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Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it's less good.
There’s a golden scar on Joshua Pearce’s right arm, which looks like a kiss from the sun. It is miraculous and golden, especially transcendental on his black skin. Every time Joshua gets out of the race car, he always lowers his head to look at the inside of his right arm, where sweat makes the scar itch.
The scar is actually a name, a sign, called Geezer.
Could this be a special name? But Joshua knows no that it may just mean "old man", which reminds him of a white beard, cliches, and spots on his skin. It seems to be more awful since his mom told him that the scar might be the name of his soulmate. When he was young, he thought that his partner, or the soulmate, should have a beautiful name like an angel, such as Christian, Maria, and so on, like himself. However, the reality is cruel. There are two terrible ideas about this scar, if it is actually a soulmate name: first, the person with this name might be eccentric, even though he or she is not that old; second, it's more like a term of address for a man. It seems that our pretty Joshua was prophesied to be gay at a young age, at least bisexual.
Joshua tried to find the right one since he knew the significant meaning of the scar, and he knew exactly that girls in the high school who dated with him and women in bars who enjoyed quality time with him are not his soulmate. The reason is simple: having a soulmate must be a very happy thing. However, he didn't deliberately go looking among the men, as he was a little afraid it might really be an old man. Besides, by the time he got to the racetrack paddock, drivers couldn't possibly be homosexual (just nominal). As he grew older, he stopped taking this matter as the core, because many people's partners are not soul mates, or some people don't have soul mates, but they are also very affectionate, such as his parents. But it doesn’t mean that he gave up. Joshua is someone who will never give up. He did odd jobs and found a place as a racecar driver at the same time. He may have cried, especially after failing the trial, but he never thought of giving up his quest to become a racer and a champion. Despite his situation being much better than that of his fellow slum compatriots, you still can't deny that his own efforts have played a big part in his success. He is the kind of person who will never give up on anything because he believes that he can have a good result, and he will always have a good result. In that case, he thinks that he will find his real soulmate, and it is just a problem of time. He hasn’t felt discouraged, since he’s young, and everything runs on the right rut of life.
He did feel nervous when the team's prospects were not optimistic, cuz this season, they have not scored points. But on the surface, he was still very calm, perhaps more like he was absent-minded. He still attended a crowd of celebrities and tried his best to be a boy with a sunny smile. He got mobbed with negative emotions at night, alone and helpless. The old man’s coming strengthened those terrible feelings. He might be replaced by such an old, arrogant white man, and that’s something he will never accept.
Sonny Hayes has the ability to string others along. Ruben was not angry about him breaking the race car, and chief designer Kate was flirting with him, and even the young mechanic quickly became familiar with him. Joshua couldn't help but think of some racial problems. White people, especially some of the older whites, always feel that they have privileges. Sonny Hayes also seems to think that he has some privilege, which is the core of the team, whether from the driver's seat or the center of everyone's soul. Given Hayes' age and his race, all this made Joshua's bones itch. Joshua thought about ceasing members’ crush on Sonny Hayes, but he didn’t do anything. The reason might be similar, as he didn’t express his anxiety about the bad results in this season. He hoped that he could show some kind of demeanor or not be regarded as a child, although such efforts failed after several emotional outbursts.
He regarded Hayes as a competitor, and he felt that he had to prove who is No.1. This old man is not a person who can be dealt with casually. This means that Joshua needs to know himself and his enemy in order to be able to win every battle. Before he knew it, he searched Sunny Hayes's information and secretly breathed a sigh of relief after learning that he was a loser who had lost after an accident. After the first time they played together, they wanted to tear each other apart. Hayes should not set blocks on his way at least, but he seemed to cause trouble to Joshua specifically. He even tried to teach Joshua how to work as a team, how ironic!
Things turned out to be different after their first improvement together. Everyone was happy, especially Ruben, and Joshua found that the old man was not good for nothing. The female mechanic passed by when he was preparing for the next training. He thought that she was for him, but the answer is no.
“To tell the truth, I hope you can be a little more harmonious.”
“Do you think the problem is with me?”
“Well, that's not what I mean. But you know, he is not in that good health, okay, he doesn't look very good either. His back hurt so much that he needed to soak in an ice bucket. You probably didn't notice that he almost crawled out of the car last time.”
Joshua wanted to say, It had nothing to do with me, but he didn't. He felt a strange sourness, which was weirdly jealous of Jodie's concern for Hayes, but it seemed different from the conventional jealousy.
He finally noticed that he cared for Sonny so much when he had already followed Sonny’s recommendations during the race. Sonny Hayes might not be a bastard as he thought, as he wanted him to be. But this beautiful idea disappeared since he rushed off the track. He was stuffed in his heavy helmet and was sweating all the time. Gradually, he couldn't breathe.
When he was lying in the hospital and finally started to think clearly, he wanted to blame Sonny for stopping the car to save him. Really, they lost all of them because of it. But no one with a little conscience will do this. Outside the door, Mrs. Bernadette warned Sonny sternly. For some reason, Joshua felt like she was driving away the bad boy for her daughter, and he was about to laugh. He should have made it clear to his mother that this is not Sunny's fault. It should even be made clear to everyone, but he didn't. At that moment, he seemed to be a very timid person. Although he hoped Sonny had done something wrong, all his complex emotions would be explained.
The burns on his palm spread to the inside of his arm, which made him notice his scar once again, the name of his soulmate. Suddenly, he was hit by an extremely strange feeling, and he felt that he had thought of something absurd and quite conceited.