God, there are so many people and cars and bikes and trucks. All of them are parked haphazardly, with no system at all.
I stop the car at the edge of the field and take in the scene before me.
The people are shouting and dancing and writhing. But mostly, they are gathered around something deep but huge.
A hole in the ground.
Only this isn’t a hole, it’s more like a canyon and Jesus Fucking Christ, a bike is racing toward it right now.
I grip the wheel tightly as I hear the roar of that unknown bike, louder than the ruckus of the people. It’s hurtling right toward it, gaining speed until the ground is no more, and then it arcs over the gap. I swear for a second no one speaks, no one makes a sound and it’s all dead-silent.
Oh my God, he’s going to die.
But the bike somehow manages to lunge across and stomp back onto the ground. But I guess it’s not a smooth landing because the guy slips and loses control of the death machine he’s been sitting on.
He gets thrown off and the bike skids away from him.
I know I should be more concerned about the guy who was riding it. But he has a circle of people gathered around him and I have a bigger problem.
A bigger, badder problem. Namely, Zach.
While I watched that unknown biker trying to kill himself, I completely lost track of him. Every cell in my body is telling me that Zach’s going to do it. He’s going to jump across the hole in the ground.
I would’ve laughed if I could at the irony of it all. He fell into a hole when he was a kid, so now he spends his nights lunging over one. With his fucking bike.
I leave my car where it is and stumble out. I don’t even have the time to shut the door before I go straight down. I fall on my knees, busting them over the dry hot gravel. The heels of my palms skid and the skin scrapes.
“Oh fuck!”
They’re bleeding slightly and I feel so weak. I don’t think I have the strength to even sit, let alone get up.
But I have to.
I’ve come this far. I can’t turn back now.
I’m going to kill him after I save him. He better watch out.
Somehow, I drag myself up and shut the door of my car. I take a few deep breaths that do very little to settle my stomach, but at least I can walk.
I cross to where the people are gathered, all the while looking for Zach. Most of them are drunk or high or are getting drunk or high. Half of them look like bikers and all of them look like criminals to me.
Hey, I’m not judging. I’m just extremely scared as to what this place is and how is it that it’s not crawling with cops. None of this looks even remotely safe or even legal.
But then, I don’t have the time to ponder over the legal repercussions because I hear another bike revving and cheers have definitely made me deaf this time.
It’s not Zach, the guy on the bike, and I’m both relieved and disappointed. Where the fuck is he?
From this close, I can see the wheels of the bike churning the gravel. I can even smell the gas, the leather, the freaking sweat.
This biker does the same thing as the last one. Charges to the canyon, and when I think he’s going to fall off and break his stupid neck, he launches into the air, makes the huge lunge and lands on the other side.
Again, the landing isn’t smooth. In fact, it’s worse than the other guy’s. People gasp and holler when he curls into himself and grabs his foot while his bike careens away from him.
Okay, enough.
I have to find Zach.
And I do. As soon as I turn, I see him.
He’s on his bike, revving it, and he’s in the woods, straight across from where he needs to make the jump.
Under the moonlight, I can see that he’s staring at the canyon with a single-minded focus. His black-as-night eyes are pinned to it as my eyes are pinned to him. To his frozen, rigid frame. He’s straddling his bike, but somehow, I’ve never found him taller or broader than at this moment.
And then, he puts the helmet on before doing the turn-thingy with the hand-grip, throttling the bike and hurtling toward the hole.
The drunken crowd parts and I try to get closer to him. I cut my way through the people, jostle them, bump into them to get close to the edge.
“Zach!” I call out his name but he simply passes me by, blowing up the strands of hair in my face.
I stand there panting as I watch him zooming close to the canyon, and when he arcs the bike in the air, I shove a fist in my mouth to stop screaming.
While he’s in the air, he heaves his body up and basically stands on the footrest thingy and the girls in the crowd go wild.
Fucking show-off.
I can’t stop myself from running to the edge of the big, wide hole that I think is going to kill him tonight.
Jesus Christ.
It’s deep and it’s black. I don’t even know how far down it goes. Maybe to the center of the earth where all the fire is, where the quakes come from and shake the ground.
Every single person is watching him streak through the air like he’s a shooting star. A black, dark star that’s sucking off all my oxygen and making my heart beat and maybe even bleed.
