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Later that night, I land in Jacksonville an emotional wreck on the inside, and ready to get back on a bike. The first few days are awful. I can’t stay upright through any of the creek beds we use and I’m out of breath easily. Our training plan is delayed by two months already. You can’t really train for Erzberg because what you encounter there is so unlike anything else in the world, but we get close. Parker has a training facility in Jacksonville, Florida, where I do most of my training on stamina and endurance. Looks like I need a lot more training than I thought this year.
Parker notices. “What’s up?”
The Florida heat bears down on my neck as I dump water over my face. “I don’t know what the fuck my problem is,” I tell him, offering what I can of an excuse. He knows all about her.
“Boy.” Parker blows out a breath, leaning into the bike outside the van. “You’re heading down the exact same path I did.”
“And what happened?”
Lifting the wrench in his hand, he gestures to Rowan, his wife, who’s chasing after two kids on the track. “She almost married another man.”
Fuck that. I won’t let that happen.
Do you see that girl on the stage? The one dressed in royal blue and smiling?
She’s relieved she made it through college. If you look closely, do you notice the way she fidgets and the slight grimace to her face when she thinks no one is looking?
That girl, conflicted doesn’t even do the definition of her justice.
It’s a sobering feeling to move a few thousand miles away from your family and make a life for yourself. It’s another entirely to enjoy that life and want the best out of it. With the end of that time in my life approaching, I’m once again faced with a dilemma. What now? What does this mean? Can I make something of myself now?
In the days following my night with Roan, the one that feels like it was yesterday, yet years ago, I fell back into depression. I couldn’t eat, study, nothing. A few months after my sophomore year began, Roan began calling, and texting. He showed up in New York on Valentine’s Day, and we fucked in the bathroom at the airport. It was dirty, hot, and everything I remember about him. He left, returning to Florida. Three weeks later, the same thing. When he wanted me, I was there for him.
Eventually the calls stopped, the random hookups faded, and he left for Austria in the spring. My grades began to drop and then one night, amongst sobbing over his Instagram pictures that never quite showed the real man behind the helmet, wild and spirited, I realized that despite the hold he had over me, I couldn’t continue this way. I was sick. Barely a hundred pounds, having chronic kidney infections, and sick constantly, I needed a change.
The change came with Agustin. You remember him, right? The one guy who sparked an interest in me. The first guy outside that mansion to pay attention to me. With my heart breaking into a million pieces, I let him in. It was easy to fall for Agustin. Unlike the ruggedness that drew me to Roan, Agustin was sweet, caring, cultured, spoke three languages and came from a good family.
The months pass, turning into years and before I know it, I’m graduating with a bachelor’s degree in business law and still have no idea what I’m going to do next with my life. Although I do have an internship set up with Agustin’s dad who happens to have a small law firm in Santa Barbara. I’m set to move back to the West Coast with another man. If that doesn’t spell out disaster, I don’t know what will.
Graduation day, I find myself scanning the audience. I spot my dad, my mom, my aunts and uncles, but the one I thought might make an appearance, doesn’t.
“Did you really think he’d show up?” Maille asks, straightening her royal blue cap. Tomorrow she flies to Spain to study abroad. I’m jealous, but I know if I was in Spain, I’d be in Madrid and only looking for the guy throwing death-defying stunts.
I think of him, again, even with Agustin in the distance. “No, I just… I don’t know. I sorta thought he would.”
Maille gestures to Agustin, smiling tenderly at me. “Honey, you need to move on.” I know what she’s referring to. I have a good one in front of me, willing to give me everything I ever dreamed of.
Agustin finds me soon after I’m given my diploma. I stare at it, wondering what it means, if anything. His arm wraps around my shoulder, his lips pressing tenderly to my forehead. “I’m so proud of you.”
I can feel him watching me curiously, always aware when my thoughts are distant. “Thank you.”
Fingertips search and join our hands. Solid and steady, his sureness sways mine. “To the future?” he asks, as if I need to answer him.
My skin heats under the late spring sky, the humidity oppressive. Panic clenches my heart at the thought of my future. I haven’t told Roan about Agustin, and I don’t plan to. I haven’t talked to him in a year.
But I know without a doubt, the last thing I need Roan to know is that I’m in a relationship with someone because I know what his reaction will be. Probably similar to any time a boy at school showed interest in me growing up. They’d suddenly show up with a fat lip or a black eye and never talk to me again.
As much as it feels like a contradiction, I don’t give an answer to Agustin, who’s still standing next to me. I’m not sure I can because how can I promise a future to him?
He notices, pulls me in, and tucks me under his arm, his warmth radiating. “Are you okay?”
Pushing my thoughts aside, I twist in his arms. With the sun peeking over his shoulder, wrapping him in a soft glow, it’s a perfect definition of his heart. “I’m good,” I tell him, fearing it’s a lie.
When I return home from Austria a second time, after being gone an entire year, I feel like I don’t know anyone anymore. Including myself. I lost my sanity, hope, and eventually my ability to give a shit about anything outside me. I’ve been trapped in a mindset of self-protection. I’d shut everything and everyone out in an attempt to focus on racing. I don’t fuck around. Not once. Believe it or not, sex and women are the last things on my mind. Okay, I’ll rephrase that one. Sex is on my mind, as is one girl, but I remain intent on one goal. Domination. From Portugal, France, Austria, Spain, Romania, United Kingdom, Germany, Peru, I search for something, anything, but I can’t seem to find the answer.
I win the Erzberg Rodeo for a third time and countless other hare scrambles including the Roof of Africa, pegged as the world’s most extreme enduro. I dominate the world of extreme shit that most wouldn’t even dream of trying. I do all that to not think about her. In some off-the-wall definition of love and hate, the last two years haven’t been about me, but about forgetting her.
Cold, hard truth?