#2ndp

When you're old enough to start karting, people talk to Mama and Papa at the circuit, and you stand, bored and impatient as you wait for them to finish so you can drive.

They say, You look so alike! to you and Mama, and they lean down to say, But you're fast like your papa, huh?

You stomp your foot, nose crinkled. Say, Mama's fast too!

They blink in surprise, but Mama smiles, soft, and when you get into the kart, you try to make her smile again. Try to be fast just like her.

-

You think that Vic looks like the plastic-wrapped ham that Mama gets from the store when she's a baby. Wrinkled and pink, too chubby to do anything other than gurgle and wave.

Once she starts to look more like a person, the comments start coming in: You look so alike!

On one occasion, someone, a laugh in their voice, says, Wow, you two must be twins!

You jump to your feet, face hot. Wag your finger, like Mama does when she's telling you off for making a mess, before she smooths your hair out and kisses you on the forehead.

No! I'm big, and she's just a baby! I won a race last week, and she doesn't even know her alphabet!

The person walks off with a chuckle, and you sit back down next to Vic, hard. Cross your arms. Blow a raspberry after them, because you know it always makes Vic laugh.

Vic squeals and bubbles in delight, blowing messy raspberries of her own.

You smile and blow another, the quirk of your lips making it come out choppy.

Vic reaches up, still grinning wide, and brushes a chubby baby hand down your nose. Your nose, just the same as hers.

-

Nobody ever tells you you look like Papa. He starts bringing you to the track more and more by himself, and you run to keep up with him, helmet knocking against your legs. Try to arrange your face into a scowl to mimic his.

But you're not so good at scowling, and when Papa yells at you for taking too long to undo the clasps on your helmet, fingers awkward, your face drops, and you look more like Mama instead, eyes wet and corners of your mouth turned down at Papa's harsh words.

Nobody ever tells you you look like Papa, but sometimes people tell you that you're fast like him. So you buckle the clasps on your helmet all by yourself and press your foot down on the accelerator harder. Hope that you can make Papa smile. Hope that maybe then you'll look like him.

-

Mama and Vic leave. Or maybe you do. It's hard to be sure; everything blurs together through your teary eyes.

Mama hugs you tight; gives you a watery smile that you try desperately to return, but the corners of your mouth keep wobbling, pulling down.

You watch hers do the same. Smile just the same as yours, like always.

When she leaves (when you leave), you wonder if she's taking your smile away with her. (You wonder if you're taking hers.)

-

You go to the track again and again and again. When you look in the mirror, you don't see Mama's smile, but you see her tired eyes, and you see Vic's brows pinch together on your forehead.

You see the way your hair starts to curl around your ears like Mama's does, now that she's not around to trim it for you, gentle fingers tucking it out of the way. Wonder, for a moment, how long you can go without cutting it—how much longer you can coax the curl.

Later that week, you spin off the track in your kart as the rain starts to patter down quick. Papa wrenches your helmet off your head as soon as your fingers fumble open the clasp. Rips off your balaclava; digs his fingers into your hair, gripping tight, hands large and rough.

You find yourself in front of the bathroom mirror, scissors in hand, trying to forget the way Papa's eyes had looked, cold as ice.

His blue eyes the same as yours.

-

The first time someone tells you you look like Papa, you can hear in their tone that it's meant to be a compliment—meant to be in good faith.

But you feel the scowl heavy on your eyelids and curled in your upper lip, and you always wanted to be like Papa, but you wanted to do it smiling.

But Mama took your smile with her when she left, and maybe you took hers too, but you lost it somewhere along the way, and now all you're left with is Papa's mouth in a hard line on the top step, and Papa's icy blue eyes in the mirror.

A voice echoes in your ears, light and unassuming: You look just like your father!

You throw up in the dark.

-

You don't know, at the time, that your final race in karts will be your last.

And you don't know, at the time, that it will be unfinished, incomplete—a disqualification and a championship loss and a tense eight-hour flight, sitting carefully to not disturb the silence and the bruises.

You don't know how it will end. You just sit in the kart, like always; fasten your clasps and knock down your visor, where nobody can see the scowl hanging heavy over blue eyes.

You go fast, like Mama. (Like Papa.) Like always.

