The Grudge •||• PA17

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My immediate future was gone. My dream had dissolved in Spa. The doctors had spoken in grave, clinical tones about long-term nerve damage and the risk to my career, making the recovery less about when I would race again, and more about if I could regain full stability. The long process of physical therapy began the moment I was medically stable enough to move, a soul-crushing routine aimed at rebuilding a spine that felt like glass.

My orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Chen, had a solemn, unhurried manner, patiently explaining the severity. "Viviana, the L1 is stable. But a compression fracture, for a driver, means months of zero rotational movement. We need to rebuild the core strength that acts as your internal seatbelt. This is a complete rebuild, starting at 1%. If you push too fast, you risk long-term instability and chronic pain."

This meant slow, frustrating torture. The first few weeks of physio were a waking nightmare.

The physiotherapist, an endlessly cheerful woman named Sara, would gently coax me into a partial sit-up, barely lifting my shoulders off the mat. The effort would send lightning bolts of pain radiating through my abdomen and searing into my lower back.

"Just to where you feel the tension, Viviana. That's enough," Sara coaches, her voice soft against my gritted teeth.

"It hurts. It feels wrong," I bite out, my face slick with sweat and tears of frustration.

"I know. But pain is information, not a barrier. We're re-teaching your muscles to hold your spine. Focus on the breath. Inhale... engage your transversus abdominis²... exhale."

The humiliation was overwhelming. I was a racer used to pulling 5g in a corner. Now, I couldn't hold a simple abdominal brace without trembling. Every session was a public display of my current failure, a reminder of how brittle I had become.

During this grueling phase, the contrast between the two men became a defining feature of my life.

Paul never called. Never. Not a single phone call, not a text. His silence wasn't just an absence, it was a gaping emotional wound that festered in the quiet of my apartment.

I saw photos of him at the next race weekend, smiling in the paddock, fielding questions about his reserve driving future. He was moving on, acting as if the entire event, the crash, my hospitalization, the end of our friendship, was merely a brief, regrettable media cycle. The message was unmistakable. Our history was less important than his career momentum.

Ollie, however, became the air I breathed.

He didn't treat me like an invalid. He treated me like a competitor with a temporary setback. He was there for the hardest sessions, driving me to the clinic and waiting. One afternoon, when I completely broke down, sobbing out of sheer exhaustion because I couldn't hold a ten-second bridge pose, Ollie stepped in. He didn't offer me anything. He just knelt beside me and started talking about the intricacies of a failure he'd dealt with the previous week.

He shifted the focus, making me feel like a racer taking a tough break, not a broken person. When I was done crying, he helped me up, and we walked silently to the car, the incident already behind us.

When Dr. Chen finally signed off on the move from floor exercises to light activity, Ollie bought a new steering wheel and wheeled my old racing sim rig into my living room.

My first attempt was a catastrophe. I put on the headset, the familiar cockpit graphics blazing into my vision, and immediately felt the sensory trauma response. The force feedback of the steering wheel, the peripheral speed, the memory of the rain, it all triggered an immediate, paralyzing panic attack. I ripped the headset off, the sweat cold on my face, and curled up on the carpet, convinced my body and mind would never trust a racing car again. The impact still lived in my bones.

Ollie didn't lecture or push. He just sat beside me, waited for the tremors to stop, and then looked at me without judgment. "Okay," he said calmly, his voice a steady anchor. "We don't race today. We don't even use the full rig. We drive a safety car on a clear, sunny track. We do slow laps. We talk about what you're making for dinner. We break it down until the feeling of the wheel isn't terror, it's just control."

He was patient, and utterly devoted to seeing me heal. He broke the trauma down into manageable, non-threatening pieces, helping me re-establish the connection between my hands and the wheel, not as a tool of speed and danger, but as an extension of my own regained agency.

Over the next year and a half, the lines blurred. Ollie sacrificed most of his own development time, his own career focus, to help me fight my greatest fear. He was the one who researched the neurological rehabilitation techniques for the concussion symptoms. He was the one who celebrated the day I could finally perform a full burpee without pain.

I had always believed my future would be tethered to Paul, but it was Ollie, a newcomer, who had shown up when my world ended.

At seventeen, aone and a half years after the crash, I was ready. I was back in a proper F3 car for an official test. The scars were healing, the fear was muted, and my physical strength was completely restored, certified by Dr. Chen herself. Everyone important for me was there, trackside, proud smiles wider than anything.

I was racing again. And the truth was, I wasn't doing it alone. Ollie had been the architect of my return, cementing his place in my life in a way Paul never could. The empty space Paul left was now filled completely by the steady, loyal, and loving presence of the man who had truly earned his place beside me.

the amount of medical stuff i learned while writing this is INSANE i literally asked every doctor relative i know what that is or what it causes etc

anyways! and after this chapter, we're back to 2025

hope you guys liked it, it might be a bit boring because of the medical terms but i'll explain them now

¹- Compression Fracture (L1 Vertebra): A break in the bone of the spine where the bone gets crushed flat

²- Transversus Abdominis: Deepest stomach muscle

Love you all, take care🫶🏻

xoxo, your favourite author 😘🤗