gbb week 9: Mirrors/Flashes/Silicone
folks. not to set myself up for disappointment but i really love how this one turned out.
technically in my fabric verse but WAY less intense than Fabric Soft and 100% understandable w/o reading FS.
2.5k, mostly below the cut.
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You go everywhere with Mama. If you aren't pressed close to her chest, cheek resting in the crook of her shoulder, you're trailing behind her, her dress clenched tight in your fist, fabric soft in your hand.
People coo at you, voices high-pitched and strange, words alien to your ears. When they speak in words you recognize, they say, How sweet! Say, You look so alike!
Soon, you learn to recognize the shape of these words in every language. A crinkle of the eyes; a dip of the head. Mama's smile, bright, as she hugs you close and presses her nose into your cheek.
You giggle, nose scrunching; your smile just the same as hers.
-
When you're old enough to start karting, people talk to Mama and Papa at the circuit, and you stand, bored and impatient as you wait for them to finish so you can drive.
They say, You look so alike! to you and Mama, and they lean down to say, But you're fast like your papa, huh?
You stomp your foot, nose crinkled. Say, Mama's fast too!
They blink in surprise, but Mama smiles, soft, and when you get into the kart, you try to make her smile again. Try to be fast just like her.
-
You think that Vic looks like the plastic-wrapped ham that Mama gets from the store when she's a baby. Wrinkled and pink, too chubby to do anything other than gurgle and wave.
Once she starts to look more like a person, the comments start coming in: You look so alike!
On one occasion, someone, a laugh in their voice, says, Wow, you two must be twins!
You jump to your feet, face hot. Wag your finger, like Mama does when she's telling you off for making a mess, before she smooths your hair out and kisses you on the forehead.
No! I'm big, and she's just a baby! I won a race last week, and she doesn't even know her alphabet!
The person walks off with a chuckle, and you sit back down next to Vic, hard. Cross your arms. Blow a raspberry after them, because you know it always makes Vic laugh.
Vic squeals and bubbles in delight, blowing messy raspberries of her own.
You smile and blow another, the quirk of your lips making it come out choppy.
Vic reaches up, still grinning wide, and brushes a chubby baby hand down your nose. Your nose, just the same as hers.
-
Nobody ever tells you you look like Papa. He starts bringing you to the track more and more by himself, and you run to keep up with him, helmet knocking against your legs. Try to arrange your face into a scowl to mimic his.
But you're not so good at scowling, and when Papa yells at you for taking too long to undo the clasps on your helmet, fingers awkward, your face drops, and you look more like Mama instead, eyes wet and corners of your mouth turned down at Papa's harsh words.
Nobody ever tells you you look like Papa, but sometimes people tell you that you're fast like him. So you buckle the clasps on your helmet all by yourself and press your foot down on the accelerator harder. Hope that you can make Papa smile. Hope that maybe then you'll look like him.
-
Mama and Vic leave. Or maybe you do. It's hard to be sure; everything blurs together through your teary eyes.
Mama hugs you tight; gives you a watery smile that you try desperately to return, but the corners of your mouth keep wobbling, pulling down.
You watch hers do the same. Smile just the same as yours, like always.
When she leaves (when you leave), you wonder if she's taking your smile away with her. (You wonder if you're taking hers.)
-
You go to the track again and again and again. When you look in the mirror, you don't see Mama's smile, but you see her tired eyes, and you see Vic's brows pinch together on your forehead.
You see the way your hair starts to curl around your ears like Mama's does, now that she's not around to trim it for you, gentle fingers tucking it out of the way. Wonder, for a moment, how long you can go without cutting it—how much longer you can coax the curl.
Later that week, you spin off the track in your kart as the rain starts to patter down quick. Papa wrenches your helmet off your head as soon as your fingers fumble open the clasp. Rips off your balaclava; digs his fingers into your hair, gripping tight, hands large and rough.
You find yourself in front of the bathroom mirror, scissors in hand, trying to forget the way Papa's eyes had looked, cold as ice.
His blue eyes the same as yours.
-
The first time someone tells you you look like Papa, you can hear in their tone that it's meant to be a compliment—meant to be in good faith.
But you feel the scowl heavy on your eyelids and curled in your upper lip, and you always wanted to be like Papa, but you wanted to do it smiling.
But Mama took your smile with her when she left, and maybe you took hers too, but you lost it somewhere along the way, and now all you're left with is Papa's mouth in a hard line on the top step, and Papa's icy blue eyes in the mirror.
A voice echoes in your ears, light and unassuming: You look just like your father!
You throw up in the dark.
-
You don't know, at the time, that your final race in karts will be your last.
And you don't know, at the time, that it will be unfinished, incomplete—a disqualification and a championship loss and a tense eight-hour flight, sitting carefully to not disturb the silence and the bruises.
You don't know how it will end. You just sit in the kart, like always; fasten your clasps and knock down your visor, where nobody can see the scowl hanging heavy over blue eyes.
You go fast, like Mama. (Like Papa.) Like always.
But you don't know that it's the last time. And you'll go fast again, but you'll never again sink into your kart and see Mama behind you in your mirrors, chasing you down, smiling wide.
You move to single-seaters, and you go even faster, and you leave her behind in the dust. Leave her again and again and again.
-
You meet with Christian, one-on-one. He says that he raced against your mama in karts. Says that she was good. Really good.
He says that you race just like her.
(It's been so long since anybody said you were just like your mama.)
He says that he wants to give you an opportunity to do what he and she never did. To go faster still.
You take it.
-
Before Toro Rosso was Toro Rosso, it was called Minardi.
Your father drove for Minardi.
It was your father's last team. It's your first. He scored no points in their car. You score 49.
