2025-08-04 00:00 UTC
The autumn sun’s brilliance washes over campus as it reaches midday. Walkways are buzzing with hurried steps as students rush to their next class. Within the noise, my tires fly as my bike weaves through the static.
Every twist and turn beats through the pulse of foot traffic scraping the concrete beneath it. I don’t think—just ride.
In the rhythm of my awareness, I see her again. I blow through an intersection and see her strolling through the crosswalk.
Miranda.
Her strawberry blonde hair radiates around her face, and I catch a glimpse of her stony brown eyes as they lock with mine. A split second passes as I veer into her, but I lock back into the road and keep moving forward. A near miss.
It’s the third week of freshman year, and I thought I was rid of her, but I guess it turns out we decided to start our next chapters in the same place despite being in completely different worlds.
I continue riding as my stomach churns and the memories tear through me. I pedal harder so I can leave that lying mirage behind in the dust where she belongs, but the thought of her mesmerizing beauty catches up anyway.
Fuck. It’s playing in my mind all over again.
She’s still with him. That much I know. They got married at a shotgun wedding in Vegas right when we graduated. The thought of them fucking makes me want to puke. The thought of them truly being in love makes me want to erase the world and start a second draft.
I couldn’t understand why she wanted him over me. He’s fitter and taller, sure, but there was no way he loved her more than I did. I thought that’s what was supposed to matter. I know better now.
I get back home and try to cool down but end up pacing in circles. I didn’t think just a look at her would make me feel that kind of pain again, but it continues to grow with each stomp on the floor.
Back in the day, the pain was so overwhelming that all I could do was freeze and take it in. If she wants to keep invading my mind, I have to fight back. I can’t outrun her. Not with the wheels that skid, blood that boils. I need something sharper.
That’s when it hit me: I could give her a letter. Let her hope that I finally forgave her—but it’s a Trojan Horse. She’ll open it thinking I’m being desperate or sad, the way she always thought of me.
But that’s when I’ll cut her and make her bleed.
It won’t be a letter. It’ll be a wound, worn and washed in scarlet.
I rush for a piece of paper and a pen and shove everything off my desk. I slam the paper down and start writing.
The words come through, but they’re all so stupid and hollow. “I loved you, but…” No, that’s cliché. “You ruined me…” I sound like a loser.
I’m a snake with no venom. I couldn’t hurt her even if my life depended on it. It’s all too much to take.
I use over a dozen different pages to draft, and every last one of them gets torn to pieces. I grab my pen so hard it bends and becomes useless.
I need to get out of here. I look at the torn pages on the floor spread out like leaves and make a break for the outside.
I see my bike locked on the rack. It’s a beautiful specimen—an old Peugeot from the 70s. The hardened steel and the chipped white paint complement the brand-new drivetrain I put on it. She’s ready, begging me to go all out.
I hop on the saddle and push the pedals as the golden-hour sun lets me bask in its warm hues. Traffic’s deep, but that doesn’t stop me from gliding through it.
I feel a monster bubbling within me. He’s brash, wild, and lets nothing stop him. I skid between pedestrians, sprint through yellow lights, even skitch a few cars. I start to get tired, but it does nothing to stop me.
At first, thoughts of Miranda float around me, but the more I ride, the less they dominate me. Then, after a while, they vanish from the road altogether. Bliss drowned in sweat. The streets become a cathedral of motion.
The semester goes by, and every day becomes a deeper excursion. Not a single alley goes without feeling my tires grind through it. I get home later and later at night as the rides get longer and my senses grow sharper. I can see every gap in traffic now as I grow into the city’s shadows.
Everything that semester that isn’t riding flies out the window. Meals become optional. Studying grows pointless. The more my legs burn and cramp, the better I feel. I lose twenty pounds and my legs get jacked. I’m a beast, always hungry.
One afternoon, I rest up at a coffee shop and fuel up for another half-century. I look out the window and see a courier flying down the street.
He’s not just fast. He’s electric. He closes gaps I didn’t think anyone could close. Everything on him is sleek and dirty. His clothes are weathered and his bike scratched and scathing. Then he hits a corner and vanishes like a ghost never to be seen again.
The next day, I rush to the closest courier office. I walk into a cramped and smelly old house that’s as disgusting as it is dilapidated. Old flyers peel off the walls, and rules that people obviously don’t read are haphazardly stapled.
I see a single desk and an old fat guy with a bald head and bushy mustache. The desk is flayed with dispatch notes and walkie-talkies. He takes a quick glance up at me and puts his head back down.
“Yeah, what?” he says dryly.