But you don't know that it's the last time. And you'll go fast again, but you'll never again sink into your kart and see Mama behind you in your mirrors, chasing you down, smiling wide.

You move to single-seaters, and you go even faster, and you leave her behind in the dust. Leave her again and again and again.

-

You meet with Christian, one-on-one. He says that he raced against your mama in karts. Says that she was good. Really good.

He says that you race just like her.

(It's been so long since anybody said you were just like your mama.)

He says that he wants to give you an opportunity to do what he and she never did. To go faster still.

You take it.

-

Before Toro Rosso was Toro Rosso, it was called Minardi.

Your father drove for Minardi.

It was your father's last team. It's your first. He scored no points in their car. You score 49.

There's a team member who survived the Minardi buyout and stayed on for the dozen years it took for you to see your name printed on the side of an F1 car.

When you first meet, he tells you you're just like your father.

The rest of the team's introductions get reduced to static in your ears.

-

Your mama comes to watch you race.

The whole weekend, you wait for the once-familiar words to come, but they don't.

(You wonder exactly when you changed into someone unrecognizable.)

-

You win, and for a moment, it feels like maybe you evened the score. You left your mama behind a long time ago, but now you've left your father behind, too, a step below you on the podium and over a decade in the past.

But the interviewer calls you down from the top step and asks you about how proud he must be.

You can't help the way your mouth twists, and even though you try to lock the anger away tight in your jaw, it only brings you closer to him.

-

The engine dies and dies and dies beneath you.

It's your fault, every time. And you always keep your hair short, nowadays, but it's not short enough, because you can still feel your father's fingers on your scalp, on your wrists, on your chin.

Every time you get into the cockpit, you grip the wheel as tight as you can, like you can hold the car together through willpower alone.

Every time it breaks beneath you, you slam your hands down, hard.

(Every time you look at your wheel, it's littered with the deep blue ghosts of bruises.)

-

You hear it all the time, now—how you're just like your father. Too angry, too risky, too harsh.

You crash, and you crash, and you crash, and your father's hand is around your arm, too tight, and his voice is in your ear, words sharp, and his scowl is on your face, etched in deep.

Christian says something needs to change.

You walk home from the track, where you've fucked up again (again, again, again). Turn on all the lights in your apartment and stare at your reflection, hands gripping the countertop, tight.

Your father's eyes stare back.

You want to rip your skin off. But you know the resemblance runs much deeper than that.

You want to rip your beating heart right out of your chest.

-

Everybody leaves. Or maybe you do. It's hard to be sure.

You're the one who's still with Red Bull, but it's your dust everyone else is choking on.

Maybe you aren't meant to have something that lasts.

-

Kelly never mentions your father unless you bring him up.

In return, you never mention hers.

It's easy not to—when you look at her, everything else falls away. All you see is the most beautiful person in the world, the love of your life, eyes warm and playful, sweet lips coming in to meet your own. There are no traces of anybody else in her face, except for lovely little P, who has her dark hair and her dark eyes and her chin.

(P, of course, doesn't look like you at all.)

You never ask Kelly what she sees when she looks at you. You're afraid of the answer.

-

The championship looks within reach.

Your father is let back into the garage.

You thought you'd be stronger, now, than when you were a child, but it hurts just the same as always.

-

When you slam into the barriers, it feels, just for a moment, like coming home.

-

The pain, honestly, isn't that bad. You're well used to climbing into the car and ignoring the way your body screams.

Once you're on the track, everything drops away anyway, and the only parts of you that matter are your hands on the wheel and your feet on the pedals.

The pain isn't that bad, but your vision—that's a different issue. The circuit sways before you, blurring. You try to look for familiar landmarks, but all the turns are alien, twisting the wrong way.

When you climb out of the car, you massage your temples and breathe deep, but nothing works.

You hear a voice, and you look up, squinting. Across the garage, you see your father, face pinched tight.

You flinch. Your reflection flinches back.

-

When you win, your father pulls you in, and you pull right back. Claw your hands into the fabric of his sweater, tuck yourself into the crook of his shoulder the best you can with your helmet in the way.

He tries to pull away, but you don't let him. You keep your grip on him so tight it must be bruising.

(He's the only person who ever stayed. You only know of permanence when it hurts.)

-

You start seeing Mama and Vic more.

