Page 19 of Biker Boo
He freezes.“Who the fuck…”
I rush him.My fist connects with his jaw before he can finish.He hits the ground hard, groaning.I put my boot to his ribs and press.
“You walk away,” I snarl low, distorted through the mask.“Or I bury you next to her ghosts.”
He scrambles, pants wet, and bolts like a rabbit.I file his face away for later.
Becki turns, too slow to catch what happened.She looks around, shivering.Clouds block out the moon.It’s too dark for her to see me.
“I feel you again…” she murmurs.Then in true Becki fashion, she gets loud.“Biker Boo, are you still there?Why don’t you finish what you started?”
I don’t answer.
Fuck, it takes all I have to walk away.
Back in my room above the old jailhouse, our clubhouse, I pull out the leather-bound journal I never let anyone see.
Inside are pages filled with her name.
Not written.Etched.Like wounds.Lines of poetry no one would ever believe came from a bastard like me.Unless they knew.
She is the holy fire I was told to fear, burning through me like revelation.
She kissed my monster and called it hers,
not knowing he wore her lover’s face.
I am the shadow behind her smile, the boy who never left the graveyard.
I thumb over the page corners like a rosary, each one soaked in longing I never gave voice to.I’ve wanted her in a hundred lifetimes, across every version of myself, the boy with nothing, the man with blood on his hands, the ghost who never stops watching.
My body aches for her, but it’s the ache in my chest that carves me hollow.
That Halloween, hell, we couldn’t have been more than thirteen, still lives in me like a scar under the skin.
We were supposed to be bobbing for apples at the church carnival, but I’d slipped away, like I always did.I hated the way the Reverend looked at me, like I was the sin his sermons warned about.Like the devil wore my face.
I remember standing behind the shed, dirt on my knees, clutching that pocketknife I’d stolen just to feel like I had some control.
Then Jacob, one of the preacher’s favorites, found me.
“You don’t belong here,” he hissed, grabbing my wrist so hard the blade clattered to the dirt.“You’re just trailer trash.Demon blood.You’ll end up dead or behind bars, same as your mama.”
He shoved me into the wall.I remember the crack of my head, the cold sting of humiliation more than the pain.
And then she came.
Dark hair flowing behind her, fire in her mix matched eyes.
Becki.
“You don’t fucking touch him!”she screamed, slamming her tin pail of candy straight into Jacob’s face.He reeled, nose spurting red like a faucet.
“Freak,” he cried, stumbling off.“You’re both fucking freaks.”
I’d expected her to run after him.But she didn’t.She stayed.Bent down.Picked up my knife.
Held it out, hilt first, like a peace offering.“You gonna carve pumpkins or fight back next time?”
