Shifting Gears

18. Crash and Clash

It did, in fact, rain. It poured. For two days straight, it was a muddy mess outside. They canceled practices, and on Wednesday night, the rain finally paused—apparently it was enough for the officials to let practices resume Thursday afternoon, claiming twenty hours of no rain made the track dry enough to let fifty dirtbikes destroy it.

I had spent the past couple of days brooding in my room, finishing up some work for my honors application at college, and avoiding my brother and parents. The morning after the gala, I was eating breakfast at the bar talking with my mom, and Clay had come downstairs, his hair a mess, bags under his eyes, and quite obviously favoring his left shoulder.

"What happened to you?" I asked, eyebrow raised at him over my strawberry cream cheese with a side of bagel.

He glanced at me, his face already in a scowl. "Nothing."

"Did you crash?" my mom asked, walking over to him with a concerned expression.

"I just laid the bike down, that's all," he muttered, going to grab some coffee. A straight-up lie, especially as I watched him wince when he reached up to the cupboard to grab a mug. But I didn't push it, as my mom apparently believed him.

I looked back down at my breakfast, shoving another bite of glorious cream cheese into my mouth. My chewing paused abruptly as I heard my brother ask, "Why'd you decide to go early with mom and dad to the gala yesterday?"

I glanced at him, and he had a genuinely quizzical look on his face.

"Um—"

"What do you mean?" my mom interrupted, frowning at Clay, then at me. "She took the Ford."

Clay frowned now, his eyes peering to the side as if trying to recall something. "What? I could've sworn that was still in the shed when I got back."

"No, I took it," I said quickly, having finished my mouthful of bagel.

Clay's eyes narrowed at me. I spoke too quickly, he knew that. He opened his mouth to talk, but my dad came into the kitchen so he plopped it shut. I took the opportunity to down the rest of my food in about two seconds then threw the dish in the washer and scurried up the stairs to my room.

And that's pretty much where I spent the next couple of days. It was quiet. I enjoyed the rain, flew through a lot of books (and coffee). There was no word from Greyson.

Not that I expected there to be. I hadn't seen him since the gala—I realized I had gotten used to seeing him almost everyday what with practices and races and tutoring.

But finally, on Thursday, they said practices were on. "Expect mud, but we're doing it today—rain or shine," was their official word.

As I stood at the fence line of the track, waiting for my brother to drive by, I hugged myself tighter. I had a thick hoodie on—which I thought I'd be grateful for, but it had already started to sprinkle right when we got to the track. Not enough to cancel practice, but enough to make the thick cotton sweatshirt heavy and uncomfortable on me.

My damp hair was curling around my face, a frizzy mess that I had attempted to pull back in a braid. My tennis shoes were wet, and I had left my umbrella in my car—and with the race starting in mere minutes and I had ibuprofen in my hand that Clay had asked me to grab and bring to the track, I decided to just leave it and run there after.

As if laughing at me, the rain seemed to pick up.

Racers were piling up to the gate. It was going to be a muddy practice. Tires were already starting to dig through the layer of dry dirt to the mud underneath, and I saw a few people slide out as they revved against the ground.