You start seeing your father less.

You grow your hair out, just a bit.

But you take your helmet off after pulling into the P2 spot, and you run your hand through your hair, unmussing it, trying to keep the scowl off your face, and your fingers catch—momentary tangle. Your fingers catch and snag and pull, and for a second, your hands aren't your own, though they're still familiar: large and rough.

At home, Kelly carefully snips your hair back into place, her fingers long and gentle and steady. Her voice replaces the one that's been looping in your head since parc fermé.

P pouts that she won't be able to tie your hair up into tiny pigtails anymore, and you can't find the words to placate her past the lump in your throat.

-

Lio has Vic's nose.

When you tell her, voice soft and reverent, she laughs, and it comes out like a sob.

Funny, she says, running a gentle finger down the bridge of yours. I thought the same thing.

-

P asks if she can go karting for her birthday. It's the first time you ever raise your voice in front of her.

(The words sound like they're coming from somewhere distant. Somewhere a thousand miles away, years ago.)

She blinks back tears, and you drop to your knees; pull her in close.

The apologies you kiss into her hair are choked out in a voice you've never heard before. (Your father never said Sorry.)

-

Some fan with a paddock pass and cell phone camera set to selfie mode catches up to you as you're walking to the garages with Mama.

Oh my god, they say, breathless, hand dipping down, eyes wide. You two look so alike!

Mama gets pulled into the picture too, and when you curl the corners of your mouth up, your joy is genuine.

You find the photo later, on X, and you stare at the imprints of you and Mama, pressed side by side. Your smile on her face; her smile on yours.

-

When you hold Lily for the first time, she's so small you're afraid you'll crush her, hands too large and rough.

But she slots into your arms, easy, and she blinks up at you, completely silent.

Hallo, kleintje, you whisper.

She looks like you, Kelly says.

You blink. Lily follows suit. Her eyes are clear and blue and wide.

She's so beautiful. She's so small.

The tears come before you can stop them. Salt water drips off the point of your nose, collects in the nook above your lips. Your throat closes, and your shoulders shake, but your arms around Lily are steady.

Kelly's hand is warm on your back.

Lily's gaze stays serenely upwards, locked onto you.

Goo/goo/ier/ier/gooiers

Phonetic spelling: goo / goo / ee-ur / ee-ur / goo-ee-ur-self

IPA spelling: ˈgu / ˈgu / iʊr / iʊr / ˈguiʊr-ˈsɛlf

Useage: Goo went to the store by gooierself, but goo accidentally took ier sibling's wallet with goo. Goo still got everything goo wanted, though, because goo told the cashier the wallet was iers.

Flag and coining by @m-grouped

Term coined on January 10th, 2023

Flag made in January 11th, 2023

Your fingers tighten around your trophy as he stumbles towards you; says, too loud, "Good job, boy!"

He pats you on the back, and even when he's happy with you, his hands land heavy.

"Papa." You grab him with the hand not on the trophy, and haul him to the van. Away from all the eyes. Your heart is pounding in your chest. "Papa. Where are the keys?"

It takes him a moment to fish them out of his pocket. He says to you, "You drove well today. I fucking taught you that. I remember when I was in karts. I would have smoked the fucking lot of you."

You ignore him. Unlock the van, throw your trophy into the back, and push him into the passenger seat.

Your finger twitches for just a moment before you roll down the windows.

"Stay here," you tell him.

He says, "Next time, maybe you'll even get fastest lap, huh, Max?"

Your hands are shaking when you lean down to grab your kart. It takes you an hour to drag it to the van all by yourself.

At least, you think, Papa might be sobered up enough to help you load it into the back.

You should know better. Another bottle of beer is clutched loosely in his hand when you open the door.

"Papa." Your voice breaks on the single word.

"What the fuck took you so long? Only quick in the kart, are you?"

You load the kart into the back yourself and wipe your tears with your own shaking fingers.

Papa's curled up asleep by the time you're done. The sun is setting. The carpet mat by his feet is damp with beer. You crawl into the driver's seat and shake him awake.

"What the fuck do you want, Max?" he snaps, eyes not even opening.

"Papa. We have to go home tonight. You have that meeting tomorrow, remember? You said it was important."

