Chapter Theme:

Oh Wonder - Without You

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Happy Holidays! And get well soon Wendy 💙💙

The first week is seven days in a dream.

First it’s the flight back from Brazil. What follows is both personal and professional. It’s the strange and alien numbness at remembering her conversation with Irene, alone and distraught and unsure of herself and yet so very sure of what must come next and what it must mean for them, sat in a hotel room on a dark night three thousand miles from her apartment in Seoul and holding Irene’s hand and telling her it was going to be okay. How different that had been. Then it’s the professional, the agony of having such a stellar performance torn away from her at the last possible moment. A podium from last place on the grid. One look at the championship table tells her nothing much has changed, with both her and Irene taking home zero points each, but Yeri is right there in third, and the possibility of her overtaking Irene for second is both real and immediate and quite alarming.

Tuesday morning she arrives at the offices in Seoul and goes straight into the boardroom before even dropping her bag off in the back or grabbing something to eat. Something about it feels off. Wendy’s already there, sat at her chair on the far side of the table with a flask of coffee in one hand and a pencil in the other, idly rolling it between her fingers with a sort of practiced deftness. A stack of papers on the table in front of her, a ceramic pot of biro pens and coloured markers and withering yellow pencils, the wilting of the flowers fake or otherwise in an old vase beside them. It smells of freshly pressed coffee and chocolate and vaguely of some foreign substance, perhaps perfume. For a while Seulgi just stands there in the doorway with her bag slung awkwardly over one shoulder. Wendy turns to her and pushes her chair back and slouches in it and nods to her.

‘You’re late.’

‘Where is everyone?’ Seulgi asks.

‘I don’t know. I only got here, like, ten minutes ago. Maybe we’re the only two here.’

‘What are we here for?’

‘The usual, I assume. Only this time, I expect it’ll be a lot shorter. Not really a lot we can talk about, is there?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well,’ Wendy says. She shifts and sits up in her chair and motions about with the flask of coffee like some sort of manic and sleep-deprived teacher. ‘We did everything right, essentially. Or at least, you did. And then we just sort of did what we normally do on the pitwall, which is tell you to keep going and give you what you need and make sure nothing happens in the pits. And then, well.’

‘Yeah,’ Seulgi says. ‘Still fresh in my head, don’t worry.’

‘Sorry, by the way.’

‘For what?’

‘For, you know…having a go at your girlfriend. For getting so angry. It’s not like me.’

‘I know it’s not.’

‘I just don’t like seeing you like that. Seeing you hurt.’

‘I wasn’t hurt. I was fine. Reve, though, not so much.’

‘You could’ve been. And I think that scared me a bit. But whatever. Sorry. I know she means a lot to you. Irene, I mean. Not Reve.’

‘Yeah.’

A silence. Seulgi taking in the room, hand still on the strap of her bag, as if unsure of how to proceed. Wendy sips her coffee and shifts a handful of the papers aside and looks at her again and says with curiosity in her voice, ‘Are you okay?’

‘Yeah. Why?’

‘You’re not looking yourself.’

‘I’ve just got off a twelve-hour flight, Wendy. I’m about as far away from being myself as I can be right now. I need some proper sleep, not in a plane cubicle.’

‘No, that’s not it.’

‘What?’

Wendy squints. As if the act of doing so will make Seulgi clearer to her, and the comedy of it is not lost on Seulgi. ‘There’s something else,’ she says. ‘Something’s wrong. What’s up?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Seulgi.’

For a long time she says nothing. Just standing in the doorway listening to footsteps faintly outside and the clock ticking and the squeaking of the wheels on Wendy’s chair. Debating with herself the truth of her situation and what it has become. Does she need to know? Does it even matter? And what does it even mean? The truth is that Seulgi isn’t even sure herself. She exists almost solely in this murky and uncomfortable limbo between being comfortable with Irene’s decision and unsure of whether it’s truly the best thing for either of them. So after great delay and with equally great hesitation she manages to say, ‘We broke up. Me and Irene.’

‘What?’ The speed with which Wendy sits upright again and shifts back and sets the coffee down is almost startling. ‘What do you mean you broke up?’