There's a team member who survived the Minardi buyout and stayed on for the dozen years it took for you to see your name printed on the side of an F1 car.
When you first meet, he tells you you're just like your father.
The rest of the team's introductions get reduced to static in your ears.
-
Your mama comes to watch you race.
The whole weekend, you wait for the once-familiar words to come, but they don't.
(You wonder exactly when you changed into someone unrecognizable.)
-
You win, and for a moment, it feels like maybe you evened the score. You left your mama behind a long time ago, but now you've left your father behind, too, a step below you on the podium and over a decade in the past.
But the interviewer calls you down from the top step and asks you about how proud he must be.
You can't help the way your mouth twists, and even though you try to lock the anger away tight in your jaw, it only brings you closer to him.
-
The engine dies and dies and dies beneath you.
It's your fault, every time. And you always keep your hair short, nowadays, but it's not short enough, because you can still feel your father's fingers on your scalp, on your wrists, on your chin.
Every time you get into the cockpit, you grip the wheel as tight as you can, like you can hold the car together through willpower alone.
Every time it breaks beneath you, you slam your hands down, hard.
(Every time you look at your wheel, it's littered with the deep blue ghosts of bruises.)
-
You hear it all the time, now—how you're just like your father. Too angry, too risky, too harsh.
You crash, and you crash, and you crash, and your father's hand is around your arm, too tight, and his voice is in your ear, words sharp, and his scowl is on your face, etched in deep.
Christian says something needs to change.
You walk home from the track, where you've fucked up again (again, again, again). Turn on all the lights in your apartment and stare at your reflection, hands gripping the countertop, tight.
Your father's eyes stare back.
You want to rip your skin off. But you know the resemblance runs much deeper than that.
You want to rip your beating heart right out of your chest.
-
Everybody leaves. Or maybe you do. It's hard to be sure.
You're the one who's still with Red Bull, but it's your dust everyone else is choking on.
Maybe you aren't meant to have something that lasts.
-
Kelly never mentions your father unless you bring him up.
In return, you never mention hers.
It's easy not to—when you look at her, everything else falls away. All you see is the most beautiful person in the world, the love of your life, eyes warm and playful, sweet lips coming in to meet your own. There are no traces of anybody else in her face, except for lovely little P, who has her dark hair and her dark eyes and her chin.
(P, of course, doesn't look like you at all.)
You never ask Kelly what she sees when she looks at you. You're afraid of the answer.
-
The championship looks within reach.
Your father is let back into the garage.
You thought you'd be stronger, now, than when you were a child, but it hurts just the same as always.
-
When you slam into the barriers, it feels, just for a moment, like coming home.
-
The pain, honestly, isn't that bad. You're well used to climbing into the car and ignoring the way your body screams.
Once you're on the track, everything drops away anyway, and the only parts of you that matter are your hands on the wheel and your feet on the pedals.
The pain isn't that bad, but your vision—that's a different issue. The circuit sways before you, blurring. You try to look for familiar landmarks, but all the turns are alien, twisting the wrong way.
When you climb out of the car, you massage your temples and breathe deep, but nothing works.
You hear a voice, and you look up, squinting. Across the garage, you see your father, face pinched tight.
You flinch. Your reflection flinches back.
-
When you win, your father pulls you in, and you pull right back. Claw your hands into the fabric of his sweater, tuck yourself into the crook of his shoulder the best you can with your helmet in the way.
He tries to pull away, but you don't let him. You keep your grip on him so tight it must be bruising.
(He's the only person who ever stayed. You only know of permanence when it hurts.)
-
You start seeing Mama and Vic more.
You start seeing your father less.
You grow your hair out, just a bit.
But you take your helmet off after pulling into the P2 spot, and you run your hand through your hair, unmussing it, trying to keep the scowl off your face, and your fingers catch—momentary tangle. Your fingers catch and snag and pull, and for a second, your hands aren't your own, though they're still familiar: large and rough.
At home, Kelly carefully snips your hair back into place, her fingers long and gentle and steady. Her voice replaces the one that's been looping in your head since parc fermé.
P pouts that she won't be able to tie your hair up into tiny pigtails anymore, and you can't find the words to placate her past the lump in your throat.
-
Lio has Vic's nose.
When you tell her, voice soft and reverent, she laughs, and it comes out like a sob.
Funny, she says, running a gentle finger down the bridge of yours. I thought the same thing.
-
P asks if she can go karting for her birthday. It's the first time you ever raise your voice in front of her.
(The words sound like they're coming from somewhere distant. Somewhere a thousand miles away, years ago.)
She blinks back tears, and you drop to your knees; pull her in close.
The apologies you kiss into her hair are choked out in a voice you've never heard before. (Your father never said Sorry.)
-
Some fan with a paddock pass and cell phone camera set to selfie mode catches up to you as you're walking to the garages with Mama.
Oh my god, they say, breathless, hand dipping down, eyes wide. You two look so alike!
Mama gets pulled into the picture too, and when you curl the corners of your mouth up, your joy is genuine.
You find the photo later, on X, and you stare at the imprints of you and Mama, pressed side by side. Your smile on her face; her smile on yours.
-
When you hold Lily for the first time, she's so small you're afraid you'll crush her, hands too large and rough.
But she slots into your arms, easy, and she blinks up at you, completely silent.
Hallo, kleintje, you whisper.
She looks like you, Kelly says.
You blink. Lily follows suit. Her eyes are clear and blue and wide.
She's so beautiful. She's so small.
The tears come before you can stop them. Salt water drips off the point of your nose, collects in the nook above your lips. Your throat closes, and your shoulders shake, but your arms around Lily are steady.
Kelly's hand is warm on your back.
Lily's gaze stays serenely upwards, locked onto you.
Her eyes are just the same as yours.
