Chapter 3N
My phone buzzed with new messages. This time, it wasn’t him. It was my racing team.N
Byra Quinn, where have you been?]
Why haven’t we been able to reach you?]N
[Are you alright? Please reply]
I stared at the messages through blurred vision, my tears threatening to spill over again. Their concern, their worry–it was like a ray of sunlight in the middle of winter. But the one person I had needed it from the most had been too stingy to give me even a shred of warmth. I let out a bitter laugh.N
Once, we had been happy. He would hold me close and call me baby over and over again. He would cook for me, even if it was just a simple plate of scrambled eggs and tomatoes. When I got hurt during training, he would cradle me in his arms, kissing my wounds as if he could take the pain away.N
Baby, don’t push yourself so hard. I can’t bear to see you hurt.” His eyes back then had been full of love. Or so I thought. Now, I realized that love had never been for me. He had been looking through me. Seeing her. Loving her. And I had been too young, too naive to understand. Later, things changed. He got busier. He started his own business. He left early in the morning and came home late at night. Our conversations grew shorter, our time together dwindled. He stopped calling me baby. He started calling me by my full name–Lyra Quinn. So, I adapted. I worked harder. I trained more. I competed, won races, earned money.&
I wanted to make his life easier. I wanted to support him so he wouldn’t have to bear everything alone.”
But the harder I worked, the more impatient he became. He didn’t like me racing. Said it was too dangerous. Said he didn’t want me to get hurt. Said he would take care of me, that I didn’t need to push myself so hard. But he forgot something important. Racing wasn’t just a job to me. It was my dream. The dream I had cherished since I was a child. I loved him, but I also loved racing.
The final argument between us came without warning. He came home late, exhausted. He tossed a bank card onto the table in front of me.
“Lyra, I’m broke. We have no money. Stop racing. I can’t afford to support you anymore.”
I froze. Stared at him. And for the first time, something inside me went cold. He had forgotten that I made money from racing. That I had never once asked him for anything. He had never been the one supporting me. I had been the one supporting him.”
Even more painful than his lies was the truth he refused to see–never wanted his money. I only ever wanted his support. I hadn’t told him that I secretly entered that private racing competition. I wanted to win. I wanted to prove that I was strong enough, that I could take care of myself and him.
11:23 AM
