#gpmelb

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.