Page 29

I failed.
Epically.
Despite the trophies and broken records, love remains and I still find myself wondering what life will bring back in the States. And if she’ll be there. Weakness eats at me. And weakness goes against everything I am.
I went through life’s emotions, but I wasn’t in it. I couldn’t tell you anything that was going on in the world. I’d shifted into survival mode for so long I don’t know how to reset and become human again.
Back at the house, shit’s changed. Shade and Scarlet are now living together. Amberly is a constant fixture, along with River (Tiller’s daughter with Amberly’s sister), which makes Tiller more tolerable. Or maybe it’s the fact that he is finally sober that makes being in the same room with him less miserable.
The house that had once been occupied with dirt bikes racing up and down the halls, drugs, alcohol, and naked women is now a place of kids’ toys, coloring books, Disney movies and sickness. I swear, first day back, River sneezes in my face and I’m sick.
Maybe feeling sorry for me and my stuffy nose and contagious cough, she hands me a box of tissues. And by hand me, she throws the box at my head while briefly telling me to catch.
Do you see that little girl without a shirt on? The one with the backward S3 hat on and long brown curls cascading down her back? That’s River. She’s cute, but mean.
Wonder where she gets that from?
“Shouldn’t you be in school?” I ask her, realizing it’s late morning and kids her age should probably be in school. She’s like six now, but what the fuck do I know? I’ve lived the last year out of a van in secluded hills of Eisenerz with a man named Marcel, who strangely enough made the best homemade whiskey, and had detached so far from reality maybe schooling here had changed.
River wipes her running nose on the back of her hand. “I’m sick. I can’t go to school sick.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Why not?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know.” I hand her the bagel I made for her. She stares at it offensively. “Why is it brown?”
“I toasted it. Eat it.”
Defiantly, she pushes the plate back toward me, her arms crossed over her chest and a set “fuck you” scowl on her face. Definitely Tiller’s kid.
“What’s wrong?”
“She only eats white foods.” Camden slides into the kitchen, same hat as River has on backward. I stare at him, unprepared. Gone is the childlike neighbor kid I knew eating all our food and in his place is a teenager. His hair is longer now, shaved on the sides and he has a newfound swagger about him, no doubt a product of his time spent around Tiller. “If there’s any color to it, she won’t eat it.”
My eyes slip from his to River, confused. “You only eat white food?”
She nods. “Yes. Do you gotta problem with that?”
As if you had any doubt, she was Tiller’s kid.
“Yesterday she ate a marshmallow sandwich,” Camden adds. “Shade was so disgusted he ate dinner with his back to her.”
I’m more surprised that they ate at the dinner table. When Shade was little, he ate under the table because he hated the texture of the wood table. Taking the top off the cream cheese, I push it toward River. “Here.” I take the bagel from her and eat it myself.
With cheerful eyes, she takes the tub and dips her finger in it, scoops out a large gob and shoves it in her mouth. “Yum.”
Camden shakes his head and then nods to me, a quick lift of his chin. “Nice to see you back among the living. How’s it feel to be the king of enduros?” He slides the latest issue ofDirt Rideracross the counter to me. It’s me on the cover as I cross the finish line at the Erzberg Rodeo. I haven’t seen that particular picture yet. My face is covered in mud and I’m standing in front of the rock garden with my bike overheating.
I don’t say anything, nor do I look at the article they wrote about me.
I stare at River, then Camden. I’m not entirely sure I’m among the living. Who only eats white food and stays home from school with a runny nose? What the hell is this shit? If I was going to stay home from school as a kid, it was to ride, not sit around the house and feel sorry for myself being sick.
“How’s it going? Parents still around?”
Camden frowns. “My dad andstepmomare around, but they couldn’t care less what I do.”
“Or maybe you just don’t tell them?”
He shrugs, smiling. “Maybe.”