Chapter Seventeen

I can still taste El's strawberry chapstick on my lips as I pull away, watching her parents basically drag her into their house. I drive away, wishing more than anything that we were still in that housing development she'd directed us to. Remembering how she climbed out of her seat and into my lap. Wishing her body was still draped over mine, her warm mouth smiling against my own as we got tangled up in the seat belt.

Eliana Blum.

A wild card indeed.

I touch a finger to my lips. Worth it.

I hope I didn't get her in trouble—her mom didn't look too pleased as I pulled out of sight—but at least we got Max's jacket back and got her address. What we're going to do with the information is a whole other question, but El has the jacket. Even if she can't hold her sister or find her, that has to count for something.

Once I'm out of El's driveway, I pull over and dig my phone out from between the front seats, where it fell while El and I were making out. Hoping she's texted me something cute or maybe sent an update that her parents aren't going to kill her, I swipe to my messages.

And.

Shit.

There's nothing from El, but there are fourteen missed calls from my dad and three from Grandma Jolene. (What was Grandma doing calling from Italy? She's six hours ahead of us, which means she's been calling since before dawn her time. Shit.)

There are also a heap of texts from both of them. The last one from Dad just reads:

Don't take the car back to the garage. Come straight home.

A cold dose of adrenaline—something I avoided when borrowing the car in the first place, driving it through town, and racing it—washes through me now, making my legs weak. Gone are all thoughts of El and her body wrapped around mine. Gone is the thrill of racing. All of those lovely things are replaced by a cold lump of dread. I'm in so much trouble.

Or maybe I'm not. Maybe this will just blow over. Dad hasn't had much energy to parent lately, and I can't see him taking up the charge now.

Right.

Surely I can talk my way out of this.

I take my time driving home, letting my arm hang out the window and relishing the warm evening breeze as it cools my sweat-soaked forehead. At least I'm driving. That's something. Everything slots into place with my hand on the wheel, and the car hums happily as I aggressively shift it and drive through a stretch of farmland between El's house and Grandma Jolene's.

I know I'm in big trouble the minute I pull up outside Grandma Jolene's house.

For one, all the lights in the house are on. For another, Dad sits on the front porch, smoking, which he hasn't done in months. As soon as I pull the Hornet into the driveway, he stubs his cigarette out in a nearly full ashtray and stands. The stale scent of cigarette smoke washes over me through my open window.

Letting out a breath full of nerves, I turn the car off. How bad can it be? It's not like Dad can ground me from volunteer club. And he doesn't even know about the F1 Academy application. And if he tries to stop me from seeing El, then I'll—

"JoJo Lucille Emerson-Boyd, get out of that car this minute." His voice cuts through my thoughts, and his use of my full name makes me wince. There's a controlled edge to his voice, a hint as sharp as a knife in a chef's hand. That edge, in someone who doesn't yell, tells me he's well and fully furious.

Keep moving, I hear my mother's voice in my head, reciting one of her earliest racing lessons. The only way forward is through and the faster you go, the sooner you'll get there.

I pull the keys from the ignition, retrieve my messenger bag from the back seat, and step out of the car. The door slams softly shut behind me and my boots crunch over the driveway's gravel as I walk toward the porch. "Hi, Dad."

He's in jeans and one of Mom's old racing T-shirts. A car with her number on the front sits superimposed over a bright blue shape of the state of North Carolina. It's such a little thing, to see him wearing one of her shirts like old times, but it makes my heart ache.

"Fun time at volunteer club?" he says archly.

I can't help but smile, trying to push my sadness down. "Fun time with the president of the volunteer club. Does that count?"

Dad doesn't crack. "Hardly. Sit."

He points to one of the rocking chairs on the porch, but I climb the steps and plop onto the porch railing. We've not fought or talked much in months and Mom was usually the one to ground me or come up with a punishment when I got into trouble, which was rare. Dad was usually happy to take a back seat to her, and even now, the strain of figuring out what to say makes his forehead crinkle.

Silence stretches between us, a great expanse filled up by the rustle of the breeze through the leaves of the twin oaks in Grandma Jolene's yard and the buzz of thousands of cicadas. The scent of the night-blooming jasmine that climbs a trellis on the far side of the porch floats on the air, delicate and seductive. I lick my lips, tasting El's chapstick again. Somehow I feel like a part of so many stories in this moment—the ones from my past, when Mom and I would sit on this porch and I would catch fireflies; and the one from right now, when I snuck out and kissed a girl after winning a race; and the ones in a future that hasn't happened yet, when Dad I might laugh about this moment someday. Thinking about that hypothetical future reminds me of the very real, tangible one I have tied to the form in my messenger bag. The one I still need to ask Dad about.

