I knew he had a history of racing. I knew he’d crashed cars before. I even knew he’d raced right before we got together because he told me he had. That was what’d led to our conversation and his promise in Japan in the first place. But the knowledge and the terror that came with it had always seemed abstract, like a parent worrying about someone kidnapping their child or a surfer worrying about a shark attack. The threat was present, but it wasn’t there because I’d never witnessed the consequences. Now I had.
