my lip in a sense of nervousness, I asked, “But you turned to Shane?”

  “I only did because he was there in that moment, when I was at my worst and I thought he could take away that feeling.”

  “I know,” I said, but did I really know all her pain?

  Lily understood my masked remark. “How could I open up to you if I didn’t even know what I was feeling?”