I slip the Hornet's keys into my pocket. "I'm guessing you already know where I've been?" I say, prompting Dad. The sooner we get through this, the sooner we can talk about other things.

Dad blows out a breath, finding his voice at last. "Mostly. Your grandmother got a call from Mabel Rae, her head mechanic, about an hour ago. Mabel Rae went back to the garage tonight to get her phone, and when she got there, the Hornet was gone. She panicked—"

Horror fills me, a shot of ice down the back of my neck, as I think of something that somehow hadn't occurred to me yet. "Did she call the police?"

Is borrowing Mom's car going to send me to jail? That would kill all my chances at the F1 Academy and likely mean I couldn't race or go to college—and what would it mean for El? She's going to hate me if—

"Mabel called Jolene first," Dad says, swiping a hand through his hair. "So slow those speeding thoughts of yours. Mabel Rae had a notion that you might have wanted to drive the Hornet. Says you've been working on it all week, so she called your grandmother in Italy first. Jolene called me—and you, I'd imagine."

I hold up my phone, showing him all the missed calls from Grandma Jolene.

Dad nods. "Yep. I told her you were with Eliana Blum. When we couldn't get you, Jolene called El's parents."

Shit. Shit. Shit.

"And El's parents told you I picked her up in the Hornet?"

"They told Jolene you picked El up in the Hornet," Dad confirms. "None of which you were supposed to be doing."

Shit.

My stomach plummets. El has to be in so much trouble. Which isn't really fair.

Getting defensive is a terrible idea; I know this. But I can't help it. I can't explain to Dad the real reason why I took the car or how important it was to get Max's jacket back. Or why I had to help El. Or what it means to have a friend or a connection to someone. Or what it was like to kiss a girl like El under the stars on a warm summer night.

"We didn't do anything wrong," I say, crossing my arms.

"That's a wildly untrue statement." Dad sits in a rocking chair and knocks another cigarette out of the pack. "You took a car that doesn't belong to you, from private property, drove it without a license, and did who-knows-what with it."

Ahhh. So he doesn't know about the street racing at least. We can keep it that way.

"Dad. You make it sound like I've never driven a car. Or like Mom wasn't letting me drive the Hornet two years ago when I had my learner's permit. You make it sound like I'm supposed to just sit around this house all the time, not doing anything!" I try to keep my voice level through this speech, but the last part comes out strained. Full of the hundreds of unsaid things I've held back over the last few months.

Dad flicks his lighter on and off. "I know all that, JoJo, but you can't steal a car."

"I didn't steal it."

"You borrowed it then?"

I give a brittle laugh. "It's practically mine anyway! Since you don't even drive anymore. Do you really think Mom would just want Betty sitting in the garage unused?"

Dad makes a choked sound at the car's nickname. His fingers fly to his wedding ring, which he twists around his finger. "Your mother isn't here to have an opinion on that."

"But she is!" I burst out. "She's all around us and you've forgotten all the things she liked!"

Dad's face crumbles at that accusation, but I can't stop myself. I push on.

"She would've hated that we're not racing! That we're not even driving! That all my dreams have had to change! I've not even told you this because I've been too scared to ask, but I've been carrying around an F1 Academy application for weeks, hoping you'll sign it." I pull the form out of my bag and wave it at him.

Confusion crosses Dad's face as he tries to follow everything I've said. One thing really seems to land with him. "You shouldn't be scared to ask me anything, Jo. I know we're not very close right now, but you can ask me anything. I want you to talk to me."

"Does this mean you'll sign it and let me follow my dream to be a race car driver?"

"Absolutely not." He brings the flame to his cigarette and inhales sharply.

"You have to sign it. Please."

"I won't, kiddo."

"This is my chance to make something of myself. To follow my dreams!"

He gets up to stand beside me. "You'll find other dreams, JoJo."

"I won't! This is what I've wanted since I was like five years old."

He stubs out his unsmoked cigarette. "I'm not signing the form."

"Dad, please! Do this for me. For Mom. For the life we had and the things we all wanted."

Tears fall down my cheeks as I say it, and I swipe at them. A long moment stretches between us, full of unsaid things. I turn to look at Dad.

"I can't keep you safe if you drive!" Dad says finally, his voice a jagged whisper. "Don't you understand that? If you race, then I could lose you, too!"

It breaks me to hear the tapestry of his grief in those sentences, but my grief is here, too, sitting beside us on the porch like a living thing.

"If you hold on to me too tightly, you'll lose me as well," I mutter. "Don't you see that? People like Mom and I, we're too fast and we're always furiously chasing something."

