Chapter Four

The beginning of March came in one big rush, fleeting and out of focus. One moment, I was watching Charlie Yang's receding taillights through closing elevator doors, and then the next, I found myself alone at the airport, waiting for my luggage at baggage claim.

It was the first weekend of the racing season, and I was probably making the most regrettable decision of my life. Somewhere in the haze of the past month, I had committed to going, and had booked a flight—a total lapse in sanity, which was only made up for by the fact that I had successfully ghosted Charlie during this time as well, sending all his calls to voicemail and leaving all of his texts unanswered.

"You're not ghosting him if you're flying to a different country to watch him race," Yeona had informed me the other night, while I'd mulled over my decisions as of late. And I supposed she was right in theory. But my plan had been to just suffer through the whole ordeal in General Admission, as just another person in the crowd. He'd never know I'd been there, and I could stop feeling like I owed him—a feeling that'd been hanging inexplicably over my head for weeks now. A feeling I wanted to be rid of as soon as possible.

Now, as I wrestled my luggage off the conveyor belt and headed for the line of taxis waiting outside, unease settled heavy in the pit of my stomach. Just as I'd felt stepping through the doors of my childhood home on New Year's Eve, I got the sense that I shouldn't be here. That I was walking into something terrifying and absolutely irrevocable.

That, and it was all just painful. My grief was rarely vivid anymore, but it was slowly creeping back to full saturation with every passing second.

The tattoo behind my ear became suddenly itchy at this thought. I gritted my teeth and ignored it, instead waving down a taxi driver to help me load my bags into the trunk of his car. It was Thursday morning, which gave me approximately forty-eight hours to hole up in my hotel room and avoid reality until race day.

Except for dinner tonight.

Dinner being the hole in the wall restaurant in Chinatown, where my brother had insisted on eating every Thursday evening of race weekend. His reward for surviving media day, he would tell me with a wink, before he'd indulge in a single serving of shumai, half of which he always made me eat anyway.

And as much as I liked to believe that I didn't need to hunt down and relive every ghost in every crack and crevice of the city, I couldn't help it. Much like the rest of the weekend, I felt obligated to live it. To experience it just this one last time.

I kept my head down the entire ride to the hotel, and thankfully my driver was quiet, only glancing at me here and there in the rearview mirror, almost as if to make sure I was still there. Or maybe because he felt like he recognized me from somewhere—being practically attached at the hip with my brother in our later years had put me in a spotlight of my own, one that I had adored once, but much regretted now. Especially in the days after his death, when his notoriety only continued to grow.

I could still see the grainy picture of me watching as his casket was loaded into the hearse, my hair matted by the summer rain, mascara on my cheeks. The image had gone viral in the weeks after we buried Joshua—The Ethereal Crier I had been called by strangers on the internet. And it was almost cruel how, after so many years longing to be recognized outside of the Park legacy, I had finally gotten my wish—on the worst day of my life, in the most violating manner.

For months after, I'd hated my face. My reflection. To see myself, with the same eyes as my brother, staring back at me like an accusation. This is what you wanted.

At eleven that night, I escaped to the dumpling house, an Auden cap pulled low over my eyes. It was still hot out, despite the lack of light, and I breathed in the smell of warm pavement to ground myself. To keep calm as I wove through the still-busy sidewalks, head down, heartbeat in my throat.

I got lost twice before I finally found the restaurant, immediately relieved as my eyes found the familiar storefront, the unmistakable sight of old and peeling wallpaper and mismatched chairs visible through the window.

It was empty inside, with one person behind the counter, but I tucked myself into a table at the very back all the same, huddling out of sight of the windows and anyone who might pass by. The server didn't even look at me as he dropped off water and took my order for a single serving of shumai, before he hurried off to the back and left me alone in silence again.

In his absence, I took in every detail of the store. The dark green carpet, stained in some areas with sauce and who knew what else. At one of the tables, I knew my brother's signature could be found on the underside—his legacy here, he'd insisted when I'd chided him for vandalism. The lights were dim and yellow, a few winking out here and there. This place, at least, was still the same. Or nearly the same, lacking only a twenty-something Joshua Park in the seat across from me, grinning like a child.

The bell above the door jingled as someone entered. At the same moment, the waiter returned with my food and a curt nod. "Sit anywhere," he called stiffly to whoever had just come in, which were two more words than he'd bothered to speak to me.

Not that I was bothered. I dug in, even with such a lacking appetite, shoving the entire dumpling into my mouth. It was still searing hot, but the flavors soothed the burn, the same as they had been when I'd eaten them five years ago. The familiarity bit at the backs of my eyes, and tears soon blurred my vision.