‘Well, we broke up.’

‘When? What? You’re gonna have to tell me the whole story. All of it.’

She motions across the table and Seulgi sighs and sits, patient and therapist, listening to the clock keep them small company. ‘I went and saw her after the race,’ Seulgi says.

‘Yeah.’

‘She wasn’t herself. I’ve never seen her like that. Well, once, but that was last year. She was so broken up about it. So apologetic. Saying she wished she could take it all back and never do any of it and not turn her wheel and stuff. Just sat there crying. I didn’t know what to do. And she told me everything. Told me all the problems she’s been having and what it comes down and what it means for her and for us and where we can go from here.’

‘And?’

‘What?’

‘What did she say?’

‘That she’s struggling with the idea of losing.’

‘Well,’ Wendy says, ‘don’t we all struggle with that? I mean, don’t you?’

‘That’s not it. It’s more complicated than that.’ She looks at Wendy and sighs and thinks for a moment perhaps it’s for the best Wendy is kept a slight in the dark still. But then she relents and says, ‘Her whole life has been Formula 1 for as long as she can remember. You know this. And then I came along and her whole life was Formula 1 and me. And I think she realised that’s not healthy at all. What if one of those two things goes sour on her? God forbid, of course, but still. And even if it didn’t, even if we remained solid throughout it all, basing your whole life around a relationship with one person…is that healthy? I don’t know. Maybe it is. I can’t decide. I guess she decided for me.’

‘So, she broke up with you?’

‘For the time being.’

‘What does that mean? For the time being?’

‘Just for a while,’ Seulgi says, rubbing her head. ‘Can we turn the aircon on?’

‘It’s already on.’

Seulgi pushes her chair back and fiddles with the little dial by the whiteboard at the front of the room until the air is cool enough to cause a chill. And still her head throbs. ‘So,’ Wendy says when she’s back at the table, ‘how long is a while? Until Singapore?’

‘She said Mexico or Korea at the earliest.’

‘Makes sense. Until the season is out of the way, you mean?’

‘I guess so. I wish I could tell you more but I don’t really know myself. I think I’m still figuring that bit out.’

‘Well then.’

‘It’s funny almost. I finally get over everything wrong with me, I finally get my confidence back and for good this time, and then this happens. Or maybe it’s not that at all. Maybe she’s been suffering with this for a long time, and I’ve just been too shortsighted and selfish to ever even realise. Maybe it’s been like this for most of the year. Is that it?’

‘I don’t know,’ Wendy says. ‘I can’t help you there. Sorry.’

‘What do I do, Wendy?’

‘What can you do?’

Seulgi checks her phone. Much of her eighteen-hour roundtrip flight was spent doing the exact same thing. To her disappointment there’s nothing from Irene since Brazil, a real and tangible radio silence that has her heart dropping. ‘What am I going to do without her for that long?’ Seulgi says.

‘I don’t know. Is it going to affect your performances?’

‘Honestly?’

‘Yeah.’

Seulgi shakes her head emphatically. ‘I just miss her, is all.’

‘It’s been one day. Or two days, technically, but not quite.’

‘Yeah. Maybe that’s telling of how we are. I don’t know. I’m going to miss her, yeah, but at the same time it’s kind of freeing, you know? It’s…what’s the word? Liberating? Hopeful, even. Knowing that she’s got this time to sort out her own problems and she’s just as confident as I am that she can do that, and even more confident that it’s going to work out for us afterward. So, it won’t affect me. Not professionally, at least. My whole life this past nine months has been trying to figure out a balance between the two and converting the confidence I gained in my private life into my racing life. And so far it's worked a treat.’

‘Good,’ Wendy says. ‘I’m glad. And I’m sorry about the race again.’

‘There was nothing you could’ve done. Wasn’t your fault. Just one of those things that happens.’

‘It was such a good race, too. You had some serious pace.’

‘Yeah,’ Seulgi says. Another wistful sigh. Mind half on Irene and half on what could have been if they had not crashed. Fifteen laps to go and ten seconds to Jennie ahead. What could have been. ‘Hey,’ she says. ‘Where’s Joy?’