Your father waves a hand. "Just fucking—you can drive, can't you? I taught you how to win, and you can do that; I taught you how to drive a damn car, too. It's not that far. Just don't get stopped by the cops for driving like an idiot."

You sit back on your heels. Dig the heels of your palms into your eyes. Take a deep breath in and out, and ignore the way it shakes.

Your father taught you how to drive laps around a parking lot and up and down your suburban street in the sedan sitting in your driveway at home. He taught you how to throw a kart around the corners and extract every millisecond possible from a lap. He did not teach you how to drive your van twenty kilometers in the dark.

But he's starting to snore beside you, horrible and loud. And you don't have any other choice.

You have to stretch your legs out for your toes to brush against the pedals, and you can barely see the edge of the road through the windshield overhead. The wheel is unfamiliar in your grip—too big and too round. Your hands are shaking.

In your sleep, your father mutters, "Fucking—go faster."

You flinch, and you do as he says.

-

There's alcohol on your father's breath again.

He stumbles in, late and loud. You shift in the tiny cot at the foot of the bed that's been empty for half the night, and try not to think about how stiff you'll be in the car in the morning.

"Papa?" you say, squinting against the bright lights being flicked on, voice hushed. "Papa. Could you please be a bit quieter?"And you know that it's not enough to ask for yourself, to just want to sleep in your shitty cot in your shared hotel room, so you try to appeal to his better senses. "I'm driving tomorrow."

Your father stumbles over. The light's still on, too bright. He kicks the leg of your cot, and you lurch.

"Jeez, Max, lighten the fuck up. Stop being such a prude bitch."

Behind him, Raymond howls with laughter.

"But—" you start before you can stop yourself. Because there is a but. But, it's after midnight. But, you've never driven this track before. But, you thought this was what your father wanted—for you to be in F1; for you to be taking it seriously. (How many times has he yelled about how fucking lazy you are just because you're relaxed going into a race?)

"But, but, but," your father mocks. "Quit with the whining. You'll be fine. I went out drinking before half my damn races—if you fuck up because you missed a little sleep, that's on you. I thought I trained you better than that."

You don't say anything. He did, is the thing. You know how to perform well in the car on no sleep.

But it doesn't mean you want to have to.

"Okay," you whisper. "Sorry, Papa."

Your father snorts and kicks the leg of your cot again as he stumbles away. "Go the fuck back to sleep, Max, if it's so goddamn important."

You flinch, and you try to do as he says.

-

There's alcohol on your father's breath again.

He stumbles on his way out of the police station, yelling over his shoulder, voice too loud in your ear where you're propping him up, dragging him to your car.

It's easier to maneuver him into the passenger seat than it's ever been. Your feet meet the pedals easily, and you can see the whole world out the windshield.

Your hands still shake on the wheel.

"Took you long enough," you hear your father say, his voice hot against the window. "I thought you were supposed to be fast."

You don't respond. You never do.

You haul him into his bed, force some water down his throat, and turn the lights off.

"I have to go, Papa," you whisper. "I'm supposed to be at the factory this week."

"Of course you do." Your father's voice drips with venom. "You know what you are, Max? Ungrateful. I fucking—did everything for you. You only have that seat because of me. You know that? I built you, boy. I built you."

Your heart pounds. Right now, you feel like you're built out of nothing but tar and ash.

"Just—go, Max. Fucking go."

They clear you within minutes, with barely a second glance. As soon as the doctor turns away, you turn your hand over in your lap. Open and close your fist again—fingers fully extended and then closed in tight. Try to hold it as long as you can.

It's not long enough.

But they cleared you easily, scans showing nothing. Hands not broken. The car may be, but you are not—at least, according to the X-rays. According to the doctor who peers down at your closed fist as you hold it for one second, two, three.

(Not long enough.)

You thank them, and you get up, and you go to leave, but you reach for the handle, and your fingers twitch, hovering, and you can't force yourself to close them—not yet.

You take one hand into the other. Rub at your knuckles, thumb pressing hard into your palm.

It aches, and it's not an ache you're used to.

They clear you, and they say nothing's broken, but they've been wrong before. You've been cleared before.

You won the championship back in 2021, even with the world warping around you, magma-hot spike between your eyes. But back then, it had been another car clipping your wheel, sending you over the gravel. And you had been broken, but the car had been fixed, and in the end it had carried you home.

