Page 50 of Brash for It
Instead, I think about the way the road pulls all the thoughts into one line and lays them out behind us like thread.I think about how the time between then and now changed the way my body sits on a bike—fear to trust, flinch in surprise to read the road and lean.
He doesn’t talk.There’s no headset, no good way to be heard without yelling.It’s better like this.I get to choose my own words and keep the ones that don’t help.
We take the bridge.I squeeze around his waist, not because the height scares me—because the color of the water is so honest it makes me feel like lying would be rude.Holding onto Kellum grounds me.
On the far side he flicks on the signal, two blinks like winks, and we drop down to the little public dock with the lighting and the good view.Gravel chatters under the tires.He kills the engine.The sudden quiet pops in my ears, and the world rushes back—the insects’ buzz, the frog’s low croak, a rope smacking an aluminum mast with a hollow, patient sound.
I slide off and unclip the helmet.He does the same.My hair is a crime against brush manufacturers, but I don’t care.I push it back anyway and breathe.Everything smells like marsh and heat and a little diesel.My heart is still up near my throat, but it’s not panic; it’s leftover frustration.
“Better?”Kellum asks, voice low and unhurried.
I nod.“Yeah.”I huff a laugh that’s half disbelief, half relief.“It’s stupid that I can hear a word like that and start shaking.Like he gets to take up that much space in my body and mind without paying rent.”
“That’s not stupid.”He props a shoulder on the post nearest me, hands tucked in his back pockets like a man who knows exactly where his edges are.“That’s what happens when someone reads you wrong long enough.Your system tries to look for the tag every time you get close to a mirror.You’re outta that now, darlin’.Don’t give it more power.”
“I did for a moment.”Saying it out loud feels like stepping up onto a new step that wasn’t there last week.“Then I glanced at that car one last time.I let it all go.And I didn’t look back.I’m not looking back.”
“Not a lot worth seeing back there.”
I look out at the water.A shrimp boat limps along the channel, deck light jaundiced in the bright.“He wrote ‘I’ll forgive you,’ like he’s a priest and I’m a sinner.”
“Men like that think they’re God until the first real storm, then they remember how to pray.”His mouth quirks, humorless.“He tried a lifeline.You cut it.”
“You did it for me.”
“You told me to.”He tilts his head, eyes steady on me.“Who is the captain of the ship, Kristen?”
“My boat,” I echo, softer.The words fit better today.“I want to keep acting like it is.At least until it’s real.”
“Okay,” he says simply.“Next thing?”
I breathe, slow, because the old me would fill this moment with panic-plans and the new me knows one good plan is enough.“We send the keys back.Certified.Paper trail.Pami can send the paperwork for the tow and fees.I’ll let the owners know he showed today and leave a note about him so if he sends flowers or pizza or some dramatic nonsense, staff knows to refuse it.”
He nods.“I’ll text Red to have Karma swing by with the spare camera and put it up in the back lot at the shop for a few weeks.That’s me, not you.Your task is the mail and the talking to your boss and co-workers.”
“I can talk.”I toe at a bolt sunk into the dock boards, paint flaking off like old memories.“Sometimes I’ll still want to scream, I think.”
“Scream on the bike,” he states like this is all normal.“Wind doesn’t judge.”
We stand in silence that doesn’t press.Just listening to the water rolling in against the dock.
“I don’t want to be scared of him,” I express, like a wish I can turn into a job.“I don’t want him to be the thing someone thinks of when they see me.”
“They won’t,” Kellum states.“They’ll think of you on a porch telling a man to leave.They’ll think of you behind a desk making a day easier for ten different people who will forget your name and still say a prayer for you because the coffee was hot and their appointment ran on time.They’ll think of you on the back of a bike, leaning in.”
I shoot him a look.“When did you get so good at speeches?”
He lifts a shoulder.“I listen.”
We stay until the knot in my chest becomes a knot in my stomach and my stomach reminds me I only had a granola bar for breakfast.We put our helmets back on, and the engine shudders awake like it missed us.The bike accepts us exactly as we are and I find comfort in the simplicity of it.
On the ride back, the wind doesn’t slap.It’s a hand on my back, steadying.I find the line of his shoulders and fit myself to it.We take a different route—little two-lanes that pretend they’re private, one tight curve that corkscrews my stomach and makes me laugh into my helmet like I’m a teenager who got away with something.He feels it; I can tell by the way his weight shifts, the way he twists the throttle another breath and then settles it again like he’s saying a million things but without words.
He parks and kills the engine.I slide off and unclip the strap.My hands don’t shake.
“You good to go back in?”he asks with real concern.
I nod.“I’m going to mail the keys as soon as I get off.Certified.First, I’m going to schedule someone’s facial and refill the mints and write ‘porch camera’ in my notebook and not think about him if I can help it for the rest of the day.”
