by Larkin Rose
“Do it, Sellars!”
Sellars pushed the pedal harder, increasing the speed past her comfort zone. Actually, Lacy being in this car at all was beyond her cushion of comfort.
People died when they sat in that seat. When her foot was on the floor. When her car was cutting through air.
“Yes!” Lacy hissed.
Sixty. Seventy.
The memories nudged at her conscience, and she struggled to keep them at bay. Normally, she would welcome Sarah’s memory. Normally, the speed pulled them to the surface. Normally, she wanted them there. Wanted Sarah’s image alive and by her side.
Normally.
Not today. Not now. Not with Lacy in that space beside her, encouraging her to go faster.
Not when she was mentally fist fighting to hold on to her sanity.
Eighty. Ninety.
The images pushed harder. Pushing. Shoving at her conscience to be set free.
She gripped the steering wheel like her life depended on it. No. Like Lacy’s depended on it. Because her life did depend on Sellars’s ability to not make a mistake. A mistake she’d already made once.
Lacy squealed as Sellars rose higher on the track.
The sound yanked at her. Her heart squeezed into a painful vice.
She squeezed the steering wheel even tighter as she struggled not to let those memories take control.
And then those images crashed through. Pummeling through her mind as they always did when the needle climbed.
Sarah squealing from the seat beside her. The trees zooming alongside them. The speed beneath them. Her arms through that sunroof, demanding that Sellars go faster. Faster. Faster.
“Go faster, Sellars!” Lacy shrieked.
The sound of her voice sliced through, and Sellars couldn’t breathe. The weight was too much.
She cut down the embankment, shot onto pit road, and slammed on the brakes. They slid several yards, tires screaming beneath them, and finally, the car jerked to a stop.
“Get out!” Sellars said. “Get out of the car.”
“What the fuck?” Lacy tugged the helmet off her head.
Sellars removed her own helmet but couldn’t, or wouldn’t, look at Lacy. “Just get out. Please.”
Lacy took in her expression. Set and determined. Sadness lay behind her downward cast eyes. The car. The speed. The track. She wasn’t sure which had triggered Sellars into this mood, but for sure, it was one of the above.
“Does this have something to do with your girlfriend?” Lacy asked.
Sellars looked out the window and her jaw clenched.
“Tell me what happened, Sellars.” Lacy tugged at the seat belt.
Sellars continued staring out the window.
“Talk to me, dammit.” Lacy tugged again to no avail.
Sellars shook her head, her grip twisting on the steering wheel.
Lacy reached for the answer. “You were driving. That’s it, isn’t it?” She grabbed for the truth.
“Don’t.” Sellars finally looked away from the window and pinned a hard stare on Lacy. Her eyes glistened with the panel lights. “Just…don’t.”
“Don’t what? Don’t ask you to open up? The same way you asked me to? The same way you dug into my dark little secrets?” Lacy yanked at the seat belt a little harder. “What’s wrong, Sellars? Do I need to get naked and fuck you on the hood of the car to get some answers? Or are you the only one allowed to play by that rule?”
Sellars’s expression softened. “That’s not…I didn’t…” She clamped her lips and turned back to the window. “Get out.”
“What happened to your girlfriend, Sellars?” Lacy asked, determined to break the barrier. “It’s just you and me. No one else. Talk to me.”
“Get out!” Sellars bellowed and punched her fist against the door panel.
Lacy stopped tugging at the seat belt at the sound. There was so much pain locked inside of Sellars. Why wouldn’t she just say it? What the hell had she done?
“No! Dammit.” Lacy gave a little tug on the buckle once again. “Talk to me. Fucking get it off your chest. Out in the open. Once and for all. Get the fuck out of your own head, Sellars!” She yanked at the seat belt, harder, desperate to be free of the confinement.
Long silence followed while Lacy tried in vain to get the lock to release. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m kind of locked in here.”