‘Don’t know. I don’t know where anyone is. Maybe we missed a memo or something. You want something to eat?’

‘Are you offering?’

‘There’s still cake in the cafeteria if you’re hungry.’

‘I’ll pass.’

‘Sorry about you and Irene again.’

‘Thanks.’

‘What are you going to do for the next week until we fly off to Singapore?’

‘I don’t know,’ Seulgi says, and it’s the truth. ‘Try and ignore her, I guess. Good thing she hasn’t text me or anything.’

‘ it had to happen so close to her birthday as well.’

‘Her— wait. .’

‘What? Did you forget her birthday or something?’

‘It’s tomorrow, right?’

‘Yeah,’ Wendy says. ‘Did you seriously forget?’

‘,’ Seulgi says, rubbing her head again. ‘With everything that’s gone on recently it must’ve slipped my mind. And she never mentioned it in Brazil either. God, how can I be so stupid all the time? And why is it so cold in here?’

‘Well, because you—’

‘What am I going to do? I’ve got a schedule later today as well, showing some interns around the development centre. I’m not going to have any time or anything. , Wendy. Why didn’t you tell me this before? And why do you even know when her birthday is?’

‘It’s on Wikipedia. And why is this my fault?’

‘What am I going to do?’

‘I don’t know,’ Wendy says. She sip her coffee idly, looking elsewhere, entirely uninterested again. ‘Maybe just send her a text or something? Or just say nothing. I mean, you’re not technically together.’

‘I can’t do that. I just can’t.’

‘Well then. Looks like you’re in a bit of a situation.’

‘I guess I’ll have to pick something up tomorrow,’ Seulgi says. In the quiet that follows a stupid and very unromantic thought comes to her. ‘Wendy,’ she mutters.

‘What?’

‘How much of that cake is left?’

‘Not much. Like, two slices.’

‘.’

‘Why?’

‘No reason,’ Seulgi murmurs. ‘Just wondering.’

She stirs her coffee so much that part of her thinks the spoon might begin to dissolve sometime soon. Sitting in the café under a cold sun listening to the tiny sounds that inhabit this shared space. These worlds away from worlds. The press of coffeebeans and the offbeat tempo of clanging pots and pans in the sink and the smell of rich coffee and toast and grilled cheese. Stirring and stirring. In the low evening sun long skeins of amber light go running down the dark like burning night signals. She signs a good two dozen autographs in less than an hour. It’s almost six in the evening when Jennie walks in and catches sight of her and smiles politely. ‘Hey,’ she says, a little out of breath. ‘Sorry about that.’

‘It’s okay.’

She sits opposite and shifts and Seulgi just continues stirring the coffee. She’s wearing her familiar Renault hoodie and a pair of comically oversized glasses to partially hide her face like some sort of female Clark Kent and she looks at Seulgi and says, ‘What did you want to see me about?’

‘I just wanted to ask you a question. Or, like, a couple.’

‘Sure.’

Jennie is patient and smiling. The silence is an indication for Seulgi to speak but for a long time she doesn’t. She just stirs the coffee. By now it’s already lukewarm and steamless. ‘Jennie,’ she says.

‘Yeah?’

‘It’s about Irene.’

‘What about her?’

‘We broke up.’

‘What?’

Seulgi shrugs. As if it only reinforces the answer. But then Jennie takes her hands out of her pockets and pulls down her hood and says, ‘You broke up? What, like, romantically?’

‘Yeah. She broke up with me. Said it was only temporary. Said we’d get back together once the season was over and done with and we didn’t have to focus on the racing anymore. She said it was because she needed to find herself without me, find what her life was without the racing or without being in love or whatever. That she needed to love herself.’

‘Okay.’

‘I just wanted to ask you something, because I don’t know who else to ask.’

‘Well,’ Jennie says, ‘what about Wendy?’

‘I can’t talk to her because I know her too well. She knows me too well. And neither of us likes seeing the other angry, so sometimes we play nice or we’re overly positive or whatever. And I can’t talk to Joy for much the same reason. And I don’t know if I can trust Yeri to not accidentally let something slip to Irene, what with them being on the same team and everything. So, I came to you.’

