Ride Me Right

by Michele De Winton

She nodded.

  “It’s fine.” His smile flickered back on. “I had an argument with a bike helmet.”

  Frowning, then making herself stop because it hurt, Lucy put a hand up to her head and felt . . . bandages. Her face must have registered her distress.

  “You’re in the hospital. Try not to worry about it. They’ve fixed you up good and the guy who took you is in custody. He’s not going anywhere for a long time.”

  As if someone had flicked a switch, chunks of the accident swam into focus. She was flying on a bike, but couldn’t see or move properly as the world sped by her, on and on and on, and then Jake. What was Jake doing there?

  “Do you remember what happened?” a nurse asked as she stepped up to the side of the bed.

  Lucy tried to sit up but the nurse made her lie back down.

  “I think that’s enough for today. It’s good to have you back with us,” she said and Lucy looked at her, still trying to figure out how she’d ended up in the hospital. “It’ll be strange for a while. But you have full brain function and the rest will come back soon enough,” the nurse said. “Try not to worry about what happened for now. Just rest. Are you tired?”

  Lucy nodded. Yes. So tired. But she needed to talk to Jake.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he said, as if he read her mind. “Go to sleep, we can talk again when you wake.”

  In her dreams though, the messy jumble of everything ran at her. The fight with Jake. Running out into the night. The biker. A Menace, the struggle. And then pain. Pain ’til she hit the wall, and then, blackness.

  When she woke she put her hand to her head again and realized the full extent of what had happened. She peered around her and saw Jake and Katie at the end of the bed.

  “I’m going to shave it into a Mohawk for her. She’ll look great, don’t you think?”

  Jake laughed and put a hand on Katie’s shoulder. What was he doing that for? How did they know each other?

  “It’s going to be a long road to recovery. You sure you’re up for that?” he asked her sister.

  Katie nodded. “I can do my schoolwork down here, I already got approved for it. And I’ve just delayed starting work. They’ve been awesome. I need to be here for Lucy.”

  “Of course you do. You’re all she’s got.”

  Katie was all she had. The words ran at Lucy and stuck, hard. Her mother hadn’t come. And Jake was leaving. She and Jake had fought. He didn’t believe she could make it as a mechanic. Hadn’t he said as much? To her face.

  “I’ll see you soon,” he said and left.

  Then Katie saw that she was awake and threw herself on the bed, then when Lucy flinched, Katie pulled back, patting her down. “Sorry, sorry. Did I hurt you? I can’t believe you’ve had brain surgery and I throw myself on you.”

  Lucy shook her head and closed her eyes a moment. She made herself mouth the words, but they were hard to form. “Jake,” she managed, finally.

  “Do you want to talk to him? He’s been here the whole time. And when I say the whole time, I mean the whole time. Seriously, if he could sleep on your floor, he would have.”

  The whole time? Lucy was confused. So had the Jake of her dream-state been real? “He. Okay?” she managed.

  “You busted up his shoulder pretty good slamming into it. But he saved you.” Katie’s eyes were wide. “Briony told me the whole thing. Jake walked out in front of the bike and tried to catch you.”

  Lucy flapped a hand at her sister. “No.”

  “What do you mean? You remember something different?”

  “He . . .” Lucy shut her eyes a minute and concentrated on forming the words before she let them out. “Hates me.”

  “Oh my god. Seriously? I thought you were the smart one, but maybe I’ve got that all wrong. He doesn’t hate you. He’s totally in love with you.”

  Lucy’s head spun. Whether it was the news that Jake was here, had been here the whole time, or that he didn’t hate her, or the fact that holy shit, she’d had brain surgery . . . She frowned at Katie, but it still hurt so she stopped.

  “It’s true,” Katie said, more quietly. “I know it sounds cheesy, and I’m only fifteen. But honestly, I can see it in his eyes. And anyway, he told me.”

  He told her! “What?” But then Lucy remembered Jake’s face hovering above her bed. Remembered him whispering to her, and some of the words returned to her. He had said it to her, hadn’t he? Said he loved her. But was it when he thought she might not make it? Wasn’t that what everyone did when people were in the hospital?