Sellars reached out across the distance between them, squeezed the sides in on the seat belt, and the lock popped loose.
When Lacy turned to thank her, to take in a deep breath now that the claustrophobia had been squelched, she found Sellars staring at her. Her eyes were full of tears.
“I killed her.”
Chapter Fifteen
Instinct made Lacy swallow while the punch of Sellars’s words settled in. She resisted reaching for the door handle. Resisted looking away. Afraid the fear was crystal clear in her eyes.
Her voice had been so quiet, Lacy wasn’t sure she’d heard the words right. Prayed she hadn’t heard them right.
But the look of despair, the pain in those eyes, told Lacy she’d heard exactly what she thought she had heard.
“Keep going.” Lacy fought the urge to reach out and take her hand while a little voice screamed to get her dumb ass out of the car. To run like the hounds of hell were on her heels. To never look back.
But those words, the softness in them, hadn’t come from a murderer.
Sellars took in a breath and slowly let it out. “We were in high school. Sonny and Cher. Fred and Ethel. Lucy and Ricky. Bonny. Clyde. I was trouble. Liked disobeying. Determined my parents weren’t going to force me into their little outline of how they expected my life to turn out. She loved me so much, she was willing to come along for the ride. Every ride.”
She turned and looked out the window. “She was the only one who ever believed in me. She got me. All of me. She got all of me. My desire to race. My hatred for the medical college my mom had already pre-selected, no doubt from the minute I was born.”
Lacy watched as Sellars released her grip on the steering wheel only to tighten it again.
She realized she was hanging on every word. Desperate for those answers, desperate to know Sellars’s disturbing secret.
“We had a vow. I would make it all the way up, up those rungs of success despite my family, to the top, to NASCAR, and she would be there waiting for me at the finish line. She promised to be there. I promised to make it there.”
Sellars hung her head. “And then she was gone.”
Lacy waited with bated breath. She could almost see Sellars’s mental struggle as her jaw clenched.
“A simple road race. Like all the rest. With her right by my side. A deer. Just a goddamn deer,” Sellars spat. “It came out of nowhere. I swerved. I…swerved.” Her voice lowered into a whisper. “I killed her.”
Lacy lifted her hand to reach out to Sellars, then she thought better of it. Sellars was an open book right now. Touching her would bring her back to reality.
She could almost see the detailed images in her own mind as she absorbed the facts.
Sellars, young, high schooler, probably underage, probably drinking because that’s what punk high schoolers did, maybe even a little weed, the road race, no doubt on some back road, the deer, swerving to miss it, a mistake an uneducated driver would make, and the girlfriend was killed.
Granddaddy had swooped in to save the day, for sure. It all made sense.
But what didn’t make sense was why she hated him. How did that make him a monster? How did that make his money blood red? Wouldn’t a person want their family to save the day? To make the merry-go-round stop?
Lacy wanted to ask, but she knew the sound of her voice would break the spell. Nor did she want to ruin the moment.
She wasn’t sure, but she’d bet Billy’s next checkered flag that Sellars didn’t share this information with many people. Possibly none at all.
“I should have died that night.” Sellars cho
ked out her words. “It should have been me.”
And there it was. The guilt. Guilt she’d taken along for the ride during every race. Every race, she’d taken those memories with her. Her guilt had been the passenger. Her copilot.
Lacy wished she had the right words, but there were none.
The cliché, “Everything’s going to be okay. It wasn’t your fault” paled in comparison to the guilt Sellars had already strapped around herself.
Those words wouldn’t fix her.
But that finish line would. That was her goal, right? To cross that line. For the girlfriend. To keep good on a promise.
Yet Sellars had unsuccessfully sabotaged every step of her success. Somehow, she’d stumbled over every finish line of Formula One despite her own mental punishment.
And here she was, one step away from beginning a brand new career with NASCAR, her dreams dangling by a thread.
Why? She was good enough to get there. All by herself.
