Race With a Heart -
Chapter 120: No Longer Alone
Chapter 120: No Longer Alone
Dave laughed nervously, grimaced. He looked as if he wanted to ridicule Sid’s assumptions, but he did not.
Then he stopped laughing. His emotions became more balanced. He wanted to take another sip, but the can was empty. He cursed under his breath and crushed the can.
Slowly, Sid realized that he shouldn’t have asked that if Dave was talking about himself. If so, Dave’s heart must have been heavy with pain, yet Sid had to know.
"Dave ..."
"Yes," he admitted. "Fuck it all. So you know why I hate gays? Do not look at me like this. I don’t need pity. "
"It’s not ... it’s not pity, I ..."
It wasn’t really pity, it was sincere, real pain to feel knowing that a dear friend has gone through something terrible. It was more than compassion. It was... feeling pain together.
Sid knew Dave when he was thirteen. They weren’t friends yet, but they went to the same elementary school. Dave was always a great student so sometimes he got some awards and all the students probably knew who he was. But no one suspected that something so horrible could happen to him.
Because it was horrible!
Sid shook his head. For some reason, tears streamed down his eyes. But he didn’t want to show them to Dave.
"I understand and I’m furious," he announced, hiding his sadness behind his anger. "I guess... I’d hate them too. Just, just ... Martin and Steve ... they are differend... "
"How do you know?"
It was difficult to answer that question because Sid didn’t have proof, but Dave didn’t have it either. If no one has the proof, all that remains is faith.
"I trust Martin," said Sid confidently, defending his faith. "I trust that if something bad happened to him, he wouldn’t be able to accept it. He couldn’t love a man who hurt him. "
Deve shook his head disapprovingly. Sid saw this and began to suspect that Dave saw himself in Martin and that in Paxton he saw a neighbor from his past. Sid was only seventeen, but instinctively, as Dave had once been thirteen, he had a sense of things.
Because of what happened to him as a child, Dave questioned himself for five years. What he said that he cannot acclimatize socially, that he wants love, but does not believe in the sincerity of the other person, that he asks what is wrong with him, since he attracted such an animal to him ... Dave was hurt and that his judgment had been changed - his judgment of himself and the world.
Sid shivered. Looking on Dave, he would never have said there was so much pain in a friend. And Sid thought he himself had a difficult childhood!
The hatred for gays that grew up in Dave was justified because it was the gay man who engraved a wound in the child’s heart that could not heal even after he became an adult man. Dave was excused, but not so much. It was like hating all the teachers in the world just because one teacher gave him the worst grade. Or like hating all the little girls in a pink dress because a girl like that had once called him names. Although... If a dog bites someone in childhood, most of these people are either afraid of dogs or at least dislike them.
Having a bad grade or hear a few names is different from sexual assault. Pain cannot even be compared. If a man wanted a sexual intercourse from little Dave, he inflicted a deep wound on him that was not visible on his body, but was in his head and heart. Who knows what Dave’s thoughts and dreams were? What he told Sid was the fog to be part of the vast ocean of his suffering. Perhaps in the five years since the incident, each man was a potential threat to him, and Dave subconsciously lived in fear of another attack?
Sid knew he wasn’t knowledgeable or smart enough to understand all of this. All he knew was that his friend whom he loved had a great deal of pain within him that he had never told anyone.
Pain that relates to thoughts about the physical relationship between men.
If Sid touched Dave’s hand now, or his shoulder, would Dave interpret his touch as a gesture of friendship and support or a sexual offer? Would he accept it or reject it with disgust and fear?
Sid didn’t dare to check.
"Are you ... very nervous looking at Martin?" he asked his older colleague.
"No," announced Dave. "I’m worried that he is being hurt. Just that."
"But is it different with Steve?"
Dave nodded.
"I don’t want to talk about it anymore," he announced, resigned. "It’s getting late. Let’s go. "
"Yes, let’s go," Sid agreed, and got up from the ground too.
Once, Sid suffered lonely, but then his secret was discovered by Dave and Sid was no longer alone in pain. As a result, there was hardly any pain in his heart now. Now it was the turn for him to heal Dave’s heart with his presence and friendship. He had no idea how to do it yet, or even where to start, but he knew he had to try. He must do everything to make Dave suffer as little as possible.
***
The news that Steve Paxton had been attacked caused a real storm among all employees of the Fergus Stables. Everyone knew about the driver’s misfortune from the morning and talks about it almost never stopped. You can be incredibly unlucky on the track, but when someone is trying to murder you...
Abe Allen saw the commotion and didn’t fight it at all. He himself was no less shaken by the situation. He already knew Steve would recover because the blade had missed vital organs and the bleeding had stopped in time, but he also knew Steve wouldn’t be back on track so fast. Although "fast" was a relative term.
First, the car was crushed, and when its driver miraculously emerged from the accident, someone also crushed him. Both machine and man were excluded from the competition. The machine is not a big problem. The producers were already putting together a new one. The problem was the man who was behind the wheel.
That is why each stable had to have at least three drivers. The third driver, or test driver, was also a reserve driver.
Fergus’ stable had a third driver, Don Alston, who was pretty good. But he wasn’t Steve. It was not about experience, but about that flash of genius that cannot be worked out. Either you have it or you don’t, and Alston just missed the ’spark of God’. Alston would be fucking hard to make it to the top ten and Allen was sincerely concerned that he would even make it to the finish line. The boy was full of spirit but he was one of the hot shots who lack patience, humility and strong head. Allen predicted that the brat was so confident that in the first race he would want to prove his supremacy on the track and lead to some dangerous event.
Fergus’ stable had no choice, however. According to Allen, Don was not ready to take to the track in a competition yet, but even if they found someone ten times better, they didn’t have time to train him. Fergus’ stable found itself in a very unpleasant situation.
"You shouldn’t take control of the rumors," asked the approaching Jack Lambert. "The garage looks like it is in a panic."
"Let them talk, they have the right. After all, they’re just people too, and besides, Steve isn’t some stranger. "
"Right too. I still can’t believe that this has happened to him." Jack shook his head in disbelief. "What a times."
"You look like shit. Rough night? "
"You don’t look much better yourself. I was sitting with Martin. The poor thing saw them stab Paxton. "
"I didn’t know those two were friends," Allen wondered.
"Did you know that I am also friends with this kid?"
"Even now? Even when he left the stable? "
"Of course. You may not believe it, but Steve also started talking to me as befits a human being."
"It’s... weird indeed. I know Martin considered Steve his idol and everyone saw how much he liked him, but I didn’t expect it to be mutual. That’s why they were together ... "
Not that Abe was expecting any other reason. Martin really was very much like his father. Harry, too, was able to break through the walls around someone’s heart and become his friend. His departure from the racing world was a loss not only for the entire discipline but also for the many friends he left behind.
"Martin must have been shocked," Allen observed with concern.
"And you wouldn’t be? Damn, I’m shocked myself. People are really..." Lambert shook his head. "Alston is around here somewhere? He’s very happy to be on the track? "
"He said he remembered something and had to tell the police so that they could catch the perpetrators."
"Oh ..."
"You don’t look as if you’re happy to be riding with him."
Jack sighed. He winced a little.
"There’s something about this boy that makes me not entirely trust him. He drives well, but ... "
"Exactly. But that’s our only option. Hopefully Steve gets back on track soon ... "
At that moment, Karl Walton appeared in front of their eyes, looking so furious as if his eyes were about to start shooting lightning bolts. He glanced at everything and said:
"Jack, Abe, we need to talk."
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