Some lonely nights, when I’m lying awake, staring at the ceiling, my nerves jangling so hard after pulling a double that even three shots of Jack in a row can’t calm me, I fall into a kind of trance watching the numbers on my digital clock at my bedside.

“2:58,” I say into the dark. “If I fall asleep now, there’s still time to get a good night’s sleep.” I close my eyes, and then open them again. “2:59. If I fall asleep right now, I can still fit in three hours. There’s still time.” Then I breathe out and count it on my fingers, obsessing with each second that passes by until… “3:00. If I fall asleep now, I can still wake up refreshed. There’s still time.”

There’s still time.

“There’s still time,” I exhale in a half-strangled whisper. The pavement is cold and damp, and my tongue stings from where I bit it when I hit the ground. But none of that matters because there is still time for me to get back up on my bike and finish this race.

But I feel like I’m moving backwards, and every second that ticks past is another second where I’m not in first place. Where I’ve made a mistake—a stupid, amateurish mistake—that I should have never made. I was going too fucking fast for the road conditions, but I was first, damn it. I was doing it. And I still could. There was still time.

Summoning all of my strength, I lean forward, ready to haul myself up.

Something hard and warm crashes into me. “What the—” I twist, arching like a startled cat, and then hiss with anger as the distance to my bike suddenly gets longer instead of shorter. “What the fuck?”

“I’ve got you.” Adam’s voice is in my ear, and for a moment I lose track of where I am as I melt against his warmth.

But there is no time for this....

“Let go of me!” Adam’s arms are like iron around my waist, but the pack is coming. I need to get to my bike. I can still get out ahead of them. “Adam!” I thrash against him, and manage to slip free thanks to my newfound strength. “Come on! I need to get to my bike!” I step forward with my left foot. I can still get to my bike. I can still pull ahead if I work really hard...

“Reggie!” he shouts as I slip out of his grasp. “Watch out!”

I yelp as he yanks me back off my feet. I slam backwards into his chest…and out of the way of the careening pack of bikers swishing past us so fast that my hair dances in the wash of displaced air.

“Holy fuck,” Adam breathes, still clutching me tightly to him. “You nearly got…”

I blink, and for a second my heart stands still. With a shaky inhale, I close my eyes and allow myself to replay it one more time in my mind, before I shake my head. “It’s okay now,” I tell him firmly. “Nothing bad happened.”

“Jesus, Reggie.” I can feel his heart thumping wildly against my back, as he holds me tight. “Take a goddamned breather, will you?”

“I can’t, there’s no time.” I’m starting to struggle again. “I didn’t get hurt, but I need to catch up now.”

“Reggie…”

“There’s still time for me to catch up.”

“Reggie, stop…”

“Adam, I can do this! Let me do it!” I shove him away and stagger forward.

And that’s when I feel it. The sharp, burning…wrongness in my right ankle. It knifes up my leg, setting the whole thing on fire before I feel it slip sickeningly out of place.

With a yelp, I stagger to the left, but I overcompensate, and brace myself to hit the pavement.

I never do. Adam, faster than lightning, always so goddamned fast at everything, lunges at the last second and gathers me smoothly back up again. I blink back hot tears that are half embarrassment, half anger, and all crushing disappointment. “I could still pedal, maybe,” I wince as he slowly turns me away from the course. “My other leg is fine. I can just do the one side and…”

“Sweetheart, no.”

“I could still do it!”

He blinks at me. “I have no doubt you could. But you’re hurt, and it’s hurting me to see you like this. Will you please let me take care of you?”

It’s not pity in his warm brown eyes. It’s…something else. He’s looking at me with such softness, such warm admiration and respect.

No one has ever looked at me like that before.

It’s too much. I try to look away, but the tears catch me. I feel my whole self collapse inward and crumple against him, and suddenly I am crying hot, vicious, angry tears.

“Fuck,” I sob, and I don’t even know why I am crying right now, but I can’t stop. Rage and disappointment roil together with embarrassment and defeat, and there are no words for what I’m feeling other than what bubbles up in my chest right now. “It’s not fair!” I sob.

I bite my lip and wait, tears pouring from my eyes and soaking his nice shirt—too nice for anything in Reckless Falls on a Sunday morning except church—waiting for him to tell me that I’m being ridiculous. It’s not fair? That’s something a child would say.  

But Adam only smoothes my hair. He doesn’t try to argue like my mother would, he doesn’t try to diminish it, make me think of starving kids in Africa, or some shit like my Dad would. He just holds me and murmurs that I’m right. I’ve worked so hard for this. It’s not fucking fair.

When my tears slow, and the raw ache subsides, he puts his arm around me.

“Come with me,” Adam says, lacing it under my arm to hold me close.

I don’t say anything. I just let him slowly, so slowly, lead me away. I don’t know where we are going right now, only that it feels right that I’m going with him.