‘I see.’

‘I just wanted to ask you something.’

‘I’m all ears,’ Jennie says with a warm smile.

‘Am I being immature? Emotionally, I mean. Am I?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t know,’ Seulgi says, still stirring. ‘It’s just…all this time I’ve been doing nothing but thinking about myself. Through all of this it’s just been me, me, me. Me getting my confidence back. Me learning to balance that with realism, not being overly optimistic, but understanding that sometimes happens in racing and we’ve got to get on with it. Me finally coming to terms with all of that and being one hundred percent again. But I never once thought about her. I mean, I sat with her and listened and I could tell something was up. I could tell immediately. But I never confronted it. I’d just ask her if she was alright and she’d say yes and that was it. I never pushed it any further. And the one time I finally did, she broke up with me.’

Jennie just nods.

‘So what I mean is, am I just emotionally immature and selfish? Was I thinking about myself too much and not thinking about her, or what impact it could have on the two of us together? Should I have been doing more of that? I don’t even know anymore. I think maybe this is the best thing for both of us but I don’t even know. And I don’t know who to ask about it.’

‘So you came to me.’

‘Yeah. Kind of. Sorry.’

‘Don’t be sorry,’ Jennie says. She takes a long look at the day outside. The world reflected selfsame in the glare of her glasses. It occurs to Seulgi that they are still essentially strangers, small talk and idle conversations in hotels or not. ‘You want to know what I think?’ she asks.

‘Yeah. Please.’

‘Honestly?’

‘As honest as you can be.’

‘Well, I don’t know everything. That much is obvious. So I can’t really give a properly accurate picture or anything, but from what you’ve told me I’d say you’re right. It is immature and shortsighted and, yeah, a little bit selfish. There are two people in a relationship. You’ve got to both make compromises and learn how to work with the other person to be the best versions of yourselves you can be. And you can’t do that if you’re ignoring the other person or hoping everything will just play out fine without communication. And from what you’ve said it seems like she was a bit emotionally immature as well, hiding things from you, smiling and telling you it was all okay, pretending all the time. Maybe it’s the best for the both of you that you spend some time apart. Now you can focus on what really matters. Whatever that is.’

‘For me it’s winning.’

‘Well then.’

‘Okay,’ Seulgi says, ‘maybe not winning. But being the best version of myself consistently. Learning that things just happen sometimes and you can’t do anything to fix them because, well…they’ve already happened.’

‘The past is in the past.’

‘Yeah. Right.’

‘We can only use the past to help us in the future.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Same with you and Irene. You can’t go back and fix what happened – can’t reverse time and just work up the courage to ask her what was wrong and put a stop to it when it first started – but you can learn from it. You can grow, the both of you, separate and together. That’s how these things endure. It’s through perseverance. And if I know Irene at all, I know that she’ll persevere. So, yeah. That’s what I think. And I think it’s pretty cool that you noticed all of this and had the wherewithal to both realise it and realise what was right. And I also think it was pretty cool you came to me about it. So, thanks.’

‘I just didn’t know who else to turn to.’

At this Jennie only smiles, wide enough and comforting enough that Seulgi can’t help but smile either, hands stilling the spoon in her cold cup. ‘What time is it?’ she asks.

‘About half past six. Why?’

‘I’ve got to pick something up. It’s Irene’s birthday today.’

‘Is it? I didn’t know.’

‘Yeah, and until yesterday I forgot.’

‘Forgot her birthday?’

Seulgi shrugs. ‘Guess I was just too preoccupied, thinking about myself again. So, yeah. I had to get her something at the last possible minute pretty much.’

‘Are you going to give it to her?’

‘I was planning on it, yeah.’

‘I thought you said she needed time alone? Or at least, apart from you.’

‘Well.’

‘Maybe it’d be best to not give it to her?’

‘What do I do, then?’

‘I don’t know,’ Jennie says. ‘Was just a suggestion. You don’t have to take my word for it or anything. It’s no better than anyone else’s.’