Someone slid into the chair across from me. Choking down the food and the lump that'd risen in my throat, I looked up to find Charlie there, a half-smile on his lips. He looked tired from the day, and he also had a baseball cap on, although his was much more unassuming, which made sense. Only one of us was an international star.

He took his hat off when I looked at him though, running a hand through his hair as he set it beside him on the table. "You took my table," he told me then, voice quiet.

I wiped at my face and sat up straighter. "Are you stalking me or something?"

Charlie laughed. I admired how he could do that, especially here. "Do you seriously think Joshua found this place on his own?" he asked. "The only reason he had this tradition is because I had it first."

Of course he had. And now here he was, after weeks of sending me messages that I ignored, happening upon me crying over a serving of dumplings. Talk about shit luck. If he had thoughts about me ghosting him, though, he didn't mention them. He just broke apart his own set of chopsticks and helped himself to my food.

We ate wordlessly. And even though he was there, I found myself overcome with emotion again, unable to keep the tears back as I chewed. It was embarrassing, really, to be crying over food in a restaurant while my brother's best friend sat across from me. But the tears fell and just kept coming. Still, Charlie remained silent, only reaching over to squeeze my hand.

"I knew you'd be here," he told me when we'd finished eating, pushing his napkin toward me. I blew my nose shamelessly but kept my head down, my now-puffy eyes hidden. "I knew you'd come."

"It was super last minute," I managed after a beat. "I'm not planning on going to the race or anything."

"Sure. No pressure. I got you a pass if you change your mind though."

"You did?"

"Sure. Just in case, you know?" He flicked the brim of my hat. "I can get you a new one of these too, if you want. Helios has better team colors in my opinion."

Finally, I looked at him. He was grinning, but his eyes held so much more—everything sad and unspoken. I forced my best version of a smirk. "Can I have a Marchetti hat? I've always been such a huge fan of Milo Neumann."

"Neumann's a prick. And I don't think many people at Marchetti are very impressed with me at the moment." The tension in his shoulders eased slightly, despite this statement. "I'm glad you're here, June. Whether you come to the race or not."

"It's hard, to be honest." I squinted at him. "I feel like he's everywhere. I just...I don't know these places without him. So it's really hard."

He nodded. "I know."

And I knew he did. He was the only one who could, besides maybe my parents and maybe Angie, Joshua's ex-girlfriend. Neither of whom I spoke to much anymore. I swallowed hard, looking away. "I just miss him. I don't know what to do with myself. It's just...hard."

"I miss him too." His brown eyes searched my face, although for what I wasn't sure. Then, "I turned twenty-four on a race weekend," he told me. "It was nearly three years since Joshua died, and so it wasn't acknowledged in the same way anymore. But that was one of the hardest weekends I'd had in a long time. Because, you know..."

It was my turn to nod. "We were younger than him and now we're older than him."

"Yeah." He blew out a breath. "Anyway, I crashed in Quali and during the race that weekend. So I guess that's all to say that it's okay if it's hard. It's not supposed to be easy. Suffering is part of the grief, you know? It won't always be that way, but if it is, it makes sense why."

It wasn't funny in the slightest, but still, for some odd reason, I found myself smiling. "I mean, we don't have to talk about hard birthdays. I definitely come out on top."

"I know. Sorry, I wasn't trying to say—"

Charlie's face had blanched, but I was still smiling. Reaching over, I took his hand in both of mine and gave his fingers a firm squeeze. "I'm just kidding. Loosen up." Then, more seriously, I added, "Grief is grief. And you're the only person who knows it like me."

"That's why I'm here for you." Pulling away from me, he sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. I hated myself for thinking about how handsome he looked, but also I couldn't help it. Even though we were talking about my brother and his death. Maybe I was just a horrible person. Charlie interrupted this train of thought by asking, "Did Josh ever tell you the reason behind the shumai tradition?"

"No." I blinked. "I thought the ritual was just the ritual."

He shook his head. "I took him my first year in F1. He was pretty cut up about not having entered in with me, and so I made up this whole thing about taking your favorite person for shumai. I told him it was for good luck. Obviously, he didn't believe me and told me I was just trying to make him feel better. Which at the time, I was. But then I won the GP from P12 and so we both kind of bought into it or whatever. And then the next year, he'd joined Auden."

"And he took me here," I said hoarsely.

"And he took you here." Charlie grinned. "Grand Slam two years in a row. I wanted to hit him."

I fiddled with my chopsticks. "Who'd you take?"

"What do you mean?"

