Fake It - OP

Chapter 35

Everything is silent in the garage. On both sides, there isn't a word being spoken. The only times someone does speak it's one person giving few word orders and that's it. 

The rain is falling heavier now than it was in Q1 and cars are going everywhere on their outlaps. So far nothing big enough to cause a red flag or a yellow that lasts more than a few seconds, but the broken pieces of my heart are still pulling magnetically to the number eighty-one flashing up on the large Mclaren timing screen. Oscar wasn't driving like himself, something was off. To someone who may not analyze his driving, or see every race they wouldn't know the difference, but I could see it ever so slightly around each corner and down the straights there was a sort of, dissociation. Or a lack of proper judgment.

I looked over to where Oscar's engineer sat. He wasn't speaking to him at this moment, his hands were on his head and rubbing his eyes more than normal. He was stressed.

Lando and Oscar were both good in the rain, but damn was I worried too. I hadn't bothered to re-apply mascara or fix my makeup, I just made sure I didn't look like I had just cried before standing here. Now I was thankful for it. I was rubbing my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose, and cupping my cheeks with my hands. The race should be red-flagged. There's too much water pooling on the track and especially on the racing line.

Fuck, this is bad.

I watch as Carlos goes up and through Au Rouge and Raidillion, he makes it through without a snap but he's six-tenths down, it's just too wet. And he's on full wet tires. Oscar is on inters.

The paddock is too quiet.

There is a long silence as I watch Oscar. He's perfectly in the frame on the large TV, front and centre in the garage. My heart flips when I see the first snap, and it cartwheels on the second. I'm holding my breath. This is what they do, this is what he does, he knows what he's doing.

I wipe my eyes, trying to remember to breathe.

All of a sudden there is an outbreak of noise. Swearing, yelling, all in Oscar's side of the garage. It makes me drop my hands and search the screens. There is debris all over the top of the hill.

Orange pieces of the car, the front wing.

81.

The garage goes silent again. Or maybe my ears are just ringing because there is chaos in every direction.

I can't move my feet are glued to the floor. They aren't playing the replay, there is no shot of him getting out of the car. Fuck, Oscar. He's just crashed at the top of the hill at Spa, and I have no idea what happened. No idea if he's okay. No idea why those little broken pieces of my heart inside me are straining, breaking and fracturing further. I don't know how long I stand there, watching the cameras play every replay but the one I want- need to see.

It's Caris who breaks me out of my trance, and it's then I notice the slew of cameras all around me. And the TV microphone over my head. Caris brings her sleeve up and wipes under one of my eyes. I wasn't aware I had any tears left but I suppose there was one. We both don't say anything and I let her lead me out of sight of the cameras into one of the back rooms in the garage. It's full of car parts and smells like gasoline but I don't care. I'm trying to remember how to breathe.

"Oscar?" I ask it like a question as if saying his name was enough to say is he okay?

Caris nods, still holding my arms. "His engineer got through to him, he was talking."

"Was?"

"The ambulance is on its way up the hill. He made contact with the wall at the top of the hill."