Bishop

Despite my reservations, I’m up early to help Bennington get his viewing party ready. The words from Jake’s letter are still fresh in my mind. God, I miss him so fucking much. I hate the way he left, but I get it. Perhaps I’m even better off for it. What he said has stayed with me. I love Jake. I have always loved Jake. I will always love Jake. And I want to be with him. I will be with him and I’m working on getting back to him.

With my mind made up, it’s easier to face the questioning from Bennington’s guests. When asked why I’m not competing and defending my medals, my answer actually sounds mature and almost a respectable choice.

“I’m taking some time to re-evaluate my options, get a fresh perspective on the sport,” I tell them. I think Jake would be proud of this answer so I stick with it. When Jax Ryan comes on the screen, I don’t feel the anger I usually do. I’m still jealous as fuck, but it’s different. No longer is it jealousy over what he has and what I don’t, but jealousy over the fact he knows what he wants to do with his life and he’s doing it. He performs his run, a front flip over the seventy-foot gap then a no-hander bike flip. The guy’s amazing, a true pioneer of the sport. I cheer along with everyone else when he lands. Some of the guests ask me about him, and I’m sure if he could hear my answers he’d drop dead from shock.

“He’s incredible,” I tell them. “The tricks he comes up with… years ago, not even that long, maybe even a year ago, people thought the tricks he’s pulling now were pie in the sky. He continually pushes the envelope and challenges what we all think is possible. He’s an incredible ambassador for the sport.”

“Is that what you really think?” a guy standing towards the back of the group asks. He’s a little bit shorter than me, maybe five foot seven, with jet-black hair and light grey eyes. He has the typical BMX rider build, slim but not scrawny, strong but not bulky. He’s a good-looking guy, but any attractiveness he might have is taken away by the snarl on his face.

I nod. “It is. A few months ago it wouldn’t have been—”

“You mean when you were at the height of your career and on the same team as him?” the guy asks.

“I’m not sure you could call it the height of my career since I haven’t decided if I’m done yet, but yeah, when we were on the same team, it wasn’t a secret we didn’t get along.”

“So what you’re saying is you’ve become soft since then?”

“You say gone soft, I say matured,” I hit back as I take a step through the crowd towards him.

He shakes his head. “You’re a disgrace. You hit the big time, won two fucking gold medals, and then you just slink away. You had everything but you pissed it away.”

“There’s stuff going on in my life I have to sort out before I can do anything,” I explain.

“Bullshit,” the guy, a kid really, now I can get a good look at him, says.

“You think being at the top of a forty-foot-high mega ramp is the place to be when you have a million thoughts running through your head?” I ask. “I assume you saw the last games and how badly Jax fucked himself up on his run. He is literally the best freestyle BMX rider the sport has ever seen. He’s unbeatable, and even he got hurt.”

“You didn’t,” the kid points out.

“No, I didn’t. That doesn’t mean I can’t or won’t. Being up there, doing what we do is dangerous. Jax’s accident last year reminded all of us of that. So no, I don’t want to throw myself off the top of the roll-in until my mind is one hundred percent focused on what I’ve got to do. You wouldn’t either.”

“You’re a pussy,” he says.

“No, I’m smart.”

He shakes his head. “You know there are a million guys who would kill to be where you’ve been, even where you are now?”

I nod. “I know. That’s why I’m taking the time to figure out what it is I want and how best to go about it. I owe it to the sport, and myself. If I go back, I want it to be for the right reasons and I want to do it the right way.”

“If,” he says with a sneer. “Fuck this if. You had it all and now you’re nothing. You’re weak,” he tells me. “A has-been. You had it all and you pissed it away because you couldn’t hack it. A real rider wouldn’t need to ‘re-evaluate’ or ‘get a fresh perspective.’ A real rider is always pushing, always moving.” He points to Jax on the screen. “He is a real rider. You were nothing more than a lucky pretender.” With that, he walks away.

The ease with which I accept the kid’s words is a reminder why I’m taking the time I am, why I’m not back on my bike. He had some valid points, and I know a lot of people would back him up. Hell, they’d probably go further than that. I was lucky to win those medals. I know I didn’t deserve them, but I stayed on my bike, Jax didn’t. That’s not my fault. Someone had to benefit from his misfortune, and it was me. But I know, just like the kid does, night and day separate where Jax is and where I am. The way his mind works is unlike anybody else’s ever to grace freestyle BMX. He doesn’t think “that can’t work,” instead he thinks “how can I make it work?” Me, I’m content to let someone else do the hard work. I discovered pretty early on in life that I’m a good mimic. It’s come in handy several times over, but never more so than when I’m competing. Sure, some might call it cheating, but it also means I’m constantly behind the eight ball. I’m never at the forefront of innovation, never the one breaking ground. I’ve always been okay with that. Now I’m questioning that. Questioning my tactics. Watching him and the other guys compete today reminded me of how much I do love freestyle BMX. It makes me wonder whether I could be good enough to compete, whether I have that talent, that drive that makes Jax and the other top guys great. It makes me want to be up there with them. To be mentioned in the same breath as them. I know it will be a lot of hard work, but I’m not afraid of it. Not when I’m doing this for me, because I want to, because my motives are pure. I can feel the ideas pouring into my head, the runs I would do, the tricks I would pull, the new ones I want to come up with. For the first time in a long time, I feel… hopeful. Hopeful that someday, hopefully soon, I may be able to find my way back to someone I’m happy to be, someone I want to be, someone Jake could love.