  The nurse came in then and shooed Katie away, demanding that Lucy have some more rest, but despite her closed eyes, Lucy couldn’t let her head stop going over and over Katie’s revelations. Jake loved her.

  Before he’d thrown her out, she’d been going to tell him the same. And then all this had happened and . . . and what? She tried to piece together how she felt now and wasn’t sure she knew where to start. Jake had said to her face that she would fail, that he didn’t believe in her. It was too much. Made her head spin and her heart ache. Frustrated, she landed on the only solution that she felt she could cope with at the moment.

  When the nurse let Katie and Jake back in, Lucy took a deep breath. It had to be now.

  He stood in front of her holding her hand.

  “Thanks,” she started. “Need . . .” She concentrated. “Need to get better. Sorry. Need to focus.”

  “Of course. Whatever you need,” he said.

  “No.” She waved Katie over. Holding her sister’s hand she felt more grounded. More able to do this. She looked at Jake again. “You should go.”

  Jake nodded. “You’re tired. Sure. I’ll come back later.”

  “No.” Lucy looked up at her sister, trying to make the younger girl understand what she needed. “Over.”

  The pause seemed to go on and on.

  “I think she means you should go, go,” Katie said to Jake then looked down at her. “Really? Are you sure?”

  Lucy managed a small nod. “Can’t concentrate. Need to know everyone around me believes . . .”

  “But I . . .” Jake started but Lucy looked away.

  “Come on, let’s go outside a minute,” Katie whispered. Lucy looked up again and saw Jake standing there with his shoulders drooping and Katie’s hand on his arm. The look on his face was so full of misery that Lucy almost took it back. But she couldn’t, she knew that. She had so little energy for herself she couldn’t deal with someone who thought she would fail.

  “Whatever you need,” he said. “I’m here.” And he let Katie lead him out.

  Lucy closed her eyes to try to get rid of the image of his face. He might think he loved her now, but there was a big mountain she needed to climb and she wasn’t sure he was going to like the journey. Sure, he’d decided he wanted to be with her now, but that might only be because now she wasn’t able to stick up for herself. She was his perfect woman at the moment, a damsel in need of saving. She couldn’t be that woman. To get better she needed every inch of steel her heart could manage. And right now she needed people who believed she could do anything she set her mind to. She had to succeed. The rest of her life depended on it.

  Jake left and she watched him go. Her heart sang and sank and her mind spiraled into a myriad of cycles. But she didn’t have enough energy to think about it too long. Her head ached harder than her heart. She wanted to believe in Jake, but her broken body needed to ignore him and believe in herself. And most of all, she needed to sleep.

  Over the next few weeks she concentrated on eating well and getting out of the bed. Slowly, she started to walk again, albeit with the help of crutches for her broken foot, and her head didn’t ache all the time. But when she was resting she saw Jake’s face through the drugged haze of the alleyway as he stepped out in front of the bike. As he hovered over her hospital bed. Saw the fear and loss and . . . and the love.

  Now all she had to do was figure out what to do with it. She still loved him, but she wasn’t s
ure if she should. They were fire and ice, and if they weren’t careful, they would melt each other.

  * * *

  By the time Lucy was discharged, Katie and Briony had found her an apartment. Briony had paid the deposit. “You need to rest and get better. Otherwise I’ll fret and not be able to leave or finish this year at school and start my new job,” Katie said, sticking out her tongue.

  Lucy had found her voice along with her ability to walk. “Emotional blackmail much?”

  Katie grinned. “That’s settled then.”

  Lucy just nodded. Everything was exhausting. Once she was in her new home and tucked onto the couch, however, her mind drifted to the future. It seemed impossible that she’d ever be able to work again. The minutiae of a bike engine, let alone spending several hours under one, seemed entirely beyond her; heck, she could barely make toast. She felt bad about leaning on Katie when her sister should have been back home finishing school, but Katie was true to her word and did her schoolwork at the kitchen table each night.

