Page 3 of Bend

I pull my helmet free and settle the weight of my backpack against my spine, adjusting the guitar on my back and wiping the tears from my cheeks before heading toward the office.

Inside, I’m surprised to find nothing’s really changed—same wood-paneled walls, and dusty candy display.

The guy at the front desk is maybe sixty, watching Jeopardy on an ancient box TV sitting on a shelf in the corner. He doesn’t look up as I walk in, he just holds out a pen and clipboard.

“Need a room?”

“Yeah. Just one night,” I say, voice hoarse from yelling earlier.

He finally pulls his eyes from the tv, and takes me in, probably thinking, Biker girl. Looks like trouble. Honestly, I don’t care. All I care about is getting in that room, and away from everything that feels too loud.

“Eighty-five with the key deposit. Cash or card.”

“Card.”

I slide it over. The process is quick. No questions, no bullshit. Just a key card and a low-effort smile.

“Room seven. Second floor, end of the balcony. No smoking inside.”

“Got it.”

I pocket the key and grab my bag. The Inn is everything I expected—chipped paint, fake palm trees in big blue pots, a soda machine that probably hasn't worked since 2009. But the balcony’s empty, and the night air smells like salt and wet pavement.

Room seven’s got one bed, a creaky AC unit, and a view of a dumpster. But the sheets look clean and the door locks. That’s enough.

I dump my bag on the chair, strip off my boots, and sit on the edge of the bed for a second, staring at the tacky 70s red carpet.

What the fuck am I doing?

No one wants me here.

The thought hits hard enough to steal my breath, settles in my chest like a weight I can’t shake no matter how many times I shift. Coming here was a mistake. A big fucking mistake. I should’ve stayed in Miami—stayed ignorant, and out of whatever mess my mother left behind—instead of ripping it open and bleeding all over it.

Why did she have to wait until she was dying to tell me?

That’s the part that hurts the most. The timing of it. Like after I’d already spent months watching her fade, sitting beside hospital beds and listening to machines breathe for her, with no one to help me through it. With no one to lean on when it got hard, she decided the very last few minutes were the right time to drop it on me. That I had brothers. A dad. A whole family who had no idea I even existed.

She could’ve given me a lifetime of knowing them.

Instead, she handed me a bomb and then closed her eyes forever so she wouldn’t have to watch it explode.

I don’t know if she thought she was being kind, or if she was just tired of carrying it alone. Maybe it was easier to confess when there were no consequences left for her.

Either way, thanks to Evelyn Cooper, I’m the one left holding it now.

I can’t un-know it.

I can’t un-hear it.

I lean forward, elbows braced on my knees, fingers laced so tight my hands ache. My breath is shallow, thoughts piling up faster than I can sort through them. Did their dad know? My dad. Did he not want me, or did she never even give him the choice? Why did she run the way she did. How could she just, leave?

I’d looked them up before I ever came here. I tried not to, but that didn’t last long. I saw him first—my father—old photos from his racing days, all leather and grit, then later standing trackside, coaching like he never really stepped away from it. I saw how Talon and Sayshen followed the same path, how both of them were signed to the Speed Demons the second they were old enough, like it was always a given.

I saw the team too. All of them. The way they joke, fight and show up for each other like family, no explanations needed. I saw all the posts after Cruz died—the silence between updates, the forced smiles, and the grief they didn’t know how to hide. I remember sitting there with my phone in my hand, wishing I could’ve been there for them, for all of them.

But I was dealing with my own shit. Grieving in private and alone while they all leaned on each other.

And yet, I followed the team anyway. I envied every one of them, their inside jokes and loyalty, the family I was born into but never given the chance to have, and had no idea how to get back.