Shelby Manning (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shelbycobra) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
muserevival2016-10-18 03:00 pm
shelbycobra) wrote in muserevival2016-10-18 03:00 pm
Entry tags:
129.1.1 - lyrics
"So, I've broken every bone
And fought through what felt never ending
I thought my head was made of sadness
But my heart is mending."
Shelby doesn't know what to feel when she first sees Peter Fowler in her race shop for the first time in three years. He's still the same man she saw in Victory Lane just a month ago: the tall, slightly lanky Irishman who never seems to age and still has that sparkle in his green eyes. Yet it feels like she hasn't seen him in forever. The last time they worked on the same side was when he was a second-year strategist still cutting his teeth and she was still an immature, impulsive young woman. Not a five-year veteran and a two-time IndyCar champion.
It's not that she doesn't want him there. He's like a brother to her, and like a son to her father, and she will always remember that he came first. Even now Peter has shown her every kindness, coming over to congratulate her on each of her wins and always saying hello when they pass in the paddock. But in Shelby's mind their history, their closeness is a thing of yesterday and she's not in the business of looking back. He's tied to a woman who no longer exists and she is quite happy to banish that girl from her memory.
There's so much water under the bridge between them. Shelby can remember every conversation they've ever had, including the one where he called her in New York and begged her to take the testing job that would lead to the revival of her career. She can also remember her emotional outbursts when things didn't go her way and the dumb mistakes they made not knowing any better. And she can certainly remember that she didn't even get to say goodbye to him, just had to pack her things and leave in the middle of the night while the next morning he fought back tears in the team meeting thinking he had failed her.
Peter will always be a friend, but as she looks at him across the table in the Penske conference room, she knows that he is no longer the right man for her. That right man is Shane Worthington, who's sitting to her right occasionally staring a hole in the side of Peter's head because he can't resist the instinct to remind him who Shelby's strategist is now. It feels like a silent battle between her ex-boyfriend and her current boyfriend, without the boyfriend part. They both have a piece of her and at least Shane doesn't like that he has to share.
Finally the meeting breaks up and Shelby grabs her backpack, intent on getting out of there and on to the gym. She doesn't expect Peter to call her back when she's halfway down the hallway. He says he wants to talk and she knows exactly what about. "I don't want things to be awkward between us," he tells her, still finishing his coffee. "It's not good for you, it's not good for me, and it's not good for the team."
It's already awkward, she thinks but doesn't say it. Instead she replies, "It's not awkward, Peter. You and I are friends and now we're colleagues, nothing more. You've been working with Josef longer than you worked with me anyway. If there's anything I need to get over, it's my dad not being here and the fact that pretty much our entire team has been absorbed by Team Penske."
They started together as Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing. Now almost all of them work for Team Penske, with the exception of her father who took his retirement package and Sarah Fisher who's no longer in IndyCar. But both drivers, the strategist and a lot of the crew all ended up in the same place. It's like they never went anywhere and yet they all went somewhere. The fact that everything has changed and yet nothing's changed is the part she can't wrap her brain around, especially when it comes to Peter Fowler.
"If there's anything you want to talk about, you know I'm here for that," he offers, but she knows she probably won't take him up on that. He's not who she calls anymore.
She smiles at him anyway. "I appreciate that," she says. "But I should go. I have a gym session booked, then some errands to run and I promised my boyfriend I'd cook him dinner tonight."
And Shelby turns and resumes her walk down the hallway, which may as well feel like a walk into the rest of her life. When she met Peter Fowler she was a twentysomething kid who had it all to prove and an ill-advised if understandable crush on him. Now she's thirty, completely secure in her status as one of the best drivers in her sport and in a new relationship she couldn't be happier with. She sees no correlation between the woman he knew and the one that's walking away from him. And if he does, well, she'll only disappoint him again.
--
Shelby Manning
Need For Speed OC
832 words
And fought through what felt never ending
I thought my head was made of sadness
But my heart is mending."
Shelby doesn't know what to feel when she first sees Peter Fowler in her race shop for the first time in three years. He's still the same man she saw in Victory Lane just a month ago: the tall, slightly lanky Irishman who never seems to age and still has that sparkle in his green eyes. Yet it feels like she hasn't seen him in forever. The last time they worked on the same side was when he was a second-year strategist still cutting his teeth and she was still an immature, impulsive young woman. Not a five-year veteran and a two-time IndyCar champion.
It's not that she doesn't want him there. He's like a brother to her, and like a son to her father, and she will always remember that he came first. Even now Peter has shown her every kindness, coming over to congratulate her on each of her wins and always saying hello when they pass in the paddock. But in Shelby's mind their history, their closeness is a thing of yesterday and she's not in the business of looking back. He's tied to a woman who no longer exists and she is quite happy to banish that girl from her memory.
There's so much water under the bridge between them. Shelby can remember every conversation they've ever had, including the one where he called her in New York and begged her to take the testing job that would lead to the revival of her career. She can also remember her emotional outbursts when things didn't go her way and the dumb mistakes they made not knowing any better. And she can certainly remember that she didn't even get to say goodbye to him, just had to pack her things and leave in the middle of the night while the next morning he fought back tears in the team meeting thinking he had failed her.
Peter will always be a friend, but as she looks at him across the table in the Penske conference room, she knows that he is no longer the right man for her. That right man is Shane Worthington, who's sitting to her right occasionally staring a hole in the side of Peter's head because he can't resist the instinct to remind him who Shelby's strategist is now. It feels like a silent battle between her ex-boyfriend and her current boyfriend, without the boyfriend part. They both have a piece of her and at least Shane doesn't like that he has to share.
Finally the meeting breaks up and Shelby grabs her backpack, intent on getting out of there and on to the gym. She doesn't expect Peter to call her back when she's halfway down the hallway. He says he wants to talk and she knows exactly what about. "I don't want things to be awkward between us," he tells her, still finishing his coffee. "It's not good for you, it's not good for me, and it's not good for the team."
It's already awkward, she thinks but doesn't say it. Instead she replies, "It's not awkward, Peter. You and I are friends and now we're colleagues, nothing more. You've been working with Josef longer than you worked with me anyway. If there's anything I need to get over, it's my dad not being here and the fact that pretty much our entire team has been absorbed by Team Penske."
They started together as Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing. Now almost all of them work for Team Penske, with the exception of her father who took his retirement package and Sarah Fisher who's no longer in IndyCar. But both drivers, the strategist and a lot of the crew all ended up in the same place. It's like they never went anywhere and yet they all went somewhere. The fact that everything has changed and yet nothing's changed is the part she can't wrap her brain around, especially when it comes to Peter Fowler.
"If there's anything you want to talk about, you know I'm here for that," he offers, but she knows she probably won't take him up on that. He's not who she calls anymore.
She smiles at him anyway. "I appreciate that," she says. "But I should go. I have a gym session booked, then some errands to run and I promised my boyfriend I'd cook him dinner tonight."
And Shelby turns and resumes her walk down the hallway, which may as well feel like a walk into the rest of her life. When she met Peter Fowler she was a twentysomething kid who had it all to prove and an ill-advised if understandable crush on him. Now she's thirty, completely secure in her status as one of the best drivers in her sport and in a new relationship she couldn't be happier with. She sees no correlation between the woman he knew and the one that's walking away from him. And if he does, well, she'll only disappoint him again.
--
Shelby Manning
Need For Speed OC
832 words