She probably could have been there long before now. Actually, with her skill, she should have been here long before now.
So, what was holding her back? Why did she keep getting in her own way?
“Bullshit.” The word was out of Lacy’s mouth before she could stop it.
Worse, she meant it. She was calling bullshit because that was a line of bullshit Sellars was feeding her.
Sellars turned a glare on her, eyes full of anger and pain and tears. “Are you serious?”
“Yes. It’s all bullshit. You can’t sabotage your career and get to that finish line at the same time. You’re smart enough to know that. Yet you do. Everything you do is a roadblock to that finish line.”
“Get the hell out of the car.”
Lacy turned in the seat to face her. “You don’t want to cross that finish line, do you? You don’t want to win. That’s why you veered off the path. Why you went for Formula One instead of going straight for your goal. Because as long as you don’t win, as long as that checkered flag of NASCAR, your destination, never waves above your car, you can carry all that guilt around with you while blaming the world for your downfall.”
Lacy knew she should stop. Sellars had just poured her heart out. Lacy should have some compassion. But how could she when the truth was staring her in the face?
She barreled on, determined to say every word on her mind. “While hating your grandfather because he did the only thing he could do. He used his money to make your dilemma go away because that’s the only fucking thing he could do.”
“Get out, Lacy.”
Lacy narrowed her sights. “You are your own worst enemy, Sellars. So, shit or get off the pot. Either give that girl what you promised or stop wasting everyone’s time.”
Anger rippled through Lacy. She wasn’t sure what she was so upset about. Sellars for still blaming everyone else for her own doings? Or herself for being entirely too honest when it came to the thoughts in her mind.
She, too, needed to get her own shit together. She needed to stop running from a demon that wasn’t even chasing her. The fucker was in her own mind. Not real. Yet she continued to run.
No more. No fucking more.
Lacy searched for the door handle, realized there wasn’t one, then climbed out of the car before Sellars could respond.
Guilt ate at her as she turned back to the window, taking in the pained and shocked expression on Sellars’s face.
“You can’t even say her name, can you?” Lacy said.
Sellars’s jaw clenched.
“You’ve got her so locked up inside that mind of yours because you don’t want to share her. You’re holding a ghost like her life depends on it.” Lacy put her hands on the frame and leaned down farther. “Her life doesn’t depend on it. Yours does!”
Sellars squeezed the steering wheel and turned to look out the windshield.
“Look at me, dammit!” Lacy yelled.
Sellars turned steely eyes on her.
“Say it, Sellars. Say her name.”
The tears welled in Sellars’s eyes, but she didn’t turn away.
“Say it,” Lacy whispered.
“Sarah.” Sellars turned away. “Her name was Sarah.”
Lacy stood. More words were on the tip of her tongue. Harsh words. Honest words. But she couldn’t say them. Not now.
Sellars had had enough.
Lacy turned around and jogged to the sidewalk where Jared met her. With a grunt, she kicked out of the suit.
What she wouldn’t give to run back to Sellars, to hug her, to tell her everything was going to be okay. She needed to tell her that it really wasn’t her fault, but she couldn’t. Fact was, only Sellars knew if everything was going to be all right. The power was in her hands. Her hands and hers alone.
That night might not have been her fault, but every step of the way since that horrible moment had been in her control, and Lacy lacked the proper medical degree to get inside her head and repair the engine.
Chapter Sixteen
Sellars opened her eyes to bright sunshine filtering through the edge of the blanket hung over the window. She hissed as her head thundered in objection.
With a groan, she rolled onto her side, turning her back into the light, and attempted to crack her eyes open again.
She had no idea what time it was. Hell, after all the beer she’d consumed last night, she prayed she knew what day it was, and that she hadn’t been comatose for more than twenty-four hours.
When the light didn’t make her head scream in pain again, she reached for the phone on the floor and found the evidence that she’d put a serious hurting on a case of beer.
