Riding Through Life

When my bike sped down the sloping Alabama mountains it never once occurred to me that I might crash. I must have looked mad racing down the mountain at an insane amount of speed, but that was me the carefree Ely Nelson. My sight of the road I was riding on was half blocked by my brown hair getting in my eyes. My right eye was intently focused on finding winds and curves in the road and balancing myself to keep from falling over. I was a little worried about hitting a pedestrian walking on the side of the road, but I could swerve, right?

 Today was November 19 about a few days away from Thanksgiving and it was freezing. I was immensely glad I had decided to wear my white hoodie today because it was pretty damn cold. Besides this hoodie looked great on me. I had actually gotten it for my birthday and same with the dark blue Mongoose bike I was riding. Since I was rich my dad bought me anything I liked during my birthday and I had decided on a bike because I couldn't ride the bus to school since it didn't cover my neighborhood. My dad would have bought it for me no matter why I wanted it though. It was his way of making up his constant absence. Will Nelson my father was never home. For months at a time he would go to Florida where his company worked instead of staying with his family at his mansion on top of MonoSantoMountain. Sometimes I wished I was dirt poor just so I could be with him, but I don't want to think about that now.

         There was a slight curve in the long stretching road and it was just sharp enough so that I couldn't see the other side because of the foliage. I pushed the hair out of my eyes with my left hand and with my right hand I turned. The constant whir of my bicycle calmed me and let me space out. When I rode this Mongoose nothing else mattered and the feelings of everything else just disappeared. I closed my eyes for a moment and let the world slip away. I breathed in and out slowly. Forgetting about my father and everything else. Slowly I opened my eyes only to be met with a girl walking down the road just in front of me. I was going way too fast to stop.

   Holy shit! I slammed on my brakes. I jammed them as hard as I could, but no matter how  hard I tried I couldn't completely stop. I slammed straight into her back with such force that I prayed to God I didn't kill her.

She let out a loud shriek and fell face first into the grass five feet away from her. Her long blonde hair was strewn all around her and she wore a purple leather jacket and dark blue skinny jeans. She was pretty.

Oh, my God I just killed a hot girl. What the hell!

I immediately jumped off of my bike not even bothering to put up my kickstand and rushed to help her. I heard my bike fall to the ground, but I didn't care. I got down on my knees and turned her over to see if she was still breathing. I looked closely and saw that she was breathing heavily and healthily. She's fine...

I noticed that she had a few cuts on her forehead and one was bleeding profusely.

Scratch that she's not fine...

"Are you okay? Can you hear me?" I ask, the concern showing in my voice.

When I spoke her eyes slowly opened revealing blue orbs that stared at me. She seemed out of it because she didn't really focus on me. I reached over to wipe away some of the blood from her face but with a slight wave of her hand she told me she was fine. Not that I believed her though.

  She had delicate features and sharp eyes. She was obviously smart. Despite her beauty she wasn't stupid. Anyone could see that even an idiot like me.

 I spoke to her again hoping for an answer, "Do I need to call an ambulance? Can you move?"

She gradually sat up and when she did she looked pained. Then surprisingly she spoke,

"I-I'm...fine. Don't worry I can get up."

She had such a soft pitched voice and sounding from the way she talked she couldn't sit up let alone stand up.

"What's your name?" I asked her. I was tired of not knowing her name. It seemed rude to address her by saying 'hey' in the condition she was in.

"My name's Jane. Jane McMillan." She said a louder then before.

I smiled kindly, "My names Ely Nelson. Look I'm really sorry about, well, you know running you down."

Jane smiled and said, "Look, don't worry about it. As long as it was accident it's fine."

 It definitely was an accident I  never would have run down a girl as cute as her.

I looked down and noticed how dirty her jacket was and she was injured to all because of me. It made me feel really guilty. I thought for a second. How could I make it up to her?

"I think I owe you for what I did. How about I give you a ride to wherever you were going before." I said as kindly as I could.

 Jane's face contorted. "Well, I was going to town square to shop with my friends, but I really don't feel up to that now. I'll call them and you can take me out for some ice cream."

 I was terribly relieved. Ice cream didn't sound so bad and it might be fun. Besides who didn't like Ice cream? What made it even better was that it was almost like a date. Imagine if my friends saw me with her. I grinned wide. This will be great.

I tried not to smile because that ruins my cool look.

"Sounds cool." I say nonchalantly.

     Jane reaches into her back pocket and takes out an expensive looking purple smart phone. She must really like purple. I wasn't all that surprised because most girls liked pink and purple, but it didn't seem like Jane would though. She seemed too smart to like stuff like that.

  With great familiarity Jane flips her phones text pad out and quickly types what I suppose is a message to the friends she was going to go shopping with.

When she finished she put the phone back into her pocket and attempted to stand up. The moment she was at full height she stumbled backwards and in seconds I caught her.

"Jesus be careful. You could get hurt a lot worse from falling then from the actual hit itself." I said, more harshly then I meant to. She didn't seem to mind that I scolded her though.

"I was fine you know. I just stumbled...a little." Jane said, embarrassed. The last part was almost inaudible.

"Can you stand?" I ask.  She responds by nodding her head.

I walk toward my bike so that we can finally get a move on and take a quick look back just to make sure she's okay. With ease I pick it up and ride it over to her.

   "Get on."

Jane half walks and half limps over to my mongoose and I scoot to the very front of the seat so she can sit on the back edge of it. She carefully rests her feet on my back foot pegs so she won't fall off and she holds onto my waste.

   With a joyful smile that she can't see I say, "You ready to go?"

I hear a soft voice say, "Yeah."

    I take it as a queue and I zoom off down the sloping mountains at that still insane speed.