The hoots, the shouts and the cheers, it didn't matter. All that mattered was the people who had betrayed my trust with them. If not anything, I was proven to be the joker for the whole world who could be laughed at in their leisure time.

As soon as I was released from the car, I went to Dan to ask to let me go. They wanted me to win the race and I had, I didn't want anything else to be prolonged with it. I had endured its humiliation; I didn't wish to sit around to find out more.

"Scar, you won!" He cried at my face. He was too excited for his own good. "You deserve to enjoy. Why such long face?"

It was either Dan or Rob who was taking me home. I had ruled out Rob and I didn't want to do anything with him. And Dan was turning me down.

"Dan, I'm tired." I pleaded. "Besides, it's school night."

But no amount of pleas and pleading was working out for him. It seemed as if he had won the race and was out there celebrating. By the third time of begging, he had turned a deaf ear to me and wouldn't hear anything that I had to say.

The only guy after Dan was Calvin. He had approached me like I was his daughter and I thought, perhaps he would understand my plight and let me go. But no, he was stricter compared to Dan. Once Calvin made sure that I had won, he was all business. He was too hard to get hold of. When I finally got to go near him, he gave me a proud pat on the back.

When he heard my plight to go home, he was taken aback. "Scarlet, you just won. There are people who will want to meet and greet you. If I were you, I wouldn't miss it." He hugged his coat tighter. "You are not going anywhere."

That was when I felt like the sky was falling upon me and I was trapped to death. Of course I liked to race, but this was going out of bounds. Most importantly, I was scared that I would turn out to be my father's daughter. I didn't want to end up like him, immersing myself in the racy trance, never to come back to reality. And my reality was as clear as day, striking me with its powerful rays.

Everything was in a haze after that. All blurred out and nothing stood out to grab my attention. They had handed me the winner cup and a grand cheque with a big key to my BMW car. But I was least interested. I cared more about people than those materialistic things. I knew exactly how those materialistic things were going to disappear once the race traveled south.

Calvin was very calculative in making me sign a few contract papers before the race had begun. According to the contract, if I won, the money that I would be getting will be taken by the manager and the support team and only the car would be in my possession. I didn't complain. After all, they were the ones who had brought me up from my level zero.

When I turned to find someone to drive me back home, there was no one to come to my rescue. I felt alone. Within that twenty four hours, my whole life had come crashing down and tears started pricking my eye.

I made up my mind to swallow my pride and talk to Robert. Ask him to drop me off and be done with me. I walked to the support team, where Luke, Jake and Robert hung together, laughing aimlessly at something Rob was saying.

As soon as they saw me, a wave of congratulations and fist bumps were in line that I could not avoid. Robert's face played poker, as he stood in a corner, his laughter forgotten. He folded his hands and looked at me as if I were some incurable disease.

"Robert?" I slowly said.

"Scarlet!" Calvin came behind me. "Good thing you are here. We are going to the after party."

I let out a grump. I was not going anywhere. Wasn't that enough to shake my hand and let me be? What was the need to have an after party? People were already laughing at my skills and I didn't want to sit back to see what more they had in store for me.

When I was walking around to see if Dan was there, I could hear few girls talking about me as I passed them. They were telling that my win was just out of luck and it had nothing to do with my skills. I let out a humorless chuckle as I heard them whisper. Luck, for me, was like the black hole. I knew it was there somewhere, but would I get closer to it? No.

"Calvin, I can't go. It's already late." I reasoned. I looked at him, pleadingly. He wanted me to win and get some recognition for his garage, which I had sincerely done. Couldn't he appreciate my needs for once?

"Look," Calvin sighed. He walked up to me and put his hands around my shoulder, trying to make me understand why he wanted me there. "They wanted to have an interview done on you because of your win."

My eyes were sure bulged out. An interview? For me?

"I said that you had left for the party." Cal said. I released the breath that I didn't know I was holding. "So, if someone notices you elsewhere, they will get behind you. It's better if you join us."

That was when I saw Calvin in a different light. He was manipulative and cunning when he wanted to be. I didn't know if the whole interview thing was true. I had never once seen this happen with Dad before, and I didn't know what to believe.

In my current state, I nodded my head to agree with him. Living with Dad, I had known little bits of the ugly side of the tracks which I was trying to dodge. Perhaps, this was me avoiding it.

