Bishop

Life in Aussie is pretty ace. Never in a million years did I ever think I’d be here, and on Jax Ryan’s team to boot. It’s crazy but I am so grateful to him.

I’m also grateful to Bennington. Unbeknownst to me, he’d been keeping track of the hours Kyle and I had been spending together training and counted them towards my community service. All I had to do was a final session before we left and then I was free to go, to get my fresh start.

For the time being Kyle and I are staying with Jax and Bentley at her house on the beach. Things were a bit awkward between us until I cleared the air. Once she heard everything I had to say, we were all good. She’s a good match for Jax.

I haven’t gotten in touch with Jake yet. To be honest, I don’t know what I’m waiting for. There are no more obstacles in our way to being together, so why wasn’t getting in touch with him the first thing I did when we touched down? I wish I knew the answer. Maybe I’m scared. For once, there’s nothing stopping me from truly following my heart. I think that’s it. For so long I’ve had everything I’ve ever wanted at my disposal. Anything I wanted, I had. It was great, but unsatisfying. And the strings that arrangement came with, the weight of my father’s expectations, turned me into a monster. I hate that I let myself go down that path, that I played that role for so long. But in that time, only one person knew the real me: Jake. And in the end, he was the only person who could’ve set off the chain of events that eventually led me here, to him. Or to him if I wasn’t scared shitless that he’s moved on. I wouldn’t blame him if he has. After all the trouble I’ve caused and the messes I’ve made it’s not out of the question that he’s decided to cut his losses. Besides, this is the Gold Coast, I’m sure there’s plenty of guys he can pick from.

With this thought in mind, I throw myself into training with Jax and Kyle. Jax mentioned he had an awesome set-up and he wasn’t lying. His compound is actually on his brother Mav’s and his fiancée’s property. It’s massive and ideal for both FMX and freestyle BMX.

“Holy shit,” Kyle says when we get our first look.

“You’ve got to have the best to be the best,” Jax says.

We dive headfirst into training. While riding for me was great, riding in a competitive environment really brings me to life. Training side by side is raising my competitive hackles. I like to think I have the same effect on the others. Kyle is benefiting a ton from being around both Jax and me, I hope, and is making a heap of progress. Here, in this environment, it’s so easy to just be. I never had a lot of friends. Mainly there were people who I could stand and didn’t make too much of a deal about hanging around with me. But now, being with Jax and Kyle, it reminds me how good it feels to have someone in your corner. When Jax suggests we all go out one night after a particularly hard but fruitful training session, it doesn’t feel like an obligation, but something I genuinely want to do.

As we walk along Surfers Paradise Boulevard, all six of us—Mav, Aubrey, Jax, Bentley, Kyle, and me—are laughing and joking. The girls fit into our extreme world and Kyle and I fit in their Aussie one. We’re like one big, adrenaline-fuelled family. But all of that disappears when I come face-to-face with Jake.

For something so earth-shattering, you’d think there would’ve been a bigger trigger. You know, I bump into him as I’m eating ice cream and it dramatically falls to the floor between us as we stare into each other’s eyes, or I’m laughing and joking with Jax, Mav, and Kyle as we guffaw about how great we are. It doesn’t happen like that. I’m walking down the street, and so is he. For all intents and purposes, we are two people who are just trying to get to our respective destinations. We could be two ships passing in the night. But we’re not. We’re soulmates and the connection we share can never, ever be broken, no matter how much time we’ve spent apart, or what happened to separate us. Seeing him now, I realise there is never going to be anyone who can make me feel the way he does. There’s never going to be anyone who understands me as well as he does, no one who feels like home as soon as I look at him. No, there will never be anyone for me other than Jake.