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…which would lead to a drink…
…which would lead to something else.
A chain reaction of smaller events that would culminate in an avalanche.
The only way I could see to avoid it was to not get on the bike in the first place.
“You sure are quiet,” Jack said as he grabbed his helmet off the seat.
“I need to tell you something,” I said, my breath tight in my chest.
“Uh oh,” he joked. “Is this where you tell me you’ve got a psychopathic ex?”
I’m pretty sure you could handle him if I did, I thought.
What do I say?
…how about the truth?
“I lost somebody back when I was in LA,” I said.
He put the helmet gently down on the seat, but never broke eye contact with me. “Lost somebody… like a boyfriend?”
“A cousin. We were really close.”
“Lost, as in…?”
“She died.”
He nodded slowly. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I, uh… I moved here to get away from all those memories.”
It was a lie, but a convenient one for my purposes.
“I can understand that,” Jack said.
“So, I’m… I’m just starting over again. In a way.”
“I can understand that, too.”
“So… this is going really fast for me.”
He walked around the bike and stood directly in front of me.
My heart was hammering a thousand miles an hour as his eyes looked deep into mine.
“This cousin… what do you think she would say to you if she could come back and tell you just one thing?”
The name of the man who killed her.
But I couldn’t say that.
“I don’t know,” I murmured.
“Well… I don’t know either,” he said with a gentle smile. “But I’ve lost a lot of people over the years, too. Guys I’ve looked up to… guys who were like brothers to me. I don’t know what they’d say to me, exactly, but I learned something from losing them. If I checked out and I got the chance to come back – just for a minute – you know what I’d say to the people I loved most?”
I felt hypnotized. Mesmerized.