I was soon packed into a car with more people in it than the seats it had. I was sandwiched between Robert and Luke. When Jake too tried to get into the back seat, I jerked and landed unceremoniously on Robert's lap. He let out a frustrated grump, but didn't say anything much to my relief.

I tried understanding Robert and I was always left with a blank. He was flirty in one minute and a grumpy the next. It was so infuriating to understand what was the actual reason behind it. Was he still mad at me for going to the party last night? Didn't me winning it make it all okay?

Like him, I too stayed quiet. With being mute for almost half a day, this long ride was like a piece of cake for me.

The road ahead of us were dark and I was the only girl in the gang. All the jitters and the nerves came back in what I was doing. Never once I had imagined this would be my case when they asked me to sign in for the racing career. Where were they taking me and what would be my state once we reached the destination was a mystery.

Sure I had my cell on me and Dan would be the first person I would report to if something was to happen. But how fast would be he able to reach me was the question. I didn't know if it was my nerves or the fact that I hadn't eaten anything from afternoon, my hands started to shake and my lips seemed to dry.

Robert took my hand in his and squeezed it comfortingly. I looked at him, but he was looking out of the window - not bothering to attend to my anxieties.

His expression was something that I had never seen before - perhaps he was proud of me? I didn't know. His well defined jaw lines were sharp and the little stubble that covered his chin made him look deadly. The scar on his face was almost invisible if moon didn't shine on it.

Slowly, he broke into a warm smile. The same one which he had given me when he had climbed up my room the other night. "I'm here, Scarlet. I won't let anything happen to you."

The fact that he had understood when no one else did, still surprised me. It gave me a hope that he was there to protect me if something wrong might happen. But who was to tell that he would maintain this same mood throughout to help me be saved. What if he was the beast I was supposed to be running away from?

I looked out the window, silently asking the howling winds to answer my questions. Now I had understood why Dad hadn't taken me to races that was after nine at night. And suddenly, I missed him too much. Had he taken his pills and eaten something before he slept? Had he slept at all? I hadn't messaged him about the time I would be returning home and he hadn't called me to check on me. Had something happened to him?

"We are here!" Jake cooed, too loud for the silent night. "Let the party begin."

With that, my train of anxieties changed courses.

I got down quickly and took in my surroundings. It was a huge house, more like a palace. The lights were dimly lit and if someone were to come by, they would think that some studious student was burning the lamp to pass his exams. On all four sides of the house, there were huge shrubs, bushes and trees to cover everything.

I heard few of the boys talking to themselves that this was the place where actual stuffs happened. If one were to see this, then they would try to win just for the sake of the 'after parties' that the field had to give.

I gulped.

I stood at the entrance staring at the haunting palace, wondering if I should be running or entering the place. Either way, I was sure that I was dead.

"Come on, Scarlet." Robert took my hand gently, yet firmly, as if he read my thoughts and was making sure that my death was inevitably inside the dreadful place.

Together we walked inside. I had imagined cobwebs to cloud my vision and cockroaches and spiders to make their way at me. But all my imaginations shattered into pieces when I saw that the house was pristine. Nothing was out of place.

The kitchen, which mainly held a big double door fridge having goods was completely filled to supply the entire race team. The stairs led upstairs and nowhere I saw an off limits sign. It was as if a private paradise to forget everything and live in the moment.

The house was silent for a party place. No loud music, no sweaty bodies dancing their ass off - it seemed as if all of them there respected each others private time and stuck to their own business. All the assumptions that I had sculpted in my head came crashing down.

There was not only people from my support team, but also from other teams as well. The race was long forgotten and all of them acted like one big happy family. They nodded and smiled at each other. When some of them recognized me, they patted my back and gave me fist bumps.

"Uh, you might have to give a speech." Robert muttered.

I looked at him wondering if he had gone mad. Who would want to hear my sappy speech when the room buzzed of calmness and quietness? No one here was ready for some actual party to go on. It was as if someone was dead and they were overcoming the sadness by just being here.

Now I had comprehended why Calvin said that the interviewers wouldn't come here hunting me down. Hell, they wouldn't even know that the house was alive!

"Bert, Scar." Calvin called us, handing a glass of wine for us both. "Tell us about your win."

With the silence that the place held, one could even hear the pin drop a thousand miles away. And with the sentence that Calvin threw at us, the whole crowd made a small circle around us, looking as if we were lighting the fireworks the very next minute.