It's your own car, this time, crashing you into the barriers. Rear axle lock with no reason why.

They say you're not broken—X-rays clear. You wonder if, this time, the car can be fixed. Wonder if you can carry it home.

Your thumb digs in deeper. Lightning shoots up into your fingertips, down into your palm, sharp and hot.

They say you're not broken. But they've been wrong before.

Could you win again, if you were? If you were broken, and the car was too? If you turned the wheel and the axle locked and your hands locked, sparks of pain shooting through your fingers?

You could barely see the championship in 2021 through your blurry vision, but you had never taken your hand off the trophy.

Now, you close your fist in tight, and you hold it as long as you can, but it's not long enough.

And they asked you if you felt any pain, and you said, not really, because of course you did. Muscle memory—keep your hands on the wheel; hit the radio button and say you're okay.

You're okay.

You were okay in 2021 as well. Cleared by the doctors, and you gave them a smile—grin and bear it.

And it was worth it, back then. To ignore the spinning vision and the pounding headache. To keep your mouth shut and drive. But now, your hands are worth so much more than how tightly they can hold a trophy, a wheel.

You close your eyes. Lean forward, slow, and rest your head against the medical center door. Imagine flying home and picking up your daughter. Imagine your hands spasming, pain in every nerve.

Your hands are worth more, now, than how well they can hold a wheel. And you are worth more, now, than how fast you can drive.

(Your daughter is worth more than everything this sport has to offer and then some. Worth more than everything in the world.)

But the thing is... The thing is, you don't need a fist to hold your daughter. You don't need fingers closed in tight.

You loosen the pressure on your knuckles, and the pain recedes. Your thumb massages over your palm, gentle, fingers flexing.

Could you win if you were broken? If the car was, too? If your hands couldn't stay gripping tight on the wheel; if they couldn't stay gripping tight on the trophy?

Does it matter? If you can fly home and pick up your daughter, hands soft and open?

You sigh. Thump your head against the door.

It's all irrelevant anyway. They cleared you easily—nothing broken. You're not broken.

You reach for the door handle. Fingers hovering.

Another reporter shoves a microphone under your nose, asking if the reason you performed so badly today was because you didn't get enough sleep last night.

You can barely hold back your snort of laughter. What a stupid question. Any sleep at all is more than enough. You've driven through worse.

-

You lose pole position, you lose the race, you lose the championship.

Papa pulls out his stopwatch and tells you you're not getting out of the kart until you've beaten pole by two seconds.

By the time you crash into the wall, your hands are shaking so badly you can no longer turn the wheel, and you can't stop the steady stream of tears soaking into the fabric of your balaclava. You're so tired it hurts.

You find yourself wishing you'd crashed harder. Maybe an endless sleep would be better than this.

-

Kelly doesn't love the documentaries you watch, but she's still curled into your side, scrolling through her phone on the couch. You have the subtitles set to Portuguese, and every once in a while you'll ask her how to pronounce a word, and she'll snicker at the prospect of you ever needing to know how to say loan shark to her family.

There's a section about interrogation, and the narrator, in his slow, calm voice, lists sleep deprivation within the same breath as pulling out people's fingernails with pliers.

You pause the documentary and can't find the words to answer Kelly when she asks you what's wrong.

-

After all the fireworks have fizzled out, and the champagne stops spraying, and the golden confetti is being swept away, all you can think about is how tired you are.

You get on the first flight home, but though you close your eyes, you don't get a moment of sleep the whole way.

-

After Silverstone, a lot of people ask a lot of stupid questions. But if they're dumb enough to ask if you're alright after a 51g impact sideways into the wall, then they're dumb enough to believe you when you say yes.

Besides, what is alright, really? You can still drive.

GP asks you in Abu Dhabi, voice jittery even though he's clearly trying to hide it, if you slept alright last night.

You stare at him. You haven't slept a full night since you went into the wall, even though it feels like your eyelids are always on the verge of falling shut. You don't let them.

You tell him yes. What is alright, really?

You've driven through worse.

-

You close your eyes down the straight—just for half a second, long blink—and when you open them, the front of your kart is colliding with the rear of another. Your foot finds the brake too late. You can still barely hold your eyes open as you careen into the grass.

