It smelled sterile, like anti-bacterial hand sanitizer and the assertive odor of bleach.
The room slowly slipped into consciousness. She didn’t remember falling asleep. Groggily she peered around, the room slowly steadying. This wasn’t her bed. A cold breeze wrapped around her, sliding its cold fingers inside her gown. Lab Coats walked by. Could it be…?
Shaking her head as if to clear it she lifted her hand to rub her eyes.
The bright silver staples stared back from her wrist. Her left hand.
It was gone. She was in the hospital.
The first time she rode up Page Mill was terrifying. With the lightweight carbon of her bicycle underneath her, she pedaled away from the Caltrain station. The road starts somewhere behind Stanford University and slips up into the heart of the Palo Alto hills that separate "Suburbia" from the Coastline. This windy narrow road frequently changed grade from four percent to eight or nine, sometimes even ten percent. Combined with Montebello this was some of the best hill training in the bay, but the reward at the end is the most amazing view of the bay. She’d driven it many times before. When you got to the top, you had to remind yourself to breathe for the beauty. The road she was looking for at the top was aptly named Skyline Boulevard.
Her boyfriend was wonderful. He was everything she wasn’t. They had met on the train. She had been traveling home for the weekend, and he was just coming back from a week with friends in the city. Already that day she'd been late to work, then worked overtime, and now she was supposed to already be home and cooking dinner for her parents to come over. He had glanced at her a couple of times. She was too shy to say hi, but thought he was really cute. He finally popped two beers and offered her one. Life spiraled from there.
She had to stop. Water, gu, eat something. Stretch. This mountain --no hill --this hill is beating her down. She was about halfway and her legs were already burning. Breathe she reminded herself. A couple more miles and you’ll have what you’re looking for, the best view in all the land. She never admitted that she still had a long way to go.
She had just found a place in the city. He didn’t mind sleeping on the air mattress next to her on the nights when they stayed up North. After they’d had sex, she would watch him fall asleep. She would move his hair out of his face with her left hand. They were both left-handed. When he first saw her write, he was surprised. “Us, lefties have to stick together, “ he’d said, winking at her.
Today she used Page Mill to grind out everything that she couldn’t deal with. Work, school, friends, and boyfriend, well sort of. They were fighting. He was going to leave her for another woman. That stupid blonde bitch that wound herself around him at that one party. Four fucking years down the toilet. She couldn’t deny still loved him. She fought the hill, shifting, grinding, never letting it beat her. She synced her breathing with her legs, pushing through the burn and forced herself to think about anything other than the ride.
At her weakest, she would to ask him, why her? Why did he like her? At first he would say things like, “You’re cute, and you ride bikes.” It made her smile, because at first, she thought of riding a bike as being a sub-human. Someone who couldn’t afford a car, or couldn’t drive one, but she realized that it could be a life choice. And he helped her to understand that it didn’t have to be anything that she didn’t feel was appropriate, and that she couldn’t let other people define her existence.
One time she'd been crying before he came over, another one of her papers had been rejected from her favourite science journal. “Confidence, babe, we are made of the same stuff as stars,” he would tell her, brushing the bangs out of her face, "You just have to keep trying."
The leaves were turning colors, starting to drop off the trees. Golden reminders of the intense green that colored the skies at one point. She could hear the crackle of the dried leaves underneath her tires, backing the slow, steady whirr of the chain. Her own breathing a steady melody over the top, in and out, inhale, exhale. Spin.
I’m letting him define my existence. He didn’t call. He never calls. I’m always waiting for him. I can’t hold onto someone who doesn’t want to be here. I should just go out and ride my bike. But I said I’d be here for him. I can’t just leave, what if his phone died on the train.. What if he’s on his way right now…?
She focused on the switchback. Fighting the eight percent. Right leg, left leg, push down, pull up. Just keep spinning. Almost.. There.. Just another mile.
“I’m done!” She screamed it into the phone. “I’m done waiting for you, I love you but I can’t always be waiting for you to realize that I’m important.”
One last climb. Pain firmly set into her legs, the burn in her glutes was incredible. She stood up out of the saddle, switching to her quads. Pulling on the handlebars to get every last ounce of energy into the road.
He sounded pathetic, “But sweetheart, I love you, but I can’t make it. I know I should’ve called you earlier, but I just.. I forgot to.. I’m sorry.”
She could see the last stop sign at the top of the hill.
“We can’t see each other anymore,” he said.
Skyline Boulevard at last! She blew through the stop sign, arms raised triumphantly.
“I cheated on you,” he admitted.
The chrome grill flashed, on her left, blinding her before the pain did. She remembered the bike splintering beneath her. Her beautiful, carbon, Colnago. She exploded into blackness.
As the world came back to her, she heard the nurse’s insistent voice telling her not to panic. Her left hand had been pinned between the truck and her splintered handlebars.
Don’t panic??
She’d lost her best friend.
