Lessons in Pain and Apologies

The press will have a field day.

This was the first and only thought that blinked through Callum Sanderson’s electric mind as the car spun. Light turned white then red then black before his eyes as everything changed in an instant- burning rubber. His instincts told him he’d been stabbed or shot or been smashed in the side of the head with an axe because the pain was surely going to kill him. Wet eyelids and cold skin.

Then everything froze. There was no sound. Panic tore its way through the pain as he realised he couldn’t breathe- he could taste metal against his lips.  Opened his eyes but still the blackness.

He knew he had to get out because of the fire. Was there even fire? He couldn’t see anything but he could smell the rubber. His skin felt even colder as he tried to move his hands and found they were trapped, under what, he had no idea. Bad. That’s the word they always use. This is bad.

The clock started to tick inside his head.

Arms. No longer paying attention to the piercing pain that itched his skin, he ripped his right hand from under whatever was clamping it, an involuntary moan pushing against the metal on his lips. Hardly knowing what he was doing, he tried to lift his arm out of the mangled chassis to try and attract attention. Terrifying whirlwinds of images flashed at him- what if he was left there? What if no one came? What-

He felt his stomach drop fifty feet as his world shifted again- he noticed the sky was a crushed green.

Something gripped his hand again and he would have screamed in shear agony had it not been for the cold clamped against his mouth. Then yet again everything flipped, his head felt like it was going to shatter.

Callum? Can you hear me?

Wait.

The air felt cool on his lips.

Callum snapped his eyes open and felt his shoulders drop with relief that he could see again. He could breathe and nothing had ever felt better. He wasn’t trapped in his cage; the world was open and breeding vulnerability.

“Callum.”

Tipping his head back and instantly regretting it, he groaned as he tried to make sense of where he was. He was out of the car, he knew that much. And someone had sat him upright in a chair- bright white occupied his grateful vision. Eyelids flickering haltingly. As he swallowed he tasted metal again, this time blood.

“Where…” he rasped, gulping down the air like they were his first ever breaths. He was now aware of the woman sat opposite him and recognised her as someone from the medical team on track, but he couldn’t remember her name and instantly felt guilty. “What’s…” he tried to choke out, but she handed him some water and he instinctively drank.

“Morgan and Harrison are on their way, they were held up-”

Time seemed to elongate at annoying times and Callum frowned, wanting her to complete the sentence.

“-another incident at turn seven.”

“Same lap?” he managed to force out. She nodded somewhat slower than usual.

“You spun on turn two and hit the barrier.”

He nodded blindly, sure that he was going to throw up. He noticed she had pretty brown eyes, whoever she was.

Wait.

“He hit me?” his tongue was painfully dry and his blood ran cold.

The woman sat opposite him hesitated and paused for the longest pause Callum had ever seen. While she looked at him carefully as if wondering whether he was in any fit state to hear this information, he also noticed they were in the small medical office above the pit lane here at Interlagos. He wondered how they’d got him there.

“Yes, he hit you.”

“Hurt?” he was sure she’d know what he was trying to get out.

“No, he’s fine. They red flagged it, he’s-“

Before she could say another word, Callum gritted his teeth, prepared for the pain and promptly stood up. He had known before forcing his leg muscles to work that he would not be able to walk very well because he’d had a crash like this before. Nothing was broken, he knew that now, but everything still screamed like fire as the adrenalin of shock pulsed through his veins.

“Callum,” the woman mirrored his actions but he ignored her gentle attempts to get him to sit down again. He knew where he was going and by god he was going to get there.

“Callum,” she cried louder, panicking that he was opening the office door. He could no longer hear her but his determination wavered for a fleeting second as he noticed his right hand was laced with gleaming red, still sticky. Shrugging it off he flung open the door with newfound strength and staggered out into the corridor.

Morgan was the chief medical officer, he definitely remembered that. Harrison was his boss at Red Bull Racing but he had no desire to see him right now.

Again, as he stumbled as quickly as he could down the brightly lit passageway, he shifted both of his arms and knew they weren’t broken. Okay so maybe his rib was broken, his chest was sucking in on itself, but he could feel it was nowhere near his lungs so he could deal with that. It had been a bad crash and he was sure it would be good to watch on the replay later but right now he had something more important to do.

He fell down the stairs rather than walked, but he no longer cared. Callum knew that when the adrenalin started to fade, more pain would take its place so he had to move quickly- and Harrison would no doubt try to stop him before he got to the McLaren garage.

Ragged breathing in his ears, he finally emerged into the bright Brazilian sun but didn’t pause, throwing himself between the pale trailers and ignoring the shocked gazes of team staff as the blood soaked driver in RBR overalls hurled down the tarmac.