‘Thank you. For agreeing to meet me. And for just listening.’

‘Hey,’ Jennie says with a smile, ‘that’s what friends are for.’

It isn’t until she’s at the stoplights twenty minutes from her destination that she realises she has no idea what she’s doing at all. Romance has never been Seulgi’s strong suit. Nor has spontaneity. The evening has purpled and grown dim and a small coinlike moon sits swaged behind the clouds and Seulgi checks her watch to find that somehow it’s nearly eight PM already. The traffic has picked up, too, and the little red marker on her GPS keeps blinking and telling her she’s going the wrong way and maybe that’s just the batteries but maybe not and her paranoia almost gets the better of her.

She spends the next few minutes driving absently and gazing out the windows and thinking: What am I doing? This is stupid. And then she thinks: Maybe I should get rid of the balloons. Maybe I should’ve waited to blow them up. Why did I do that first? Am I stupid? God, what’s wrong with me?

At the next set of lights she grabs her phone and thumbs in her passcode clumsily and makes a call and sets it on hands-free speakerphone and replaces it on the little magnetic holder on the dashboard. It rings twice. Both times Seulgi’s stomach flips and lurches and her hands are shaking for no reason at all. Thinking: This is stupid. It’s not Formula 1. It’s just some dumb thing I’m doing because I’m dumb. Very dumb. A big dumb dumb. On the third ring she’s greeted by a muted burst of static and the sound of faint dance music and somebody talking in the background. The quality sounds like something being recorded through a wall, or from underwater, or from 1992.

‘Hello?’ the voice says. ‘Seulgi, is that you?’

‘Yeah. Yeri?’

‘Hey. Did you want something?’

‘Uh, kind of. Are you busy right now?’

A pause at the other end of the line. Someone is laughing. Then all Seulgi hears is a deafening roar and coughing and footsteps. ‘What was that?’ she says.

‘What?’

‘That noise.’

‘Oh, I’m in the bathroom. It was the hand dryer. What did you need me for?’

‘Do you know where Irene is right now?’

‘Yeah,’ Yeri says, ‘she’s with me. Why?’

‘. What?’

‘Well, she’s at the bar waiting for me. Why? Is she not answering her phone or something? Do you want me to go and grab her for—’

‘No, no. Please don’t. Don’t do that.’

‘Oh. Okay. Why?’

‘It’s just—’ she sighs. The lights are green and she pulls away slowly and her head is swimming and she’s blushing and embarrassed and it’s stupid because she’s alone and no one can see her and yet all she wants to do is curl up into a ball and disappear.

‘Seulgi?’

‘Yeah,’ Seulgi mutters. ‘I’m still here.’

‘I’m gonna have to go.’

‘What time is Irene going to go home?’

‘What?’ Yeri says. And then, before Seulgi can reply: ‘I don’t know, why? We were planning on grabbing some drinks and maybe going out later. You’re welcome to join us if you want.’

‘No, I’m okay. I just needed to know something. So, she won’t be back until late tonight?’

‘Uh, I guess. Why? Seulgi, are you alright?’

‘Fine,’ Seulgi says, forcing a smiling and realising quite suddenly Yeri can’t see her anyway. ‘Can you do me a favour though, please?’

‘Sure.’

‘Can you not tell Irene I rang her, please?’

‘Uh, sure. Is this something to do with the two of you being broken up? Or is that not my place to ask?’

‘What? How do you—’

‘She told me earlier. We had a schedule to attend.’

‘Right. Well, thanks anyway. Just please don’t tell her.’

‘Sure thing,’ Yeri says. ‘Do you need anything else?’

She thinks about it for a minute. Trying to formulate something to say. Her cheeks are burning. Then she says, in a quiet and embarrassed voice, ‘Can you make sure she gets home safe?’

‘What?’

‘She’s not great when she’s drunk. She gets a bit…soppy. And clumsy.’

‘Oh. I see. Yeah, don’t worry. She’ll be fine.’

‘Thanks, Yeri.’

‘Any time. Cya.’

‘Yeah.’

