Forbidden love in the kerchows of a Summer's sunset

Take a break

Tw: reference to drugs, portrayal of possibly unhealthy possible mental illness behaviours

I pop open my right door to grab a Kit Kat. I've eaten caviar with Kristen Chenowyth at the top of the Eiffel Tower, snacked on foie gras with David Bowie in the White House gardens and even drunk champagne that predates the motor engine in a submarine down the bottom of the marina trench - but I've never found anything like a Kit Kat.

"Would you like anything to drink sir?"  A stewardess asks me as she rolls up beside me, towing a snack cart behind her.

I keep my eyes down, hoping she can't see my windscreen under the wide brim of my sombrero style hat. I could do with a scotch but the less I interact the better - a screaming and fainting stewardess is not going to help me out right now.

"No thanks," I cough and speak throatily silently egging her to move along as quickly as possible in my head. I finally release my breathe as she rolls on to the car behind me.

I try to stay calm but keep feeling waves of anxiety roll over me. I move my eyes desperately seeking something to distract myself, the window is a little to my right so I can't see the ground but instead a sprig of bouncing clouds dotted on the bluey purple shades of an early morning sky. It's beautiful, but beauty's intrinsically unremarkable, that's what I've always thought anyway. So it barely even distracts me for a moment.

I look over to my phone lying on the ground just in front of me. It's on airplane mode and I'm already dreading the moment I take it off. At the moment my notifications are just an endless stream of emails I received earlier in the day about contracts and advertisers and interviews along with texts from my manager Gavin, my agent Nick, and coach Tammy as well as Stevie my PA. There's a couple snapchats, Chickhicks, speedywheels, becky and Ramone oh along with a bunch of random girls shooting their shot. Finally a dm from Mater, looks like it's some meme but I'll look later.

The stress of thinking about what my phone will be like when I finally reconnect to society honestly just makes it worse.

I look over at the flight attendant, her baby blue paint job's not been touched up in a while. I think of what a prick I must look - gleaming like I get my paint redone everyday, because I do.

She makes me think of Sally. Wow I miss sally like crazy. I hadn't thought about her in a few months but now it hits me like a human. She's spent the past two years in Guatemala saving Ford Fiesta tortoises, reviving natural ecosystems and bringing information and resources for switching to electric to the local people. Not only do I miss my friend but thinking about all she has done and is doing in contrast to how I've spent the past two years only deepens the discontent in my engine.

By then I'm lost in thought and simply wallow till the plane touches down.

"This is your plane Michael speaking and I'd like to thank you all for flying with me today and hope you a safe journey from here onwards!"

"Good afternoon Señor can I see your passport please?"

"Drive through the red area thanks sir have a good day!"

The sounds of a foreign tongue swim around me. Sure I've been abroad before but I've never felt like this, I see Hurtans and Sunreds, everywhere, Spaniards bartering in greengrocers, the sun beating down on me. Usually I don't really see the people, I'm here to race or to go to an event. It feels good to just drive down Spanish roads.

Finally I'm at the hotel. Cool hallways. Air conditioning. A little relief is nice after all that hot, I'll need to get a coat of sun cream put on at a garage salon, don't want my glossy layer to start peeling off.

I wave my card in front of my room door. The man at the desk was pretty rude so with any luck noones recognised me yet or realised that Rex OC Smith is a fake name. Or no one even cares what I do, it seems like that a lot of the time anyway. Or it feels like everyone cares every moment of everyday and I can feel their cares and worries like ants crawling over my tyres. 

I chuck my phone on the floor as far into the corner away from the bed as possible and drive onto the bed. What I need is sleep.

"Close blinds"

My eyelid windscreen comes down simultaneously with the windows. I wish I could just fall asleep forever. More likely I wont even get a minute.

I lie in the dark like this for three days. I don't move and I try not to think. Finally I can't wait any longer and go to the bathroom. The last thing I need is a hospital visit because I behaved like an idiot.

Once I've moved I decide to give up on the wallowing in the dark for a while and try taking a stroll rolling up and down the corridor or maybe somewhere more secluded if I can find it.

I check the time on my dash, 7:47 pm, yikes there'll be plenty of people about. Still I put on my hat and open the door. The corridor light is intense for a moment but my eyes adjust. I consider left or right. Who cares? I pick left.

My head feels like it's going to explode and every time I blink I see flashes of images in my head. Stevie being bombarded with emails and requests, Nick freaking out I'm missing my training. Gavin making angry phone calls across the country. The news that lightning mcqueen has gone missing finally hitting the news cycle. Vehicles across North America freaking out. Mater going on rambling searches through random woods every night in a well intentioned attempt at a search party. The news maybe even reaching sally?

These mingle with images of the life I'm trying so hard not to think about. Coke off of a hot mercedes's trunk. Nightmarish nights out that never seem to end but instead bleed into each other like cycles on a washing machine. Hundreds of thousands of people screaming for me and watching me. Voices constantly shouting at me inside and out. Girls chasing me down the streets. I'm always faster but there's so many. Illegally grown diesel oil. Highs that feel more like lows and trips that don't end in Spain but in misery. "Friends".

Classic story. Sorry I'm being so annoying.

I come back to the reality of the corridors I'm driving down suddenly when I hear the chattering of some Hyundai teen boys and girls around the corridor,

"OH MY GOD IM SO UPSET"

Shit.

"He's like my idol if something actually happened I'm LITERALLY gonna die."

"I just don't understand maybe he went crazy what if he's having a Britney moment?"

"He doesn't even have any hair though..."

Double shit.

Frantically I look around, the voices are growing closer, and I'm completely lost. I must've gone far from my hotel room while I was distracted cause I don't recognise anything around me. Just as I hear the voices about to turn the corner I reverse rapidly and burst through the open doors to the service lift and frantically press the close button with my bumper. The doors close and I heave a sigh of relief.

The lift starts carrying me upwards, I try to stay calm. It's fine. I'll just get out wherever it drops me and take the stairs back down. When the doors open I roll out only to find myself on the hotel roof. It's summer so light is abundant and though it's chillier than it would've been earlier the temperature is a perfect warm glow to me. I drive over to the edge of the building. It's the tallest one around so I can see the roofs of all the other buildings around here. Some of them have rooftop pools where cars swim along with baby cars in floaties and on pool noodles. I can see the beach, not too far from here, still with plenty of people on it soaking up rays. The wind up here is nice. For the first time in a little bit I feel a little sense of clarity.

A cough.

I swivel around to see a car in all black with a little white thing just under his windscreen, he's wearing a chaplain uniform thing.

We catch eyes.

I catch my breathe.

"I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to be up here," he purrs in a gruff British accent.

To be continued....

A/N hope you all enjoyed that this is a lightning mcqueen x my chaplain from school but as a car fan fiction, let me know what you want to happen next! Xxxx