She’d surely pay a high price for that today.
But who the hell did Lacy think she was talking to her like that? Making her feel guilty for feeling guilty. Who does that after someone pours their heart out?
Not anyone with a heart, that’s for sure.
Lacy. Pfft. Who needed Lacy? Or her photographer skills?
No. She didn’t need Lacy’s help. Not anyone’s help, as a matter of fact. But especially not Lacy’s.
And her grandfather could go straight to hell. If she had to give up this dream, so be it, but she wanted nothing more to do with him or his fat bank account or the way he could so easily brush her broken heart away with dollar bills.
She would find a way to do this on her own. Somehow.
With her head pounding, she finally sat on the edge of the bed and looked around. No furniture. No pictures. Not even curtains.
There was no girlfriend to share life with. Probably never would be. And somehow, she was okay with that, no matter what that stupid little voice tried to whisper.
She was okay with being alone. Her way. Everything her way.
But something in the back of her mind said she was being ridiculous. She’d gotten a taste of someone she almost hated. The sweet taste that still hummed in the back of her mind. On the back of her tongue.
Sellars shoved off the bed and grabbed her clothing from the carpet. She donned each piece and went to the kitchen, hoping there was more beer left in the fridge.
Thankfully, there was. She snapped off the top and turned up the bottle, letting the cool malt slide down her throat, wishing it could take away her thoughts just as easily.
The thoughts of Lacy being so cold last night. The sight of her racing back up those stairs and disappearing into the building.
It was the last she’d seen of her. Gone. She’d been gone when Sellars finally managed to pull herself together and climb out, no doubt by the means of an Uber.
Sellars had never met anyone so heartless, and the sound of her words vibrating against her mind pissed her off all over again.
She downed the rest of the bottle, chucked it in the sink, and slipped out into the sun that was just beginning to set behind the trees.
Damn. She’d slept the whole day away in her drunken state.
That was okay. She was going to do the very same thing tonight. Maybe this time, she’d get lucky
enough to find a woman to squirm beneath her. Yes. That’s exactly what she needed. A woman to hiss and scream, proving to Sellars that she was alive.
Yes. She needed that feeling. That emotion.
With determination, she started walking until she found a sports bar. Right where she wanted to be.
As soon as she sidled up to the bar, a brunette at the opposite end flashed her a wicked smile and followed it up with a sultry wink.
For sure, this night was going to end well.
* * *
Lacy paced the conference room, waiting for Mr. Reynolds to grace her with his presence. She wasn’t sure why she was so restless. She knew exactly what she wanted to say to this man. The exact order in which she wanted to say the words. She would say them with no hesitation and without compassion because that was the only way she knew how.
Running into Sellars. That was the reason she couldn’t stand still. She was afraid of seeing her, of seeing the hurt in her eyes again, and not acting on it again.
Did she regret the things she’d said last night? Of course not. She didn’t do regrets. What she did hate was the fact that she’d had to say anything at all. That, clearly, no one had said those words before now. That she wasn’t able to just hug her, to give her a shoulder to cry on.
That’s what was wrong with Sellars. No one had ever crossed her. They’d just let her go on her merry way, demolishing everything in her path, destroying her future.
Not Lacy. There were no other words she could have said last night.
However, she’d stayed up into the wee hours of the morning waiting to hear the rumble of Sellars’s car in the driveway. Hour after hour, she’d waited for that sound. It hadn’t come. Either Sellars had gone to her apartment to sleep on a bed in a place that didn’t even have mini blinds, or she’d found a piece of ass. The latter was likely the outcome. That’s how Sellars rolled. She just kept going on that dead-end path, no matter what.
The last option ate at her more than anything. That green-eyed monster that she had mastered years ago. She didn’t do jealousy. It wasn’t becoming. Not to mention one should never have to be jealous. Jealousy equaled non-trust. And if she couldn’t trust someone, she damn sure didn’t want them.
