CHAPTER 69: DRIVING FLUIDITY

"That is not going to happen until you apologize. But since it looks like you are intent on not doing that, and just brushing everything under the rug to save face, you are not going to be able to see him forever then," Rümeysa said over the phone in English, her voice not hiding her displeasure at all.

"Why do you continue trying to make things difficult for both of us? Stubbornness is going to result in you starving your child of a relationship with his relatives," a woman on the other side of the phone said, as if the word "apology" had gone in one ear and out the other.

"This is the tenth time we are having this conversation, and it will be the tenth time I remind you that you are the ones who cut ties with us, removing any chance of a relationship you could have had from our marriage and its results. But now you keep reaching out, trying to see my son, while making it look as if I’m the bad person preventing him from seeing you. You are not even trying to first address and mend the things you did to us, things you said to me, as if they were small matters. If you keep beating around the bush, I’m going to change my number and never give you one," Rümeysa said before ending the call, not wanting to hear the response the woman on the other side had at all.

Sitting at her office desk, she supported her head with her hand as she pinched her brow, feeling the aftereffects of the unpleasant conversation.

The woman was her mother-in-law, an estranged one who had been against her marriage to her son. She had someone else in mind for him to marry and had made Rümeysa’s life before their marriage a living hell in an attempt to sabotage their relationship.

Knowing that Rümeysa was in Germany as a Turkish citizen, unlike her son, who was a German citizen of Turkish descent, her mother-in-law had used that to her advantage, threatening to cause problems with her residency applications by falsely accusing her.

Thankfully, her husband wasn’t a doormat. The moment he realized what was happening, he immediately threatened to cut contact with his mother. But in an attempt to hold the upper hand, her mother-in-law threatened to cut ties with him and never see her son again if he went ahead with the relationship and marriage. When they showed no signs of backing down, she followed through on her threat, making the wedding quite a mess. Many people on her husband’s side canceled their attendance in support of her mother-in-law’s false accusations about Rümeysa’s behavior, reducing the number of guests who attended the wedding. At the same time, this marked the cutting of ties with her mother-in-law’s side of the family.

This distancing continued and deepened further following the death of her husband. Her mother-in-law accused the pregnant Rümeysa of being the one who killed her son and going so far as to rob her of the final days of his life. Had it not been for the ironclad will he left behind, she would have done everything in her power to try and take the inheritance from her.

But only after Fatih was born and grew older did her mother-in-law start trying to reach out to her, attempting to brush everything under the rug. She urged Rümeysa to send Fatih for a visit, claiming she missed her grandson, the continuation of her son.

Rümeysa immediately reached for a bottle and drank some water, trying to forget these memories. She opened a drawer and removed pamphlets and documents that many academies had sent her after learning about Fatih’s situation.

"But do we really need an academy at the moment?" she asked herself.

Since the debacle between them and the academy, which had sided with Aslan, she was now very averse to accepting things like scholarships, as they would only complicate the situation. The only benefits the academies offered were the tracks, trainers, and transportation services for tournaments. However, she wasn’t sure how Fatih would adapt to a new teacher, having grown used to Burak’s style of training, which was already giving her a headache.

At this current level of karting, it was something she could handle through her own salary without even dipping into her husband’s inheritance. That was the direction she was leaning toward, as it would be the best way to cushion Fatih from any further problems with academies during his childhood. She had already asked for advice to see if her idea was feasible, but it would take time to set everything up. Thankfully, she had time, as the championship was coming to an end this weekend.

......

Screech! Fatih braked heavily as Apollo once again tried to dive bomb despite being far down the track. But Fatih still had just enough speed to subtly touch the rear side of Apollo’s kart just as he passed him, changing his direction and sending him off the track, spinning all the way into the tire walls.

"You are finally getting it," Apollo said as he teleported with his kart next to Fatih, who had a smile on his face for finally managing to take Apollo out with just enough deniability to be considered a racing incident caused by Apollo’s overly aggressive driving.

"Okay, now that I have succeeded, can you answer my question then?" Fatih asked, his smile still on his face.

Apollo had made it his mission to always have Fatih first try things he was told to do without being told the reason why, so that he could try to find the answer himself. Sometimes this approach allowed him to find the answer, which made Apollo very satisfied, while other times he didn’t, like now, which Apollo was also happy to help with. The whole reason for making him do these things before receiving an answer was to try and have him think about what he was made to do without being told why ahead of time, since that risked building dependency on Apollo and would be a problem in a situation like a race, where he had to think on his feet and adapt.

"Which ones? You have many questions that I have yet to answer, so repeat the one you want answered now," Apollo said as he rubbed his nonexistent beard, acting like a knowledgeable sage.

"Why are you teaching me to attack and end the races of aggressive drivers when you have already trained me to deal with them safely?" Fatih, ignoring Apollo’s behavior, asked.

"Because I want it ingrained in you that you have other options. It’s good to drive calmly and avoid aggressive drivers, but there comes a point where you have to set an example. If you’re always the one avoiding them, aggressive drivers will feel emboldened to keep pulling their moves, knowing you’ll back down. Sometimes, you need to show them that their behavior has consequences," Apollo paused for a moment, gauging Fatih’s expression before continuing. "The other reason is to prevent you from ingraining a single driving style. What I envision for your future, the future where you hold the title of the greatest of all time, is for you to have fluidity in your driving style depending on the situation. If the situation requires a technical driver, you should be able to become one. If it requires an aggressive driver, you should be able to become one. If it requires a mixture of both, you should be able to adapt. For this to be possible, you need to be knowledgeable about both ends of the driving style spectrum before we fuse them."

Fatih went silent for a moment, remembering the different driving styles of Formula 1 drivers over the years: the calm Max Verstappen who turned aggressive when his car lost competitiveness, the fearless and clean driving of Kimi Räikkönen, Michael Schumacher’s infamous championship-deciding crash, and many others. Each driver had situationally dependent styles, but it seemed Apollo was planning for him to go even further, to master every style across the spectrum.

"Let’s go a few rounds then," he said, as the 51g crash between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton, caused by both drivers refusing to give up position, came to his mind. He added, "I should at least be able to do this even on straights and not just in corners," with an amused smile on his face.

"That is good thinking," Apollo said, teleporting both of them to the start-finish line in their respective grid positions for the race to start again.

"Let’s make it more interesting this time," Apollo said, looking at Fatih before snapping his fingers, changing the weather as raindrops started falling.

"How about we reduce pain just for this session?"

"Nope. Pain is the price you should pay for learning these important things from a better teacher than anyone else for free, or it would be totally unfair if we removed pain."

Sigh. "Okay," Fatih said, giving up as the lights started turning on immediately, changing his demeanor as he became fully focused on the race and all the banter was thrown out the window.