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I pedal back out of the driveway. Three houses down at the end of the cul-de-sac I know I will find Dina. She’s sitting on her front lawn, picking at a yellow dandelion, waiting for me.

I get off my bike. And then I tell her, “I’m sorry.”

It’s so easy to say. Why did I wait so long?

“That’s okay,” she says.

“Can we be friends again?”

“I thought we already were.”

She looks toward the house, where Detective Weston and another woman, Kathy, I guess, are in the kitchen talking.

“Will I see you again? In the, whatever?”

“You see me now. Isn’t this the, whatever?”

“I guess you’re right.”

I climb back on my bike. “I think I have to go now.”

She nods. “I’m going to stick around a bit.”

She plucks a potato bug from the grass; it crawls up her arm and she watches it with awe. I leave her like that.

I push off on my bike. I pedal past my house, Dad’s truck next to Mom’s car in the driveway. I pedal past my ghost bike, past the place where I left this life.

I get to the top of the hill. From here the town is spread out in front of me. Somewhere out there is the high school, and the kids who will walk past the mural of me, heading toward futures still unknown. Somewhere out there is Mr. King, about to get married. Somewhere out there is Lenny, who will celebrate Melissa’s birthday with her tomorrow. Somewhere out there is Calvin with his composition book in his lap, drawing pictures. Somewhere out there is life, starting and ending and ending and starting.

Melissa was right. Life. Death. We don’t know. We can never know. We can just have faith.

I pause at the crest, in that perfect moment, the feather suspended in the air. It’s downhill from here. I push myself off, letting go of the handlebars, raising my hands to my side. I feel light as air. The wind whips under my arms, so strong like it might lift me off this bike, like it might carry me home.