I gulped and looked at Robert, the only person who pretended to know me. He gave me an encouraging nod and smiled at me, his hands still holding mine.

"Um, I want to thank all of you for cheering on me." I started. "I want to thank my father, Dan, Calvin and Bert, of course for making me go further. And how can I forget Luke?" Luke gave me a small smile as his name was mentioned. "And Jake - "

"What she means is a good game." Robert stopped short my speech. I turned around to see him as gave a nervous laugh to the crowd. "She still hasn't been trained for the speeches."

What the freaking hell was he talking about?

"Why did you stop in the first lap, Stone?" Someone in the crowd voiced it.

I waited patiently for Robert to answer them for me, since he was very well handling the speech which I had so neatly planned to execute. But this time, Robert stood still, leaving me to answer the stupid questions.

"Well?" One more uttered.

What was I supposed to say to that? And where was my guide when I needed him? He had ditched me to answer the sensitive questions while the master fluently put out the easy ones.

"What's a race without a few twists and turns of its own?" I questioned back, giving a slight shrug. I didn't want them to think that Rob and I had a semi fight which lead me to act the way I did back then. The lesser they know, the better for me.

They nodded their head and clinked the beer bottles together.

"Come on, guys," Robert said. "Let's all just crash."

"That was a good move." Robert said. I looked at him and he just smiled at me. "It's always the best way to answer them in terms of questions. Most of the time they get satisfied with it."

I glared at him. "Oh, really?" I crossed my arms in front of me. "If you know so much why didn't you answer it before me? I'm sure ample amount time was given to you."

He sighed. "If I did, then when would you learn?"

Was he serious?

"Bert!" Someone behind us called. "Come here buddy!"

Robert took my glass from me and went the other direction, without turning back.

I didn't wait for him and I stomped away. I had had enough of his drama to last a whole week. I thought Robert was a nice guy, but he was driving me crazy. His emotions were like a sine wave, one could never guess it was the positive high or the negative high, and it made me half mad, wondering what he might be this very minute, let alone the day.

I passed the small couch on which few of them were seated with their laptops turned on, all having a glass of beer in their hand. At the staircase, few of them sat, smoking weed or heroine - God knew what - half dazed and in their own world. The whole stairwell was smoke driven and I soon ruled out the fact of going up for some fresh air.

At one corner, there lay a dozen of beer bottles kept for others to use it all up. One by one, few came by to get a refill. Looking at the bottles, it remained me of the horrendous day that I had spent. Everything lay shattered in front of me and I was helpless to do anything about it. Everything that I had believed in came crashing down with tremendous force, pulling me along with it for the greater doom.

Without thinking twice I took four bottles of beer from there and left the room not without glancing behind.

I needed to get my head straight and forget - once and for all.

The house was huge, probably lent out by the gangster, giving them all the goods that they sucked as if it was their life. The chandelier swayed to the wind as the crystals in them jiggled, giving the palace a ghostly effect. I wondered from where the wind blew to rock the chandelier to that great force.

I followed the wind and saw that behind the beige curtain, there was a swimming pool, whose entry was open. That was from where the wind had entered that ghostly hall. Hesitance forgotten, I held the bottles tighter in my hands as I made my way to the swimming pool.

The guys inside were so wasted that they didn't have the mind to hold the pool party instead of that melancholy drug appetite they fulfilled. The whole party seemed like an escape for most of the drivers who wanted a diversion from their reality back home. The place seemed good enough to provide them everything they aspired for - girls, weed and no police to put them behind the bars. What more could they ask for?

The water in the pool trembled creating small waves - it looked tempting. I took my shoes off and folded my pants till my knees. Slowly, I dipped my legs into the water. At one in the cloudless night, the pool was freezing, but it left like home. 

Everything that I was feeling came hitting me on the face. All the emotions that I had held in to live in the moment, came like ripples one after the other, making my eyes moist.

Not able to bear any longer, I pulled the bottle out and poured down half of the bottle at once. The dark liquid made its way down my throat burning along the way. The burn felt so small in front of my problems that lay in my hands. Not one day since the accident I had felt relaxed. Everyday was a constant battle.

Dad's medications, his over dosage and his recent stupefaction of ending himself was more than enough to keep my mind out. Now, even when I felt like everything was going out of my control and so many things were on my plate, I didn't want to end my life just as Dad had thought he could. I was so mad at him and I couldn't put it all out, which made me frustrated.

