Page 65 of Unforgettable

“I got you,” I hear Oz repeating. “You’re fine. I got you. Now hit the brakes.”

His voice is soothing and comforting and eliminates the chaos inside me, allowing me to finally be able to control my body’s movements.

My hand gently squeezes the brake and I effortlessly drop my leg to the ground to steady myself.

Why couldn’t I just do that before?

“Do you want to stop?” Oz asks, surprising me. “I told you half an hour and I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

I look over my shoulder, and the distressed look on his face makes my stomach flutter in excited determination.

“One more time,” I tell him. “But stand over there so I can ride to you.”

His eyes dart to a spot behind my head and then back to me. “Are you sure? I don’t care if you know how to ride a bike or not.”

Feigning offense, I gasp. “Are you saying I can’t do it?”

“No,” he answers quickly. “I just don’t want you doing it unless you want to.”

I’m at that point where there is little I wouldn’t do for Oz, and after coming this far, I now want to cross it off my metaphorical bucket list.

Smiling at him, I tilt my head in the opposite direction. “If I don’t make it there after this, then we’ll stop.”

He looks somewhat relieved, and it only makes me more resolute in my need to nail this. I watch him walk away from me, easily distracted by the way every curve and dip in his body moves with every step he takes.

At about a hundred feet away from me, he turns and holds his hands out to the side of his body. “I’m ready,” he shouts.

Without giving myself the chance to overthink what I’m doing, I keep a hand over the brake, just in case, and situate my foot on the pedal. Swallowing hard, I close my eyes and pray to whoever answers prayers, that I won’t end up face-first on the concrete path, covered by a mangled piece of metal.

With one foot still on the ground, I push myself off. The bike wobbles, but I keep my back straight and do my best to maintain balance while encouraging myself to move my legs.

Feeling courageous, I look up at Oz, and the unmissable expression of pride on his face propels me to stay on course and keep pedaling. It’s by no means fast, or even elegant, but I’m getting from one end of the path to the other, and that’s enough for me.

Loud laughter leaves my mouth as I ride straight past Oz, and he screams out “Hey, where’re you going?”

Not yet confident with steering away from the long straightaway, I slowly press on the brake and let my shoe meet the path. Grazing the concrete till the wheels stop turning and both my feet are flat on the ground.

I hear a pounding of footsteps behind me, and I turn to see Oz running toward me, the widest grin splitting his face. I climb off the bike and flick the kickstand down, so the bike doesn’t fall, just in time to be swept up in Oz’s big arms.

“I told you, you could do it,” he congratulates.

I let myself get carried away, literally, and wrap my arms around Oz’s neck, smiling from ear to ear. My body and mind feel a weightlessness, a levity, I don’t remember ever feeling before now.

“I can’t believe I did it,” I exclaim, sliding down Oz’s body and finding my feet. “I probably won’t ever have a reason to do it again, but damn if just that small ride didn’t make me feel like I could achieve anything.”

“You can do anything you want to do,” Oz says, the weight of the statement not lost on either of us.

“I never learned to ride because my dad didn’t have time to teach me,” I tell him. “And now I’m wondering how many unnecessary things I did do because they wanted me to and how many more things I’m going to miss out on because of it.”

There could be a whole life ahead of me, feeling this exact way, feeling inspired and happy, and I don’t want to give it up just to feel like I’m walking around with an anvil squashing my happiness.

I don’t know how a bike ride became my epiphany, but I can’t go back to Connecticut feeling this way, knowing what it’s like to actually be happy, and let that feeling just slip through my fingers.

Can I?

Oz presses his fingers between my brows, smoothing out the frown lines that must’ve formed. “Stop thinking so hard and enjoy the day, yeah?”

Sighing, I grab hold of his face and turn his head to the side, pressing my lips against his cheek.

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