All I know is that if he dies doing this stupid thing, I’ll somehow resurrect him, kiss the fuck out of him – yes, I’m going to kiss him, bite him and eat him up, only to kill him myself.
I’m biting down on my fists when it’s time for my dark star to come down. And come down he does.
On his downward arc, Zach sits back down on his bike and leans forward. Even though he’s too far away for me to notice these things, I still feel the muscles in his shoulders and back, even his biceps bunching up.
There’s an answering tightness in my muscles.
I want to scrunch my eyes closed but I can’t. I have to see this. I have to see him land.
As soon as his wheels touch the ground, I bite my lip. Hard. Until I feel the blood oozing out.
The dust flies off every which way and as if in slow motion, I see the tires bouncing with the impact.
Any second now, he’s going to fall. This is it.
My eyes fill with water and my head starts shaking.
But Zach’s still on his bike, blasting through. I see him put his foot down and dig it along the dirt until he spins the bike around and comes to an abrupt halt.
The crowd erupts in cheers but I’m too dumbstruck to even move.
Too dumbstruck to even loosen my fist or my body. I’m still a tight mass of nervousness and dread.
Zach’s seated on his bike like he’s some sort of prince. A dark, dark prince with his black leather jacket and huge boots planted on the ground.
I come unglued when he parks his bike on the side. A few people surround him, thump him on the back, shake his hand. He takes his helmet off and rolls his neck, running his fingers through the strands, and I take off.
I run around the wide gap, my Mary Janes stumbling through the dirt.
“Zach!” I call out his name when I reach the other side and he’s across from me, still standing among the group of people.
This time, he hears my voice and his eyes snap up to me.
He appears surprised, but slowly it leaches off and all that remains is his big frown and a pulsing on his jaw.
Oh please.
I’m mad at him too and I’m not going anywhere.
We stand there, staring at each other across the width of the hole he just jumped. The spotlight is glaring and I can see his sweat-soaked t-shirt. His jacket is gone – he probably took it off in the minute or so it took me to run across – and sweat is dripping down the side of his neck.
When Zach begins to move toward me, my breathing stutters. He’s striding over, strong thighs bulging in his jeans and his long legs eating up the distance.
Behind him, I see another biker making the jump and people are cheering all around us. But it doesn’t matter.
Not to me and definitely not to him.
He doesn’t even bat an eyelash or give any indication that he knows we’re in the middle of a crowd.
Zach needs to get to me.
I know it like I know that I wouldn’t be anywhere else but here, in this moment. I’d drive that car all over again and bust my knees and scrape my palms.
I’d do it all over again just so I could be stared at with his black eyes, stalked by his equally black intentions.
When he reaches me, I crane my neck to look at his sharp and stunning face. He’s breathing through his mouth, his chest swelling under the dust-covered t-shirt.
And the first thing out of my mouth is, “You idiot.”
Zach clamps his jaw at my words.
I want to call him all the rude names in the history of the world for scaring me like that but he shuts me up before I can even open my mouth.
He bends down and heaves me up in his arms.
Somehow, I knew he’d do that. I knew it. Manhandling me is his favorite pastime. Not that I’m mad about it.
I guess I need to touch him just as much.
So I hike up my thighs around his hips, wrap my hands around his neck and fist his damp hair.
I hug him tightly and he hugs me back.
And then I can’t stop talking. Everything I’m feeling needs to come out. It’s the adrenaline, I think.
“What were you thinking? What’s wrong with you?” I grit out my words as I tuck my face in his neck and he walks toward something – I don’t even care what or where.
“You’re crazy, you know that? I can’t believe you put yourself through this. I mean, I know people with dyslexia have other things they’re wickedly good at; I’ve been reading up on the internet. But what the fuck? You could’ve died. You could’ve broken your neck. You could’ve paralyzed yourself. Did you see all those people? They couldn’t make the landing. They couldn’t…”
My breath hitches, thinking about all the botched-up attempts to land smoothly on the ground and I hold onto him tighter. I rub my lips on his pulse, tasting his skin, the salt of his sweat. It soothes me. It makes me believe that he’s alive and he’s taking me somewhere with him.
“Do you have any idea how scared I was? Any idea at all?” I continue, tugging on his hair, crossing my ankles at his back. “I was going out of my mind, watching you fly through the air. Newsflash, Zach: it’s a bike. Not a fucking plane. And is this even legal? I don’t think so. I don’t. Fucking. Think so.”