Your race is over, but you still have to force your heavy limbs to move—to clamber out of the broken kart. You don't want anybody thinking you're terribly injured and have you sent to the hospital. Papa would kill you.

On the other hand, maybe if he does, you can finally get some rest.

-

For your fifteenth birthday, you spend the day at the racetrack.

Papa shakes you awake before dawn, and you barely have time to grab a banana on your way out the door.

You start your first lap as the sun rises.

You finish your last one as it rises again.

On the drive home, your head wilts towards the window, and Papa snaps at you to keep your eyes open. You've forgotten what it feels like to have them closed.

-

Papa yells, but he sounds underwater. His nails dig harshly into your arms as he drags you back to your tent, but it feels far away. Everything is tingly and numb.

Papa is good at what he does, though. He's good at making you learn. And by the time you're loading your broken kart into the back of the van, he's found a way to make you feel his hands.

You wipe the drops of blood off your kart before shutting the boot.

-

You stop blinking behind the wheel.

-

When Papa doesn't accompany you to races, he never pays much attention to time zones. He'll call you at 2am, or 3, or 4—whatever works best for him.

When you were younger, you set a special ringer for him so you'd always wake up when he called.

Nowadays, the only people allowed through your phone's Do Not Disturb are Kelly, Vic, and Mama. Even so, they never interrupt your sleep.

-

Your definition of alright, for as long as you can remember, has been based on your ability to drive.

Sometimes, you think that you'll only stop being alright when you're dead.

-

Standing on the second step, you scowl, sharp contrast to the smiling faces to your left.

Down below, parents and team members cheer and clap, with pride and politeness both, but your eyes find the one man out of place. In the middle of the crowd, Papa's steely eyes are locked onto you, even as he speaks on the phone.

No doubt, he's cancelling your hotel reservation. You'll be driving the van home across Europe instead of sleeping tonight.

-

The moment your head is in Mama's lap, and her hand is carding through your hair, you're out like a light.

When you wake up, creases pressed into your cheek, sleep sticking to the corners of your eyes, you feel more rested than you have in twenty years.

-

For your twenty-fifth birthday, you spend the day at the racetrack.

The sticky Singapore heat cradles you, suffocating even as the sky goes dark.

You don't finish either practice session in the lead, but once the day is over, a chauffeur drives you back to your hotel room, and you go to sleep.

-

Sometimes—rarely—Lily's cries wake you up in the middle of the night.

You don't mind. The tiredness isn't painful when it's for her.

The sun beats down, lap after lap after lap. You peel your balaclava off, and your fingers shake around the neck of the bottle, tiny tremors. You pour it over your head, and salty rivulets run down off your upper lip and onto your tongue.

~

When you win, you bring your hands to your eyes, but your visor is in the way. Your tears run into the fabric of your balaclava, soaking in. You inhale, shaky gasp, and you waterboard yourself in salt.

~

Papa drags you away, but you refuse to turn your back, eyes intense even as Mama disappears out of sight, fingers gripping tight at the window.

You cry so hard that the snot and tears threaten to drown you.

~

Kelly leans down from the edge of the boat and presses her lips to yours. Sun-kissed and pruny, you smile against the taste of the ocean.

~

You roll the window down when you pass by the seafront on the way to the track. Stick your face out into the salty breeze and breathe deep.

~

Daniel teaches you how to do shots in a nightclub in Monaco with a view of the harbor.

When he leaves, you chase him down with lime.

~

Mama dips your tiny feet into the lapping waves, and you kick. Miniature rainbows appear for only a blink in the air.

You screech with delight when she blows raspberries onto your toes.

~

The air is choked orange with smoke. The clouds roll in over the dunes, bringing the scent of the sea. The rain soaks you to the bone.

Standing triumphant, you don’t feel it.

~

Lily stares open-eyed at the water. You point a finger—look, see? Her chubby hand follows, waving out. Vast expanse beyond her tiny fist.

You press kisses into the pad of each finger. Her skin tastes of sunscreen and salt.

~

Mama sits in the surf with Victoria, building castles designed to fall. You look at the oncoming waves, jaw slack with awe, eyes catching on tiny rainbows every time the sun meets the spray.