terrible things - ashton irwin

thirteen

The song for this chapter is Life Can't Get Much Better by Good Charlotte :)

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The best stop in the map was Torrance California, and it certainly was not my kind of place. Torrance breeds NASCAR drivers and semiprofessional cage fighters. It had a race track, a giant rock 'n' roll car show, and about five hundred stores that sell car parts.

In other words, for a guy like Ashton, it's the Promised Land. The kind of place he had to experience.

When we pulled into the parking lot of the Cal-Am Speedway the following afternoon, Ashton sucked in his breath and gave me his crooked, perfect grin.

"Lavender Moore," he said. "You are the greatest person I have ever known."

"You just wait," I said, smiling back.

I steered him away from the glass atrium entrance and toward a side door propped ope with a rolled-up copy of Car and Driver.

Brad Sewell was waiting for us in the pit. "Lavender," he said, stepping forward to give me a bear hug. "Long time no see, kiddo."

Ashton clearly wanted to know how this beefy dude with a Dale Earnhardt tattoo and I were acquainted. But I simply said, "Ashton, this is Brad. Brad this is my friend Ashton."

"Nice to meet ya," Brad said. "Let me walk you through a few things, and then we'll get you in the cockpit."

It was only then that Ashton understood what he was actually here for, and he looked like he might burst from excitement.

He turned to me. "It's like Say Anything." He whispered. 

We'd watched that old movie a hundred times. On of the best scenes is when the geeky main character takes his reluctant date, one of the Beautiful People, to an art museum after hours. He can do this because he's friends with the museum guard, and because he's hung a painting of the Beautiful Girl in one of the galleries.

Today was my museum moment for Ashton, but better. I'd bribed Brad with a chunk of my savings, and if shamelessly pulled the "I knew you when our sisters were in the cancer ward" card.

Brad began talking gibberish to Ashton and Ashton was nodding confidently, while climbing into a flame-resistant suit, and Brad was fitting him with a radio helmet and snapping Jim in a five point harness.

"Any fool can speed on the straightway; it's the curves that make a racer," Brad said over his shoulder.

"Oh, sure," I said. Like I knew what he was talking about- I couldn't even drive to the grocery store.

Ashton revved the engine and then pulled out of the pit. He didn't got that fast at first, but he must have gotten the hang of it after a while, because the engine louder and the car became a green blur of flashing past us again and again.

"So how's your little sister?" I asked Brad.

"She's in remission. Two year now.

"That's fantastic," I said. Lizzie Sewell had been really nice to Carole Ann. Lizzie, it seems, was one of the lucky  ones. "And what about you?" Brad asked, and I pretended not to hear. 

Fortunately, just at the moment, the bright green car and screeching to a halt on the teach outside the pit, and Ashton opened the door.

"Lavender, you have got to get in here!" He yelled.

I looked over a Brad. I was hoping that he'd tell me that the other seat belt was broke or that he was fresh out of helmets.

"There's a suit over there that will fit you," he said.

And that's how I found myself in the passenger seat of a custom Chevy race car, quivering with excitement.

"On your mark, get set, go!" Yelled Ashton, and we pellets out onto the track, zero to sixty in a millisecond. The g-force slammed me against the seat, and that stunning, brain-shaking roar of the engine filled my ears.  I could feel the noise as much as hear it. It vibrated in my chest and shook me deep in my guts.

I couldn't help it: in joy and terror, I screamed. I stopped, though, because I couldn't even hear myself. And then I screamed some more.

We came toward the first curve, and I noticed the talk wire fence that arced inward over the track. Somehow I understood that the fence was to keep us from splattering out body parts all over the bleachers in a crash.

The car had thick mesh netting instead of windows, so the wind can rushing in, hot and smelling like oil. I couldn't see how fast we were going, and I didn't what to know.

We banked about the curve, the engine squealing. As we pulled into the straightway and Ashton hit hard in the throttle, suddenly my bison seemed to narrow. It was like looking through a tunnel. Everything on either side of me blurred and faded, and all that mattered was what was in front of us, and how lightning fast we were going to blast through it.

My body was singing with happiness and and an incredible feeling of being completely alive in the moment. I was no longer Lavender Lousie Moore- I was a supernova strapped into a bucket seat.

Go, go, go! I thought widely. Because screaming, after all, was useless. We took three more sound barrier- shattering laps, and when we finally slowed, I turned to Ashton with wide and no doubt crazy-looking eyes. 

"Oh my God," I said, pulling if my helmet and shaking out my sweat drenched hair. "Oh. My. God."

Ashton cackled madly. Brad came over and said.

"What ya think?"

I took Ashton a moment to answer, probably because he had to wait for his brain to stop vibrating. Then he said, "I might have just had the best time of my life." 

I started laughing like an idiot, because that was exactly what we'd come for, what I'd wanted to give him.

Carpe diem. Because today, after all, was all we know we had.

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word count - 1130

1000 words :) hope you enjoyed that it was actually a really fun chapter or write!

Charlotte xxx