Until my Last Breath

94

Japan

I wake up choking on my own breath.

A sharp sting slices through my shoulder, and then there's something cold and wet dripping onto my face—water?

"Ow—what the—stop, stop!" I jerk away, arm instinctively flinching—big mistake. Pain shoots through my entire right side like a lightning bolt.

"Rita?" I hear Charles, breathless. "Oh mon dieu, thank God. You're awake."

I blink hard, vision adjusting to flashing lights. Sirens. Blue and red strobing against metal.

I'm in the back of an ambulance.

A paramedic next to me is setting a bottle of saline aside, clearly the one who'd decided to turn my face into a wet sponge.

My head falls back against the gurney. "What... happened?"

The nurse adjusts something near my IV. "Your body gave in. Between the crash yesterday, the medication, and your heart rate—your system hit its threshold."

I close my eyes, exhaling slowly.

"Also..." she pauses like it's a punchline, "your shoulder's dislocated. Again."

"Great," I mutter, scoffing. "Of course it is."

My fingers instinctively press against the aching joint, and before I can finish, someone else steps in with gauze and a brace, starting to wrap my shoulder. My body feels like it's been wrung dry. Every inch hurts. But then I catch Charles staring at me — and his eyes say everything.

And just like that... it hits us both.

I did it.

I really did it.

The pain fades to background noise. The sirens quiet in my ears. My heart, for once, stops racing.

Tears pool in my eyes, but I let myself fall gently into Charles's arms. I feel the pressure of his hand against my good shoulder and the rise and fall of his chest as he holds me tightly.

"I'm proud of you," he whispers against my hair. "So proud."

I don't answer.

I just breathe.

Finally. For the first time in what feels like years—I can breathe.

⸻

The moment we step out, cheers erupt.

Cameras flash. The grandstand is vibrating with energy. The podium ceremony is ready and waiting, and I limp toward it, shoulder secured and face half-smeared with dried tears and champagne I haven't even sprayed yet.

A French flag is wrapped around my waist, hugging my body like a second skin. I clutch it tighter as I step up the podium stairs.

And when I get to the top—

I see them.

My family.

Pascale, Marina, Alex, Arthur, Lorenzo, Kika, even my Alejandro—all of them—standing, clapping, crying.

I blink rapidly. It's too much.

The anthem plays.

I don't move.

I don't even look at the trophy yet—I'm staring out over the circuit, the fans, the lights, the soaked asphalt that nearly took me yesterday... and the one place my eyes won't stop drifting to—

That damn turn.

The one that nearly killed me.

The one that took him.