Ride

Chapter 12- Guilt Tripping

Chapter 12- Guilt Tripping

"Hey, McQueen!" a familiar voice came through the phone as Lightning listened to his voicemail messages when he got home that night. "It's Cal. Cal Weathers. Um... I don't know why I said that. You know my last name. Anyway... Bobby, Brick and I were practising for the new season. We... we understand why you weren't there, but it sure wasn't the same without you. We were just wondering how Fudge was... and... and how you were, of course. I... Well... Give me a call when you get the chance... We're all here for you, you know that, right? Okay... Bye."

"Hey, Lightnin'. It's Rusty and Dusty. We're just callin' to let you know that there's no pressure to race next week. It's just... if you are going to race, we need to know as soon as possible. We hope you're doin' okay. Tell Fudge we're thinkin' of her."

Lightning sighed. He hadn't spoken to any of his racing buddies since before the holidays. He had been so focused on Fudge. Sure, they'd called, but with everything going on, he hadn't returned their calls.

Rusty and Dusty had made a good point, though. The first race of the season was only about a week away. Lightning hadn't given it any thought until he heard that message. He was going to have to call them back and tell them that he wasn't going to race.

"Hey, Stickers!"

The race car turned around to find a certain Porsche parked behind him.

"Hey, Sally."

"What were you doing? I hope I wasn't interrupting anything."

"No, no!" he assured her. "I just finished listening to my voicemails."

"Who called?"

Lightning told her about the calls he'd received.

"Are you going to race?"

"Of course not! How can I when Fudge is still in the hospital?!"

"Maybe it'll do you some good to take your mind off Fudge, though", Sally voiced her opinion. "Which is why I was wondering if you wanted to come to the Wheel Well with me. We could take a drive, have dinner, not worry about Fudge."

Lightning sighed. "Sure, Sally." It sounded like a good idea. He used to love going for drives and having dinner with Sally. He hadn't eaten or drunk properly in days or even weeks. Plus, Sally was probably right. It seemed like a good idea to forget about Fudge for a little while without drinking. He'd been thinking about her and suffering the pain for far too long.

"Well, let's go then."

As they rolled along, they stayed silent, unsure of what to even talk about. They weren't supposed to be thinking or talking about Fudge, but that was all they could think about. After all, she had taken up a lot of their time over the last six weeks and they hadn't been up to much else. What were they supposed to talk about?

When they arrived at the Wheel Well, though, Sally tried to make conversation with her boyfriend.

"Remember when we came here for dinner one time and Mater pretended to be our waiter just so he could spend time with you?" Sally asked, chuckling.

Lightning couldn't help smiling. Until he remembered something else. "Yeah... And... and Fudge was the maître d'."

"Yeah she was", Sally recalled, trying to remain upbeat. "That was right before the World Grand Prix, wasn't it?"

"Yeah... Yeah, it was... I still can't believe how that turned out."

"I don't think anyone can." Sally sighed, knowing that she had to change the subject fast. This was too close to talking about Fudge. After all, the human girl was involved in the reason that the whole WGP was so insane. "Remember the first time we came up here?"