Against You

Oscar

Oscar POV

My first crash was a big one. It was back in Formula Renault when I was battling for the title against Lando, Alex and some others. The championship was close, but things were easy back then. Opponents were your friends, podiums were no higher than your knees and the champagne was just golden lemonade.

Then I crashed.

I was garlic in the crusher. A torpedo hit my skull, my lungs became a vacuum. It was the loudest noise I've ever heard and the quickest I've ever fallen asleep.

I opened my eyes surrounded by family, flowers and wires. So many wires. Everyone were overjoyed to see me wake up, but I was terrified. All I could think about were my friends. Where were they? Was anyone else hurt in the crash?

They told me it was only me.

My ankle had snapped, my ribs had been broken and my right clavicle, that horizontal bone across the front of my shoulder, had imploded. It showed that the seat belt had done its job holding me in place, so doctors called it the injury that saved my life. I called it the injury that ruined it. Everything else healed, but that put me out of racing for the rest of the season and burned my dreams of winning the title.

I was lost, all my friends racing together back in England while I rotted at home in Melbourne unable to do anything for myself. For the first week I couldn't even hold a games controller properly. Without even video games to compete at, I felt like nothing. Everything I was had been taken from me.

And Lando didn't even message me.

Some people said they were sorry. Some people wished me a speedy recovery. Some people wanted to visit or bring souvenirs or dedicate their wins to me. Not Lando. Lando didn't even check whether I was alive.

We had been friends for years, spent our childhoods together and seen each other through success and defeat. The only explanation was that he was still hurting from the unexpected death of his father. I guessed he just needed more time to heal, then he would reach out. Then we would be best friends again. He had been at home grieving when it happened, he didn't see what happened to me. I told myself that maybe he hadn't heard about the crash at all. But when he rejoined the grid after three weeks I knew he was choosing to ignore me.

I recovered alone on the opposite side of the word.

Every day that I rested, every pitying look I got on the street, every sob story article they wrote about me. Every simulator race I lost to my younger brother because of pains coming up through my leg. They forced me to get tougher. They forced me to be self-sufficient. They forced me to become a winner.