  About a month after the accident, Lucy felt like she could finally look at the future without it giving her a headache. “What am I going to do?”

  “About Jake? Or work?” Katie asked from the couch.

  Despite her exhaustion, Lucy laughed. “You’re not going to give up on Jake, are you?”

  “Nope.” Katie smiled a grin that covered half her face. “Not unless he suddenly grows a tail and starts barking, and maybe not even then. I like dogs.”

  Lucy scoffed. “I can’t think about Jake until I know what I’m going to do next. I can’t believe I finally found a job that looked like it was going to be the best gig ever and then I lose it ’cause I can’t sit still for more than twenty minutes without having to take a pill.”

  “Who said you’d lost your job?”

  “Well, they’re not going to wait forever, are they?”

  “Um, pretty much. They hadn’t started taking on bikes yet so it’s not like there are clients waiting. Clint said to take your time.”

  “You talked to him?

  “And Joy. She called your cell phone when you were in the hospital. I told her what happened.”

  Lucy touched her head, the hair shorn on one side.

  “I still say we should shave it into a Mohawk. You’d totally rock it.”

  For another month Lucy did what the doctors told her, working up the strength to sit, stand, and walk without falling over or getting lost or forgetting what it was she was doing midway through doing it. But then things started clicking back into place. The world fit together and everything else fell away. All her anger at her mom, at the misogynistic men who had marred her life, at herself for so often being her own worst enemy—all of that fell away, and Lucy was suddenly, gloriously just happy to be alive. When she let Katie shave her hair into a Mohawk she discovered it did kinda suit her and it spurred her into allowing thoughts of Jake back in. “I should call him. I think I should do it while you’re still here. What do you think?”

  Katie looked up from making dinner and beamed. “We’ve gotten to Jake? Finally? You know he texts me, like every day?”

  Lucy shook her head. “How would I know that? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Um, ’cause you kicked him out and said you didn’t want me to talk about him anymore?”

  “I said that?”

  Katie nodded.

  Lucy nodded, not sure whether everything she remembered about Jake was true or a figment of her mixed-up memory. Nervous energy ramped through her veins. “So what’s he doing?”

  “He’s gone back to work. When you gave him the big ‘I need to work on me’ speech, I guess he decided he needed to do the same. Although I guess yours was less of a big speech, more of a mumbled demand for him to go.”

  “I was angry at him. And I needed to do this by myself. I didn’t want to be one of his damsels.”

  “I know. And you know what? I think he gets it.”

  Lucy snorted.

  “No, really. Wait until you see him again.”

  Lucy paused a moment. Had she been too quick to throw him out? He’d saved her life, after all. “Do you think I was too harsh?”

  Katie shrugged.

  “I just couldn’t deal with it. With anything. It was all too much.”

  “True.” Katie let the word hang in the air, and then she smiled. “Hey, at least you didn’t call him a shithead.”

  Lucy laughed. And it felt so good that she laughed again. “Is he okay?”

  “He’s running the stunt team, decided he didn’t want to be in front of the camera anymore. So he won’t be the next one to end up in the hospital.”

  That hadn’t been what Lucy meant, but she wasn’t sure what was. Was he happy? Did he still think she was reckless? Would they ever be able to talk again without him getting all protective of her? Did he even want to see her again? The list of questions went on and on.

  Katie must have seen the thoughts racing across her brain because she put a hand on her arm. “Don’t fret, sis. I saw the way he looked at you.”

  “But that was then.” Lucy finally let her thoughts out. “Now he’s had time to think. To realize what an idiot I am. How different we are. He threw me out the last time we talked.”

  “And he feels like an ass about that.”

  Lucy pursed her lips. That was good, wasn’t it? Then her frustration at not being herself got the better of her. “It’s not like I’m fighting fit anymore. I can’t ride off into the sunset with him. I’d just slow him down and get in his way.”

  “Don’t be crazy. You’re never going to get in anyone’s way. Call him. If you don’t you’ll only wonder what if. It’ll drive you nuts.”