His head was a mess and all he saw when he blinked was the few seconds he remembered before the black. The bright glitter of a fearsome white tiger, otherwise known as a McLaren, snarled inches away from his right eye as it tried to take him on the inside. After that, the world accelerated and shattered.

Barely thinking, Callum tore past his own garage, dodging the tyres and other equipment cluttering the asphalt.

“Sanderson!” he heard Harrison’s familiar roar from behind him. Don’t stop.

Clicking of cameras like mosquitos nibbled his ears and he gritted his teeth, swallowed sand.

The electricity in his blood had carried him this far but now it ran cold- thankfully he collapsed in the right garage.

Thousands of bees scribbled and mumbled in the air around him and people surrounded him as he staggered to his feet-

“Raven!”

Callum let loose the angry yell and the bees went silent.

He wanted to tell all the people around him to move away, he felt trapped again and took deep breaths. Don’t punch him.

The blood roared in his head and heart thumped against his chest as the crowd parted. Russet eyes identical to his own met Callum’s gaze.

“Jesus, Cal.”  His brother stared at him in shock. “You look bad.”

Now he was finally here with the person he wanted to kill directly in front of him, Callum lost the ability to talk or make decisions and simply stood there, drops of blood rolling slowly down his forehead.

“I was going to head straight over, Morgan said they’d taken you to the office upstairs, but I had to bring the car back,” Raven Sanderson continued, somewhat shakily.

Callum couldn’t say anything.

“Boys,” Harrison suddenly appeared behind him and shoved him not-too-delicately forwards and grabbed Raven’s arm on the way, dragging them both from the view of all the press gaggled excitedly around the entrance.

“The fuck are you doing, Callum,” his team boss hissed at him, producing two chairs from nowhere and forcing the two brothers to sit opposite each other in the back of the deserted garage. Callum knew he must be annoyed because he didn’t swear like that very often. “You need to be in hospital, look at you.”

For perhaps only the second time that afternoon, Callum looked down and tried to assess his injuries. Okay, maybe it was a few broken ribs; the stabbing pain was really starting to kick in now. Most of the skin on his right hand was bloody and raw and he winced, despite himself.

“Cal, look at me,” his brother said quietly.

He snapped his head up, hearing his neck crack. Raven sat there, arms crossed over his McLaren overalls, looking almost identical to him- the same wide eyes and tousled mousy hair, the only difference being a slightly tighter jawline and thinner eyebrows.

“You tried to take the inside,” Callum managed to force out, yet again feeling like he was going to throw up. He closed his mouth.

“The hell does it matter,” Harrison snapped, but Callum didn’t take his eyes off his brother. “I’m not even supposed to be in here- I’m going to get Morgan. Raven, keep this idiot here.”

Then he promptly left.

They sat in silence for a moment. Callum let his shoulders drop and he sank deeper into the chair, the dizziness and nausea really setting in.

“You tried to take the inside,” he repeated again, his words slurring. Pause. “Stupid.”

“I thought we said we wouldn’t talk in our overalls if this happened,” Raven said. Callum saw his gaze travel down to his hand.

“If you…” Callum paused to spit blood out of his mouth, grimacing. He must have bitten his tongue with the impact. “You mean if you hit me.”

“I mean if either of us hit each other. We’re still in our team colours; I thought we said we wouldn’t talk. My god, Cal, look at you,” he repeated, another string of panic breaking into his voice.

“Say it.” Callum muttered through his teeth.

Raven tightened his lips and for a moment Callum thought he was going to punch him and braced for the impact.

“Sorry. It was stupid.”

Callum narrowed his eyes and waited for his hammered brain to process his brother’s tone of voice. Silence for a moment. He decided it was as genuine as Raven ever was with apologies.

“Ok.” He hadn’t got any energy to say anything else but dimly nodded.

Most of the anger had left him, or rather; his body was refusing to hold onto the rage energy from before. It hurts, he thought numbly to himself, black and red blotches flickering in his vision.

“D’you want me to change and we can talk about it?” Raven paused. “On the way to the hospital.”

Callum hated hospitals.

“S’kay,” he mumbled. His thoughts were clearing ever so slightly and he started to remember where he was- a Red Bull driver in the McLaren garage was not ideal. The two teams had grown used to the two brothers over the past two years, but some things were still awkward. The time Raven had accidentally walked in on the new RB14’s front wing and Harrison had threatened to tie him to a chair and never let him out of the factory if he talked. They tried their best to keep only the most necessary of secrets from each other. It didn’t always work.

“Well at least you don’t have to fix your car,” Raven attempted to keep a straight face and coughed to cover up his laugh. It took a moment for Callum to focus on his words. Last race of the season, you don’t need it anymore.

“Shut up,” he managed to say, half grinning, before blissfully sinking into blackness.