Hi! This a short excerpt from the first chapter of my next story called Changes. It's about Don and Louis, together 10 years, married for part of that time, very devoted to each other. Don is a writer and a lover of his husband but also of danger. Life is good until one day ...
The racetrack that day was noisy and oily. The fumes gave me a headache. I felt irritated and wanted to be anywhere but there, but Don had asked me to go, and I didn’t feel like I could say no. In the pit area, I sat watching him and his crew doing last minute adjustments to the bike. I was such a fish out of water.
But Don didn’t care. I was his husband, and he was not afraid to show this in front of others as he often ran up to talk or kiss me. Finally, Don went to change into his leathers, leaving me with a black feeling of doom.
If I’d gotten up and gone with him, and told him how I felt—that maybe today was not a good day to get on that killing machine—that maybe he’d have listened. In my heart-of-hearts though, I know he wouldn’t have.
No, instead, he would do what he did. Hold me in his strong arms, kiss me until I was breathless, and tell me he’d love me forevermore. I’d smile and act bravely, cheering him on, but scared until the damn race was over.
It happened in the fifth lap. They don’t really know what caused the accident; can’t tell me the whys, only that it was an act of God.
Do we blame God for everything bad that happens?
I see it every day in my head; it was just after a right turn. The bike leaning, and Don’s right knee so close to the track. It was too close, wasn’t it? The physics were instantly wrong, so that massive machine slid out from under him, and Don becoming a ragdoll as he flipped repeatedly, bouncing off the guardrail and hay bales. The ambulance screamed its way over the park-like grass in the centre of the track.
I wanted to go. I needed to go. But I was held in place, as Jed’s hands were on both my biceps while I tried to climb the barrier; his grip was like Don’s.
Jed, the crew chief, had grabbed my face and turned it toward his. It was loud, so we all wore ear protectors, and I remember the shape of his mouth as he yelled at me; NO, NO, NO! He pulled me inside the small crew’s lounge. I fought him because this room was not where I was supposed to be. He pulled off our protectors and said, “No, Louis. We can’t help him. Let the paramedics sort him out.”
“He’s my fucking husband!” I didn’t try to stop my tears.
Jed pulled me close and held me in arms that felt so like Don’s, and he whispered, “I know. I know.”
All I could do then was grab fistfuls of his overalls and sob.
Jed drove me to the hospital. Terror was in my fingers during that ride and I dug them into my thighs and the padded door handle.
Don was in surgery by the time Jed led me to the Emergency Room, where he remained for several hours. I called Don’s mother Rena, who lived in Calgary. I felt I needed a plunger to push down my feelings as I told her what had happened to her son. I knew she was crying as she said she would be here as soon as she could.
That was nearly three weeks ago. Don has not woken up; he has not moved, he has not smiled or cried, or said: Baby I love you.
Not for three weeks.
I think I have no more tears, but today, with time passing me by, I sob.
My ‘you’ve got a text’ ringtone roused me from my self-pity and daydreams. I picked up my phone, rolled onto my back and opened it:
He’s awake