  Nonetheless, it took Lucy another whole day to get up the courage to call him, just to see. Her speech was ready in her mouth. She wanted to know why he’d said those things to her. If he meant them. And if he did, how he could possibly love her, how they could ever be together. If he gave her real answers, honest ones that made sense, they could take it from there, or if he’d moved on, well then, she didn’t need to wonder about it anymore.

  Her heart was practically beating in her ears when the phone started ringing, but when she finally got through she just got his voice mail. Her speech deserted her. “Hi. Um. It’s Lucy. I just wanted to say thank you. Again. For being there. For saving me . . .” After that she wasn’t sure what to say. “So, yes. Thanks. Um. Bye. Maybe talk to you another time if you’re in the neighborhood.”

  Idiot.

  Still. It was done. Now she’d just wait and see. She got Katie to pick her up an old bike engine to practice on. It was like physical therapy, she reasoned, turning nuts and bolts was all about honing her hand-eye coordination. It was also an excellent way to distract herself from looking at her phone to see if Jake had called back. But three days later Jake hadn’t returned her call. She thought about calling again, but figured she needed to leave this one to fate.

  On day four she tried to tighten a bolt and couldn’t. Just, couldn’t. Every time she tried, the thread slipped, then she dropped her wrench on her foot, and finally she couldn’t find the bolt again. In frustration she threw the wrench on the floor and slumped. Her life was a roller coaster. Just when she thought fate was done being a bitch and giving her a break with a new job and a guy, everything dissolved. She couldn’t turn a bolt and Jake hadn’t called.

  Hadn’t he saved her? She’d thought that meant something. She’d heard him say it. And yet—she looked at her phone, willing it to ring—but it remained silent. Nothing. Her heart collapsed, growing as cold as her discarded wrench. If it was mean to be, he’d call. She was not chasing him. She didn’t chase men. Period.

  Another week of nothing and she decided to close down that part of her heart for good. It was for the best. Too much broken-down wreckage in there anyway.

  Katie wasn’t impressed.

  “I called. And I left a message. He’s busy. And not interested. Clearly. I need to get my shit
together. If I don’t get my ass under a bike properly soon I’ll go crazy and Clint will give my job to someone else. Do you know how long it takes me to strip a motor now? Seriously? I don’t have time to deal with a guy in my life if I’m going to get back to where I used to be. And honestly, I’m okay with that. I’m lucky to be alive and I want to focus on that, not what might have been with a guy who might have liked me.” They were brave words, and alone, in bed, Lucy allowed herself a little moment to wallow in the breaking of her heart. But she had to look out for herself; he couldn’t have loved her like Katie thought he did if he hadn’t called back, and her heart was the one organ that was functioning perfectly. It needed protecting.

  When she started at the bike shop the next week, just a couple of hours to start with, she found a new sense of purpose and focus. Things were harder, and she got headaches now and then, but as she kept at it, her fingers took over more and more, and her mind started catching up with what her body remembered. It should have been enough. It would have been enough, but with the memories of working on bikes, with the smell and heat and hum, came pictures of Jake, and of what might have been.

  She wasn’t complete. And there was nothing she could do about it.

  * * *

  When she finally felt like she was qualified to be under a bike again, a beautiful beast rolled into the shop. It was a brand-new Norton Dominator, and she had to bite the inside of her cheek to stop herself from stroking it. After half an hour under it, though, she couldn’t find anything wrong with it. “What did he say the problem was with her?” she yelled over her shoulder at Clint.

  “I think the wrong person has been riding it.”

  The voice got her instantly. Lucy’s heart jumped to her throat and she thought she might pass out, but the moment was over almost as quickly as it had started. Still, she grabbed hold of the bench for support in case she got dizzy. “Jake.” His hair was shaved into a Mohawk, a duplicate of hers.

  “Hi.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I needed to see you. I got your message but it sounded like you were saying thanks and good-bye. I couldn’t believe that’s what you meant. I was trying to give you time to heal like you asked. To have the time and space to work out what you wanted without me interfering. But I couldn’t wait any longer. As soon as I got back from location I came here. I needed to know if you ever wanted to see me again after what I did to you.”