"Not if I can help it," Dad says, blinking away his own tears. "Now, give me the keys to the Hornet. You're not driving it again until you have a license." He holds out his hand.

Sullenly, I fish the keys from my pocket and put them in his open palm. "What about signing my F1 Academy form?" I ask, knowing it's an impossible request.

"Might as well tear it up. I'm never signing that."

I bite back all the hateful, angry things I want to say and shove the form back into my bag. "You're ruining my life."

"If that's what it takes to keep you safe, so be it. That's called tough love, and sometimes a parent has to do it. Now, get in the house and head to bed. We'll talk in the morning about the consequences of your actions."

I want to say more, but I don't. There's no point in arguing with him now and I'm only going to say things I regret if I stay on this porch a second longer.

I shouldn't have said those things to Dad, I know that, but unlike him, I'm not afraid of racing. I love the risk and the possibility in every race. I'm not even afraid of losing a race. No, what terrifies me is losing myself and the careful vision of my future that Mom and I had crafted over many, many racing training sessions, long talks about track conditions, and hundreds of mornings spent together, dreaming about when she'd come cheer me on after an F1 race.

The thought makes me get up from the air mattress I'm lying on and dig into my suitcase. Grandma Jolene gave me three drawers in her craft dresser, but a lot of my clothes are still in the suitcase I brought with me for the move. Digging past sweatshirts and winter sweaters, I pull a bundle out from the bottom of my suitcase. It's another of Mom's racing shirts, the twin to the one Dad has on in fact. It's folded around a tiny red jeweler's box that I've not opened in months.

Carefully, I pull back the T-shirt and rest my palm on the box.

Mom had given it to me the morning of her crash. The last morning of her life. Of course, neither of us knew at the time that it'd be her last morning, and we'd gotten up early like usual, letting Dad sleep as he'd been up late the night before watching race tapes. Mom and I had made coffee and eggs and taken them to the breakfast nook in the apartment we were staying in for the race.

"Are you excited to finally get your license?" Mom had asked as she slathered jelly on toast.

I'd shrugged, not feeling any sort of way about it. "It feels almost like an afterthought, to be honest. Like, I've been driving for so long, this is just the official piece of plastic that says I can do it off the track."

A soft smile had pulled at Mom's lips and she beamed at me. "It's a big deal though, JoJo. I still remember when I got my license. Great-Aunt Betty made me a caramel cake and let me drive her around town."

"I wish I could've met her."

"You would've liked her a lot, I imagine. Now, let me give you something before I start crying over Betty and my baby girl being nearly grown up." Mom had swiped at the tears in the corners of her eyes, and pulled the red jeweler's box out from her pocket.

She handed it to me.

"What's this?" I'd asked.

"Open it. You'll see."

Inside the box was a gold necklace with a tiny golden F1 car charm on the end. Its little wheels moved as I put my finger on them.

"It's perfect," I'd said, slipping it on.

"It's something to remind you of your dreams," Mom said, pulling me into a hug. "Even if I'm not always here to remind you, this little charm might do the trick."

We'd eaten our breakfast, gotten ready for the day, and then, a few hours later, Mom was gone in a fireball at the track.

I haven't worn the necklace since.

Slowly, I open the red jeweler's box. The little golden car is there, tangled up in the chain after I'd thrown it into the box on the night Mom died. I slip my finger in the chain, trying to unsnarl it.

"I miss you," I whisper to the air. I'm not sure if I believe in spirits, but I think I might. And in that moment, I feel Mom's arms wrap around me.

Dad might not want to sign the form, but Mom believed in me and my dream. I'll find another way to get to race. With that thought in mind, I untangle the necklace and put it on.

An hour later, after I'm settled in bed and reading, I get a text from El.

It's short, to the point, and sends a thrill of excitement through me.

El:I'm going to find Max. Want to come?

I fire off a reply immediately.

JoJo:Would love to, but I have no ride. Dad took the Hornet's keys

El's reply makes me want to kiss her.

El:No worries. I'm driving. Meet me at the bottom of your driveway in fifteen minutes

Not pausing to wonder if this is a good idea or not, and not considering how El is going to drive us to Richmond, Virginia, a town that's a few hours away—in the Oatmobile surely?—I throw a change of clothes, my toothbrush, and my wallet into my messenger bag. Then, I scrawl a note to Dad and leave it on my air mattress—Be back soon. Love you. ~JoJo—and open my window. It's nothing to tiptoe across the roof and climb down the metal garden lattice that covers one whole side of the house. I did it a hundred times as a kid and tonight, I don't even flinch when my hand slips and I slide the last few feet to the ground.

When El Blum pulls up on a racing bike ten minutes later, with an extra helmet on the back seat, that's what really makes my heart start racing.