Driving Me Crazy

Chapter Twenty-Three

Charles

Katana takes a deep breath in before speaking again.

"Back home, we were only 40 minutes from Lake Michigan. My family used to own a lake house that we would stay at every summer. My brother and I always got to choose one friend to bring for the summer because my parents didn't want a bunch of kids to worry about."

She closes her eyes and a small tear flows down her cheek. I wipe it but stay silent as she composes herself.

"When I was 17, my brother was 19 so my parents decided that we could go to the house by ourselves for the summer. They visited, but let us have the place to ourselves. My best friend, Indi, and I took the boat out by ourselves one morning because Carter, my brother, refused to let us take it alone. We went out to our usual spot and stopped so that we could get off and swim. Indi ran from the back of the boat and did a front flip into the water, she was always doing crazy things."

More tears start flowing from her eyes and she leans away from me so that we can make eye contact. "You don't have to," I begin to say before she stops me.

"I was too focused on doing the flip myself that I didn't see her hit her head. When I finally built up the courage to run and jump, I hit the water and saw her just floating. The police said she instantly knocked herself out and drowned quickly being face down. If I would have just been paying attention I would have seen the blood on the railing. If I-"

"Stop," I say as I hold her face. "It wasn't your fault, things happen whether we like them or not. You are not to blame."

She smiles lightly as she wipes her face, and then says, "I know, it just stings. I haven't been on a boat since or even gone in the water. Camryn doesn't even know what happened. She just thinks that I had a falling out with my parents, she doesn't know that we fell out because they blame me."

My heart physically hurts when she says that. I look away from her to hide the disgust on my face. Fuck her parents for putting her through that.

"I'm truly sorry, Katana. I don't know what could make this better but I will truly do anything to try."

She smiles lightly and stands up from the bench and places a hand on my shoulder to steady herself. "Just let me forget what happened, I want to replace bad memories with good ones."

A smile fills up my face as I stand next to her and we walk hand in hand over to the happy couple sitting in the center of the boat. Lando and I had the team decorate the boat with a bunch of string lights so that it wasn't dark once the sun went down. There are small heaters built into the structure that keep us warm after dark and inside it has four rooms plus a living room of sorts. Okay so maybe it's less of a boat and more of a yacht.

When we get to the lighted area, Camryn greets us by shouting, "There are my little lovebirds," and holding up an entire bottle of wine. Katana's eyes go wide as she shouts back, "What wine is that? Give it. I want to try it!" She lets go of my hand and goes over to snatch the bottle of out Camryn's hand before drinking some straight from the bottle and then inspecting the brand. Lando is sitting on the couch, playing with Camryn's hair as she lays on her back with her head in his lap.

"Shit, this is good. Lando, is this your teammate's brand?" Katana asks as she sits down on the small two-seated bench next to them.

"Yeah, that's Daniels, is it any good? I don't fancy wine very much." Lando responds.

They have a small conversation about the wine as I make my way over and sit down next to her. Immediately she turns and stretches her legs over mine all while carrying on her conversation. I place my hand on her leg and take in my surroundings. I have my girl next to me, one of my best friends, and a race to win this weekend. This is the future I thrive for.

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It's now 1 am and Camryn is fast asleep in Lando's lap with Katana not far behind her. The four of us drank just that one bottle of wine, leaving it to be a much calmer night than originally planned. We were going to meet up with Carlos and have a big team party, but Lando decided against it when he saw Katana and me earlier. Luckily, this night did nothing but bring us closer together.

Lando sits forward and says, "Alright, we should probably head to bed." He starts slowly moving Camryn to wake her and they both say goodnight and head down into the rooms. There are four rooms set up for each of us, but I don't doubt they ended up in the same bed tonight.

When I look over at Katana, she's looking back at me.

"I didn't know we were sleeping on the boat, I don't want to wake anyone with my nightmares," she says nervously.

"The rooms are soundproof, but we can stay up all night if you'd prefer?" I ask her, trying to make her the most comfortable in this situation.

She smiles lightly, before saying, "It's okay, I just hope I don't scare Lando away. Everyone else knows about them. You should probably get some sleep, you have qualifying tomorrow, right?"

Breathing in deeply, I say, "Yeah, but I would stay up all night if it meant I get to talk to you."

Without a response, she gets up and walks towards the area where the rooms are. When she gets to the doorway, she stops and turns back to me before saying, "C'mon, Romeo. Let's go to bed."

God, I love this woman.