Page 28 of Biker Boo

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My little troublemaker in a leather jacket and smeared lipstick, trying to look meaner than the world that’s broken her.

She never sees me.

Just like always.

She was my first prayer.

My first sin.

My first girl with blood on her knuckles and grace in her spit.

They always said the Reverend saved us.That he took in broken boys and gave us purpose.What they don’t talk about is how he also broke us again.Tried to mold us into saints with violence and guilt.Tried to erase who we were before we arrived at Pearly Gates.

Legend played along.Too well, sometimes.He was always the favorite, strong, silent, full of that golden promise the Reverend liked to shape into weapons.

Me?I wrote poems in the back pew and picked locks with communion nails.

And Becki…

Becki was the preacher’s daughter.Already too wild.Already too proud.They wanted to save her, but she didn’t want to be saved.She wanted to beseen.

And I saw her.

Still do.

Later, I sit in the Kings’ clubhouse, lights low, mask off, but hoodie still up.No one talks to me.Not unless they need something fixed or destroyed.

That’s the way I like it.

Hell, most don’t even know my real name.Becki does.And even she’s forgotten it.She just calls me Royal now, like it’s the only part of me that’s worth saying out loud.

You say my name like it’s a dare,

and I answer like a ghost scratching from the coffin.

I almost told her last night.

When she slipped her hand beneath the mask, fingers trembling, breath hot against my skin.

I almost pulled it off myself.

Let her see me.

Let herchoose me.

But then she said his name… Legend’s name… soft and aching like a prayer.

And I knew I’d lost again.

Second place.Second thought.Second best.

Story of my goddamn life.

I scribble in the journal again, but the words won’t come out clean tonight.

Everything feels like a bruise.

Becki thinks she’s in love with a ghost.

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