Everything was crashing in front of me and I sat looking at it, not bothering to save myself. The only person to whom I though I had feelings is now gay and didn't like me the way I like him.

I emptied the first bottle and opened the next.

Perhaps this was the reason why the racers came here to forget. On a school night, I was here drinking my ass off with my feet sunk in the pool, not giving a care to the world outside. It felt good to forget and block everything, neglecting all that actually mattered. Here, I was free, and I didn't have to shoulder any responsibility for once.

I let another bottle take away my senses.

Today, I wanted to be high. I wanted to draw a blank to all the things that Robert had said to me, things that he said without knowing its background. I wanted to punch him, hit him and kick his ass to a place where it belonged. I knew he was nuts, but I didn't know that he could drive me nuts along with him.

It was so challenging to learn him. His moods swung from zero to one eighty degrees so fast that it hurt my head to place him.

I had tolerated him all this long, but tonight he had crossed all those boundaries and had made a judgmental comment, not only about me, but had questioned about my loyalty to the same tracks which my family worshiped at its feet. He had called me names I had never been called before. More than anything, he made me feel like a burden on his part. Even when I had won the fucking thing, he made fun and laughed at my face.

I gulped another bottle down.

My vision blurred from crying. I felt sick from drinking with an empty stomach. But I wanted more and more, until all the voices in my head settled down.

"There you are." I turned around to the voice that was directed at me. My misted eyes took a whole precious minute to recognize the creature that stood in front of me. There were four of them, staring at me in wonder.

"Why is there four of you here?" I asked in return. Their green eyes rolled all at once. They had the same shade of green that I had fell in love with. "Nick?" I asked.

"Hey, are you crying, Scarlet?" one of the person spoke. Nick never called me with my full name. "What happened?"

The guy came forward and squatted next to me, his green eyes filled with concern. "Nick, you know what happened." I said, consoling myself that it was in fact Nick, who came to make sure that I was alright.

"You drank three whole bottles?" He expressed his stupor, bulging his eyes out. "That's some strong stuff, Scarlet. Who taught you to waste yourself like this, huh?"

I looked away. All I wanted was to forget and push all my problems away, at least for a little while and I didn't want him to give me his piece of mind, just because he felt like it. I heard him sigh.

"I'm sorry." He said and immediately I turned around. May be it was Nick telling him that he was not gay at all and he was just messing around with me. "I was a little harsh at the race today."

My expectation bubble exploded. It was not Nick and the disappointment hit me harder than the meteor hitting the earth. My resolve trembled again and my tears started accumulating.

"Scarlet, babe." He came closer to me and put his hands around my shoulders. "Come on now, you are the only racer who I know cries even after she has won the first place."

"I hawte it!" I screamed, my voice piercing the soundless night. I pushed him away, my hands too weak to push him beyond a few inches. "I hawte you, Nick! I hawte you!"

The other person, didn't make any comment to that. He sat staring at me, his eyes were wide open, and he sat still, probably afraid that I might hit him next.

"I hawte you all." I hiccuped. I took another sip from the bottle, as if they would take away all my pain. "I hawte my life." I mumbled. "I have," I hiccuped again. "I'm alone... no one...."

"Scarlet," He started, but I bet him to it.

"Everyone hawtes me," I let out a bitter laugh. "They all leave me eventually."

I took another sip.

"That's enough for today." He said, taking away my bottle. How dare he? I snatched it away from him as he pulled it towards him. Then it became a tug of war of sorts and we pushed and pulled until he won. "What really happened, Scarlet?"

I was furious now. He asks me what happened when he was the reason behind my drunken self!

"Parents had ruined half of my life for me and you ruined the other half, Nick!" I wiped my tears from the back of the jacket I had worn. "That's what happened." I muttered. "It's so difficult for me to be friends with you when I still love you while you don't! It aches." I rubbed my chest, trying to ease the pain.

"No, no." I'm not going to cry. I wiped my tears away and put on a smile, my eyes half closed with the daze the alcohol was giving me. "I'm okay. Okay."

I fell on the cool tile on the swimming pool deck, my back to the tile, trying to cool off my mind.

I felt him crouch next to me, caressing my forehead as he pushed my hair away from my face. "I'm here with you Scarlet, I'm here."

With that as a lullaby, I closed my eyes, clinging to those words, reassuring myself that it was all okay and he was there with me.

---

A/N: My heart aches too. So, what do you guys think she should do about her heartache?