By the time Yeri’s hung up the little confectionery shop is only down the end of the street. Everything has a quietness to it. The traffic seems to have subsided almost entirely. Even the light of the streetlamps pools small and indistinct in pale cones. Seulgi pulls the car up three bays down and steps out into the cold with her cap pulled tight over her head as if it might hide her but the act of doing so is pointless. There’s nobody to hide from. She pushes the door open to the pleasant jingle of a bell and the little woman behind the counter smiles at her pleasantly, the smile of someone far calmer and more organised than Seulgi.

‘What can I help you with today?’ she asks.

‘I’m here to pick up an order I placed earlier. My name’s Seulgi.’

‘Have you got any ID?’

She hands over her identification and a confirmation email on her phone and waits politely while the woman types something into her computer with a smile. It smells of chocolate and baking and vanilla milkshakes and it looks even better. Small tables piled high with buns and cupcakes and scones and croissants hidden behind glassbell containers. Chocolate fudge slices and toffee flapjack and iced buns and mint-choc chip cookies and candycanes. The woman passes her ID back with a smile. ‘I’ll just be two minutes,’ she says.

‘Thank you.’

And no more than two minutes later the woman comes out from the back room carrying an enormous three-layer cake in both hands, so tall she has to strain to see over the top of it. It looks like a giant wedding cake. Round and tall and the purest white icing and inside a rich and lush red sponge and white buttercream and decorated around the top with small edible roses and rainbow sprinkles in a pretty waterfall. With the greatest care in the world the woman hands it over to Seulgi.

‘Thank you,’ Seulgi mutters again, awkward and stifflegged and trying not to drop it.

‘Would you like anything else?’

‘No, thank you. This is everything.’

‘Must be for someone very special.’

‘Yeah,’ Seulgi says, smiling over the cake. ‘Yeah it is.’

For some reason her hands are still shaking on the way over to Irene’s apartment. Thinking, with the irrational part of her brain: What if she’s actually in? What if Yeri was tricking me? Or lying? And what if she's on the way to take out her trash and she opens the door and I’m outside and she sees me, like the big idiot I am? What then?

It isn’t until she’s across the street from Irene’s apartment building that she stops thinking about it at all. She rubs her forehead, acutely aware it’s still throbbing and there’s no remedy for this sort of affliction. Her car is an old Kia, and perhaps there’s something ironic in that considering her career choices but if so Seulgi has never taken the time to think about it nor is she about to begin. She steps out and unlocks the trunk and opens it and almost screams.

The top layer of the cake had slid completely off from the rest and nestled amid what remains of the icing and the three blue balloons she blew up earlier, now peculiarly and through typical misfortune having deflated entirely, limpid slabs of rubber on the already ruined cake. And the enormous paper card that reads HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEST DRIVER has been redecorated by the part of the cake that decided to fall off so that it now reads HAPPY BIRTHDAY BT DRI.

‘,’ she mutters. ‘ .’

It isn’t until she has one hand scooped under the card stuck to the bottom of the cake that she realises she’s forgotten the wrapping paper and the box. And any sort of way to get into Irene’s apartment. She scoops up the cake on the card plate and balances it precariously in one hand like a waiter. With her spare hand she grabs the balloons and tucks the huge birthday sign under her arm and waddles off across the street toward the front of Irene’s building. Irene is on the fourth floor, room twenty. None of the first sixteen doorbells work. She rings number seventeen to an equally silent response and decides it best to not ring anyone else.

‘,’ she says. ‘Why am I so bad at this?’

Maybe it would be best to just go home. To ignore it all completely. But as hopeless as she is there still exists the notion of romanticism in there, misguided and hilarious as it is, and so eventually she neatly sets the cake down beside the front doors, slanted and missing an entire layer and with a balloon sat flaccid in the icing, and puts the other two balloons and the birthday card behind it. HAPPY BIRTHDAY BT DRI, it reads. She bunches up the sleeve of her jumper and wipes away the buttercream and steps back to admire her handiwork. Her watch reads almost nine PM. Perhaps Irene will be back in an hour. Perhaps not for twelve hours. Perhaps she’s still inside.

Whatever the answer, Seulgi doesn’t stick around to find out.