"For shumai." It was a stupid question, and also none of my business, and I felt silly for asking, but I couldn't bear the lulls in conversation. I didn't like how he looked at me when it was quiet. Also, I supposed I just wanted to know. Sue me. "Who'd you bring here?"

"Oh." He smiled distantly. "My mom for three years. When she passed, I kind of just saw it as a way to honor her and Joshua. So I've come here by myself since then."

"Weird how we never saw you when we came."

"Josh always planned it so we wouldn't be there at the same time. He said if you knew I did it too, that you'd ditch him and eat with me instead."

My face went hot at that. Leave it to my brother to find a way to embarrass me somehow, even in death. "That's really not true."

He was grinning. "Right."

"I'm serious. I would never. I always wanted Josh to win."

"That's so weird. Because I swear I remember one night at the pool when you told me I deserved to win the championship that year."

I shrugged. "Temporary lapse in judgement. I think Josh had eaten the last of the popsicles that day. I was feeling spiteful."

"Wow. Okay. I see how it is." Charlie glanced at his watch, then back at me. "Totally unrelated, but I need to get back to the hotel. It's nearly time for me to sleep."

"You sure it wasn't what I said?" I asked jokingly.

He shot me a soft smile as he stood. "Joshua was always a better driver."

It was true. Joshua had dominated the sport from the moment he'd entered into F1. Sometimes I wondered if Charlie was ever affected by this after he'd died, and I'd always imagined it to sting double—to lose your best friend, and to pick up the mantle of being one of the best in the world, only in the wake of his death. But the way he said it now, I could see no resentment, only pride, and a twinge of heartache.

Now, he hip checked me out of the way at the register, sliding a twenty to the server before pulling his cap back over his head, low, so I could hardly see his eyes. "Want me to walk you back to your hotel?" he asked me as we exited. The balmy air swept over us like one big exhale as we met the night.

"That's okay." Offering him a smile, I added, "It's your bedtime, right?"

He shrugged. "I'm sure I can stretch it just a little if you want me to."

"I would hate to be the reason you're suddenly accosted by fans on the street. You should get going." The two of us lingered outside the restaurant despite this, hesitation keeping us tethered to the moment. I kicked at the pavement, then added, "I, uh, don't think I'll make it to the circuit tomorrow, but I'll watch you on TV."

"Sure." Charlie reached out, fingertips brushing my arm, before he let his hand drop. "I'm glad to see you again. I'm glad you're okay. I thought maybe my steak bites left a bad impression on you or something."

I laughed before I could stop myself. "Not the steak bites. Those were delicious, don't worry." I looked up at him, peering through the brim of my hat. He was standing so close to me, I could smell the familiar combination of his shampoo and cologne—sweet and warm, like summer or a memory. My exhale sounded breathy in the quiet, and I promptly cleared my throat, rolling back my shoulders as I added in a too-loud voice, "Well, anyway, I should go. It's late and you should be rested for tomorrow."

"Sure," he said again. His lips hinted at a smile. "Text me if you change your mind about coming. But otherwise, it was good to see you. Enjoy the warm weather."

"You too. And, you know"—I gestured awkwardly—"good luck tomorrow."

"Thanks, June."

I left first this time, if only so I didn't have to watch him go. On the walk back, my chest ached with the memories of my brother, and of being here with him, but the feeling was bittersweet, soothed by Charlie's company over shumai, and for the insight he'd offered me there. For a moment, as I thought about this, I wished that things were simpler. Beyond losing Joshua, and my father, I wished Charlie were anybody else, doing anything other than racing. Maybe then, it'd be different. Maybe the hesitation would disappear, and I would be sure of what I couldn't even begin to speak about now.

But this was the truth: Charlie Yang was a racing driver. Currently the best in the world. I could not imagine a day where he wouldn't long to get behind the wheel, just as I could not imagine a day where I wouldn't resent the way the sport had torn apart my family. This much I knew.

He couldn't stop, and I couldn't live with it.

It was why I'd stayed away for so long. Why I had left first this time. The closer we seemed to pull to one another, the more aware I became of this fact. Ignoring it would only cause more heartache in the long run, no matter how good it felt to be near him now.

I'd told myself this since my plane had taken off back home: this was it. This would be the last time. After Sunday, I would leave Charlie Yang in the rearview. And this time, I wouldn't let myself look back.

a/n: please vote and/or comment if you enjoyed ! did i edit this ? no ! i literally cannot rn (i have always hated editing). i have successfully completed my first week and a half of work (suffering) and i'm still trying to write consistently for you guys because i appreciate u all so much ! thank u again for reading and much love xo