Rider

The rain stopped by the time I reached the top of the first hill on my way from the orphanage to where ever. So I just kept going, rode until the afternoon gave way to dusk and night gave way to morning again. Thought of nothing, felt nothing, was aware of nothing, but my headlight fighting the darkness. My tires and the pavement, the wind whizzing by, were making a symphony, which is different on every road I ride, yet always the same at it's core, and the only certainty in my life. The only safe haven.

I took the long way here, but now I'm on a hill overlooking the main harbor in Rio de Janeiro. Jesus Christ, Our Savior is spreading his arms wide over the city below me. He never saved me from shit, maybe because I didn't give my life to him the way I promised I would. I completely forgot about that until right now, but for years I wanted to be a priest just like Father O'Reilly. I'd probably make a bad one, as it turned out. But Jesus has given me the open road, the freedom and peace it brings me. And I'll never try to toss that gift away again like I almost did for Chloe.

When I left the States, I planned to ride all the way south until the road ended. Then I'd get myself aboard one of those huge cross-oceanic cargo ships, roll my bike into a container, and continue my journey wherever the ship dropped me off. Europe or Asia, it doesn't matter. This world is full of roads, and they're all mine to ride.

I'm not meant to have a home. The empty road is my only home. I will never again try to change that. This time I learned my lesson well. I've thought about that all the way here, yet I don’t want to begin my descent to the harbor.

It's not time to leave this road yet, a small voice is telling me inside my mind, has been since I left the orphanage and Chloe behind. But that's just the last echoes of my love for Chloe as it fades.

But they're loud enough to stop me from going down to the harbor. I passed a run-down roadside shack of a bar a few miles back. A couple of Harleys were parked out front, and I almost stopped right then and there, to have a drink with my brothers from another country. As much as MCs fight each other, there is a sense of brotherhood and loyalty that stretches beyond mere allegiance to our clubs. We all share the love of the open road, and it makes us all brothers. I learned that often on my rides, have no reason to believe the two bikers in that bar will refuse if I offer to buy them a beer. My MC brothers are all very far away right now, but I need a brother in spirit to talk to and reconnect with that unity we share, which is larger than my own petty existence here on this earth.

The two bikes are still parked in front of the bar, but they're joined by a black Merc with tinted windows. The bar is eerily quiet, with no one behind the counter and only one of the tables showing signs of recent occupation in the form of a nearly empty glass of scotch and a spilt bottle of beer that's still frothing as it drips down to the floor.

I smell blood and gunpowder, and that gut feeling I've honed over years of doing the wrong thing in dangerous places is telling me to get the fuck out of this place. Raised voices are coming from the back, and it doesn't sound like the conversation’s gonna end well for everyone involved. Just as it didn't for the wearer of that black biker boot, who is now lying behind the bar. A narrow trickle of dark red blood is snaking past his boot and towards the middle of the bar.

There's a code in the biker world. We help each other if we’re able, and if we're not at war. If I run away now, I'll forever have to live with being too much of a coward to honor that code. And I have little else but that code to live for anyway.

* * *

Chloe

I calmed down soon after I realized Rider wasn't right behind me, wasn't following me to my bungalow where we could finish our argument with a roof over our heads. And a bed near.

But when I went searching for him he was gone. His bike was gone, the stuff of his that he didn't leave in my bungalow were gone. He just left. The shock of that took my breath harder than getting plunged into deep icy water. Hours passed before it finally turned into anger. I stayed up all night waiting for him to return, couldn't sleep even when I tried, my anger wouldn't let me.

One disagreement and he's gone?

He just disappeared like I mean nothing to him. Like the things we shared, the words of love we exchanged didn't mean a thing.

They meant everything to me. But clearly not very much to him.

And it happened, because I wouldn't do as he wanted. Because I just want to protect the children from ending up in some state run orphanage where they might kill them even faster than the cartel would.

The cartel isn't killing anyone. They'd have done it by now, if that was their intention. He said as much himself.

All day, I held on to my anger at Rider as hard as I could, because it's easier than feeling that overwhelming anguish of despair that's skirting the edge of it. The kind of despair that makes all food taste like cardboard and chases away every last breath of hope. The kind of despair that made me pick up that knife to open my wrists, because I could see no other way out.

I'll never go down that road again, but I so wanted to travel the road Rider was starting to show me. The path to love and friendship, kindness and sharing the burdens of this world, to days of happiness that lead to nights of bliss and unburdened passion, all wrapped up in a life of belonging.

But maybe I just strayed so far from even hoping for something like that, it exploded in my mind with the first breath of its possibility.

Clearly it was all just an illusion, the figment of my brain in love. An over-exaggeration of what's actually happening, as so often happens to me when I fall for someone, but never leads to anything good.

Ed and Olivia didn't ask any questions, beyond that first one, wondering where Rider is.

"He left," I told them. "And I don't want to talk about it."

They handled it when the children started asking after him. They're my true family, my true friends, the only ones who stand with me against the cartel, against the sad fate these children will face once again, if no one stands up for them.

I thought Rider would understand that, since he's an abandoned child himself. He's such a strong guy. I thought he understood that sometimes the strong must put even their lives on the line to save the weak.

But I've clearly been just as wrong about him, as I was about my ex and all the guys that came before him.

It's better I stay alone. I knew that before he so expertly found a way into my heart, but I know it beyond a shadow of a doubt now.

It started raining again in the evening of the day after he left. This time it doesn't stop like it did on the day he left.

I only have to open the door of my bungalow to see that the ditches aren't holding the downpour back, because a wide river of black water is rushing down the ravine right past the two back stilts of the schoolhouse.

I rush out to see why the ditch isn't diverting the water as it should. It worked fine last night, but now the rushing water has completely obliterated one of its banks. I run to get the shovel and start digging. The mud is heavy and sticky, and I'm panting before long, hair and water stinging my eyes, or maybe that's the tears I won't shed for Rider.

Every sinew in my arms and back is burning before long, and all the digging I'm doing isn't making any visible difference. But I'll keep going, keep trying, because that is all I have. Saving this orphanage is the only purpose in my life.

The water is up to my ankles already, and I swear I can hear wood creaking, because the schoolhouse is about to collapse.

I start digging even faster, because the pain in my arms is now the only thing keeping away the overwhelming wish to have Rider by my side. I'll lose my mind, if I surrender to that desire. It's the only thing I know with absolute certainty. And it's not jus because I need him to help me save the orphanage. I want him, because I don't want to face a future without him. All else is alright as long as we're together, as long as he loves me, no challenge, no problem too big to solve.

He was worried about me, because he loves me. That's why he wanted us all to leave. And I went and told him I don't need him, that I’ll be fine without him. It's not true. I wanted to stay with him forever. Now he's gone, and I don't have any way to reach him, because he never even told me his last name or his phone number.