Chapter 11: You Were Scared

He found me twenty minutes later.

I was still near the back of the garage, camera hanging from my neck like dead weight, pretending to review images that blurred every time I tried to focus. The crew had moved on. The damaged front wing was already off the car. Life around the team had returned to its usual controlled rhythm.

Mine hadn’t.

Rex approached without calling my name. He simply stopped in front of me, close enough that I had to look up. The undershirt still clung to him. There was a faint line of dust along his jaw he hadn’t bothered to wipe away. His eyes were steady and intent, like he had used the time with the engineers to decide exactly how this conversation would go.

“Not here,” I said under my breath.

“Then walk.”

I followed him out past the service area to the same quieter stretch of paddock we had used before. The sun had shifted. The air carried the sharp smell of cooling brakes and fuel. Rex stopped and turned to face me, arms loose at his sides, posture deceptively calm.

“Say it,” he said.

“Say what?”

“That you were scared.”

I let out a short breath that was almost a laugh. “You’re not going to let this go.”

“No.”

“It was a spin. Drivers spin. I reacted. That’s all.”

“You went pale. Your hands shook. For a few seconds you looked like someone had reached into your chest and stopped your heart.” His voice stayed even, but there was an undercurrent that made the words land harder. “That wasn’t professional concern. That was fear. For me.”

I crossed my arms, more for something to do with my hands than for protection. “You’re inflating it.”

“I’m describing it.” He took a step closer. “I’ve spent years listening to you call me reckless. Arrogant. A liability in human form. Today you looked at my car sideways in the runoff and forgot how to breathe. Those two versions of you can’t both be true in the way you want them to be.”

My pulse thudded in my throat. The denial sat ready on my tongue, polished from years of use. It felt thinner than usual.

“People react to crashes,” I said. “Even small ones. It doesn’t mean what you think it means.”

“Then explain it to me.”

“I don’t have to explain anything to you.”

“You do if you want the deal to keep working the way it’s been working.” His eyes held mine. “Or we can go back to the version where I start reconsidering how much Ethan deserves to know.”

The quiet threat tightened something behind my ribs. I looked away toward the distant grandstands, jaw set.

“I was startled,” I said finally. “The car was sideways. Dust everywhere. From my angle it looked worse than it was. My body reacted before my brain caught up. That’s the entire story.”

Rex was silent for a moment. When he spoke again his voice had dropped.

“You’re still lying. But you’re not as good at it as you used to be.”

I turned back to him. “What do you want from me? A confession that I care whether you live or die? Fine. I care. You’re my brother’s best friend. You’re a driver on a team I work around. It would be strange if I watched a car spin and felt nothing.”

“That’s the safe version.” He shook his head once. “Try again.”

Anger flared, bright and defensive. “You’re pushing too hard.”

“I’m pushing because every time I do, something real comes out.” He closed more of the distance between us. “The jealousy with Victoria. The way you watch me when you think I’m not paying attention. The look on your face when the car let go. You’re running out of places to hide, Aria.”

The air between us felt thick. I could smell the track on his skin, the heat that still clung to him after the session. It dragged me back to the lounge, to the night everything had started to unravel. I hated how easily my body remembered.

“This is still just a deal,” I said. The words came out quieter than I intended. “Access for cooperation. That’s all.”

“Is it?”

“Yes.”

Rex studied me for a long moment. Something shifted in his expression, a quiet certainty settling into place.

“I don’t believe you,” he said. “And I’m starting to think the hatred was never real at all.”

The statement hit harder than the spin had. For years I had built myself around that public story. The sharp comments. The eye rolls. The careful distance. Hearing him say out loud that he no longer bought it felt like someone had reached in and pulled at the foundation.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

“I know what I see.” His voice was low and steady. “I know what you looked like today. I know what you looked like with my jacket against your face. I know the difference between someone who genuinely can’t stand me and someone who’s been using contempt as a shield. You’re the second one. You’ve been the second one for a long time.”

I had no answer that wouldn’t dig the hole deeper. Silence stretched between us. In the distance an engine fired up and then cut off. The normal sounds of the circuit felt like they belonged to a different world.

Rex exhaled slowly.

“I’m not asking you to define it right now,” he said. “I’m telling you that I see it. And I’m not going to pretend I don’t.”

“What does that mean for the deal?”

“It means the deal just got more honest.” He stepped back half a pace, giving me space that didn’t feel like relief. “Keep the access. Keep showing up. Keep doing the work. But stop expecting me to believe the version of you that claims indifference. That version died in the runoff today.”

My throat felt tight. “You’re rewriting things to suit yourself.”

“I’m updating them to match reality.” His gaze moved over my face one more time. “You were scared for me. Own it or don’t. Either way, I already know.”

He turned and started walking back toward the garage. After a few steps he paused and looked over his shoulder.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said. “Same clearance. Same proximity. Try not to look so surprised when the car does what cars sometimes do. I’ll be watching your face either way.”

Then he was gone.

I stood alone in the paddock with the fading heat of the day settling around me and the echo of his words repeating in my head. I’m starting to think the hatred was never real at all.

The worst part wasn’t that he had said it.

The worst part was how little fight I had left to prove him wrong.

I walked back to the garage on unsteady legs, collected the rest of my gear, and left before anyone could ask why I looked like someone had delivered news I wasn’t ready to hear. The drive home passed in a blur of traffic and looping thoughts. Every time I closed my eyes I saw the car sideways in the dust and the look on Rex’s face when he told me the old version of me was gone.

That night I sat on the edge of my bed with the camera in my lap, scrolling through the day’s images without really seeing them. There were frames of the spin from a distance, the dust, the car correcting. I had kept shooting even while my hands shook. The evidence was right there on the memory card.

My phone lit up.

I almost didn’t reach for it.

Rex: You can keep denying it if it helps you sleep.

Rex: But we both know what I saw.

Rex: And Aria

Rex: I’m not going back to believing the act.

Rex: Not after today.