Oklahoma, 1985
We exchange nods and start down the hill, feeling exhilarated as we pick up speed.
I am at the top of a heavily sloped gravel road. A dry summer heat bears down on me. Sweat trickles down my back. My Keds touch the ground and gravel dust shoots up around me.
I look over at Jessie, beside me, and touch the back of my neck. Our hair matches now, except for its color. Hers is brown. Mine blonde, almost white, but the loose curls that once dangled down my back are gone.
We’ve swapped bikes today. She wants to try out my “new” Diamondback, which my dad gave me for Christmas, a second-hand fix-me-up, shiny and blue.
I straddle her faded red (not pink) and white BMX bike. We exchange nods and start down the hill, feeling exhilarated as we pick up speed.
We swoosh our way to the place where the road begins to fall flat.
I switch my feet, try to back pedal and brake, but nothing happens.
She skids to a stylish stop on my chariot of blue; I crash into the ground. Tiny gray and silver rocks tear the soft flesh at the base of my palms.
Blood trickles down my shins. My knees raw and pink. I still wear the scars.
I fight back tears. I won’t let Jessie see me cry. She is my beacon: taller, stronger, braver than me. I can't let her see me cry. I glance at her face, quickly, to hide my watery eyes. I try to discern if I'm seeing the hint of a smile passing across her lips or something else. I recall this same look a week before when my curls floated through the air and landed on her basement floor. The pressure of her older brother’s hands on my arms, pinning me to a straight backed chair. My long blonde hair, gone in minutes. My mother's tears and anger follow. But I have none of either. Not on that day. Not on this one.
Straight faced, tough, unfazed, I pick up her bicycle and start the long walk home.
I tell myself I don’t care if she follows me. But I do. I do.
Jennifer Fischer is a writer/creator whose films have been featured by NBC, ABC, Univision, Fusion, etc. Her writing has appeared in Ms. Magazine, Literary Mama, Barzakh Magazine and others. She has an essay in What is a Criminal? Answers from Inside the U.S. Justice System from Routledge Press and pieces in other anthologies including Awakenings: Stories of Body & Consciousness and other publications.
