Chapter Fifteen

“You gonna stick by me?”

“Maybe…”

**

“I’m going to race,” I announced as I walked into the garage after school, one Friday in the middle of December, a few days before my sixteenth birthday. Dom had been racing for nearly a month, winning almost every race he was in, including one the night before.

Dom didn’t even look up from the engine of the car he was working on, but Mia and Leon both came out of the office, looking surprised.

“What did you say, Letty?” Mia asked, and I could hear the uncertainty in her voice.

“I said, I’m going to race,” I repeated.

“Letty, girls don’t race,” Leon said, frowning at me.

“You mean the other girls don’t race,” I corrected him. “And since when have I ever given a damn about how the other girls act, what they do or don’t do?”

“Okay, fine. Other girls don’t race.”

“No, other girls go to the races and dress like whores to try to make themselves look more interesting than the cars, so they can get the attention of some fucking asshole who’ll let them suck his dick, ‘cause that’s all they’re good for anyways.”

“Hey now, Letty,” Mia said, her voice rising. “Watch it. I’m one of those other girls who go to the races.”

“Oh,” I replied abruptly, taken aback. “Well, of course I didn’t mean you do that, Mia. You’re different.”

“How’re you going to race when you don’t have a car?” Dom asked quietly, changing the subject.

“Yeah, well you didn’t have a car either, at first, and you’re racing,” I reminded him.

“That was different, Letty,” Leon broke in.

“Was it? You tell me, Leon. How the fuck was it different for Dom? ‘Cause he’s a guy? Bullshit. That’s just fucking bullshit and you know it.”

“Not because he’s a guy, Letty,” Leon protested, exasperated. “Because he had money.”

“And what makes you think I don’t?” I demanded.

“You got twenty thousand dollars laying around you just haven’t told anyone about?”

“Well, no,” I said, deflating a little. “But I could get it.”

“How?” Mia asked, her eyes narrowing. “There’s no way in hell a fifteen year old could get that kind of cash, not doing anything legal.”

“What the fuck do you care how I do it? You don’t even think I could. Just you wait. It’ll happen.”

“You don’t even drive,” Dom said, his voice just as quiet as it had been before.

I actually snorted in disbelief. “How fucking stupid are you, Dom? You think you’re the only one your dad ever taught to drive? You think I could be around cars my whole entire fucking life and not know how to drive?”

“Knowing how ain’t the same as doing, and driving ain’t the same as racing,” he replied slowly, as if he were talking to a little kid who wasn’t all that smart.

“So you think the little girl can’t race, huh Dom? It’s either be the slutty skanky whore who chases after the boys with the pretty cars or be nothing at all, is it? Well fuck you then! You should’ve just left me with Sly. At least I always knew what to expect from him.” And with that, I stormed out of the building, slamming the door behind me.

I didn’t go far, though. Didn’t feel like going home and didn’t have anywhere else to go. Sitting on the ground underneath a window, I could hear the three of them inside.

“What the fuck was that about?” Leon wondered aloud.

“I have no clue,” Mia answered.

Dom didn’t say a word.