We arrived in London the next day. All of our time was spent preparing for the next race. Starry pushed me harder than he had before. Yes, he congratulated me, but he also told me to win the next race.
"London is a difficult track, but not impossible. Yes I am proud of what you accomplished in Paris, but one victory means nothing if you can't keep it up." his words were both encouraging and awful to hear. It was like he didn't trust me to do well again.
I wasn't able to see much of Shadow, Starry having immediately claiming all of my free time, which I didn't find to be fair. He put me on a new diet, some weird craze that he'd heard about in Tokyo, and upped my exercise regime. I left my room in the morning exhausted, and I returned to it half dead. I wanted to ask for him to slow down, that I was being run ragged, but he was insistent.
One night, two days before the next race, there was a knock on my door. It was late, nearly 2 in the morning, and I was in no state to receive visitors. Regardless, I sleepily opened the door. To my surprise, it was Shadow who stood in the corridor.
"Shadow? What are you doing here? It's so late..." I blinked, stepping aside so that he could enter.
"It's been days since I've really seen you, I wanted to make sure you were okay." He brushed past me, glancing at the decor before standing with his arms crossed. I awkwardly shut the door and went to sit on the bed, too tired to stay standing.
"I'm okay, I've just been training a lot, too much. My trainer is really insistent about this new regime he has me on. I don't know why," I sigh, running a hand through my hair. Shadow took it upon himself to take a seat beside me.
"He shouldn't be allowed to do that, you need rest," his hand moved to cup my chin, tilting my face up. His eyes quickly examined my face and I tried to look away in shame. I was in no condition to be looked at, the heavy circles beneath my eyes very apparent to anyone who looked at me.
"I want you to stay in bed tomorrow," he spoke after a pause, not removing his hand that cupped my face. I looked at him in surprise.
"I can't just not show up... Starry will kill me!"
"He already is, in a way. You need a day of rest. And if he doesn't like it, he can take it up with me and the board in charge."
"But," I started, "the next race is in two days, I can't just stop now..."
"Amy." His voice was firm, scary almost. "Rest. In fact, I'll stay here just to make sure that you don't get your tail out of bed tomorrow morning." I fell silent at his words. I wanted so badly to listen, to rest, but I wasn't sure I could get away with it.
But I just nodded. No use in arguing with him. I just hoped that we both didn't get in trouble when morning came around.