“Looking for a job. You guys hiring me?” I ask.
Without taking another glance, he digs into a filing cabinet, pulls out some paperwork, and hands it over.
“Fill this out. You start tomorrow,” he huffs.
I take it and don’t say another word. I fill out the paperwork and leave the office swiftly. It was as effortless as it was exhilarating.
I show up the next day and see the other couriers, but they pay no attention to me. The old fat guy invites me inside and hands me a cheap jersey, a basic satchel, and a worn-down walkie.
“Good luck, kid. Don’t die and give me extra shit to do,” he says, shooing me away.
That first day is a baptism by concrete. The double rushes don’t stop, and I’m sprinting just to barely keep up. There are constant near misses with cars and pedestrians. Customers berate me, wondering why I’m late.
I thought I knew the city, but clearly there’s a lot more to it than I thought. Still, I finish the day piss-tired and thanking God that He didn’t kill me.
I wasn’t just entrenched—I was in love. I was going to put everything into becoming the best, even if it killed me.
After barely passing last semester’s finals, I start the spring with no intent to let school become an excuse to shred my tires on the road. I pick up double shifts and the city becomes my soul.
One rainy morning, I come outside to the bike rack during a dry patch with the streets still slick. I start taking my usual route, but this time I notice something: dullness.
I feel it crack through slowly, but then it hits me all at once. Despite the constant motion, I’m relentlessly bored. The thrill that once shot through my veins now trickles like a dying faucet. I move fast, but I feel nothing. I turn away from the dining hall and skip breakfast to give the city a test.
I want to make new routes for myself, so I jam up the one-ways and weave in between the oncoming cars to get to the office. The more I see traffic laws as suggestions, the faster I get.
I get to the office for my walkie and see some of the other couriers getting ready. They took a liking to me once they figured out I’m in it for the long haul. One of the older guys approaches me.
“Yo, you’re working again? Been seeing your ass here every single day. You got a life or are you just poor?”
“Poor, but still faster than your dusty muff.” I reply quickly.
“Kid, keep riding like that and you’ll end up dead. Fast don’t mean shit if you don’t make it home.”
I shrug and get on the road. My test with the city continues as I start cutting red lights and getting in the pedestrians’ way just to feel something. The old saying still goes: no cops, no stops.
I’m blazing down the road and catching a nice tailwind and I see a guy about to hit a crosswalk before the signal. He starts walking as I’m riding through and I put my hand out to him and shove him to the ground.
“What the fuck, asshole?!” He shrieks as I burn past him.
I pitch up a middle finger, keep my head forward, and laugh harder than I ever had. Everyone else feels like an ant compared to my invincible power.
Twilight comes through as I head home for the day. I’m cruising through the business district, seeing my reflection in the glass skyscrapers surrounding me.
I keep seeing her in them. She always smiles and looks at me eagerly when I see her in the chrome and puddles. No matter how much I ride now, she always visits me in the reflections. Inescapable. Inseparable.
Every street I go down, I hear people who sound just like her. They share her cadence, her laugh. Every turn is a double take. It’s never her.
I forgot to give my walkie back, so I detour to the office. I see some of the other couriers heading there on the way and I blitz past them.
I turn in my walkie and as I’m leaving the office, one of the couriers sandbags me and pushes me up against a wall and grabs me by the collar.
“So, you think you’re hot shit? You ain’t got a bit of respect,” he sneers at me.
I headbutt him and break his grip. I get around him and go for my bike.
He starts to charge, but the older guys hold him back because they know a fight always leads to someone getting fired.
“Save it, man. Keep your damn job,” one of them reassures him.
I dismiss everyone and get on my bike and ride. If some of the other couriers want to build up resentment for me being better than them and taking their money, let them.
I fall asleep that night, tired but not sore. I don’t get sore anymore. I begin to dream.
I find myself in a glowing white void, seeing everything almost in sepia. I look around for a while, feeling lost. Nothing seems to be in sight except for pure distilled brightness. When I turn around to keep looking, I see Miranda, naked and smiling. A light grows around her and when I peer into her brown eyes, she speaks up.
“I’m so sorry about everything, Jonah. Will you come back to me?”
I walk towards her slowly. I clutch her waist and say nothing. Her eyes melt something in me I thought was dead as I see her face go soft. I kiss her passionately and we make love in the white void. When we finish, we lay down in the middle of it as if it were made of clouds. I stroke her hair and caress her face. She whispers to me sweet nothings.
I wake up in unspeakable sadness, soaked in sweat, my chest tight like I’ve been holding my breath for hours.
No matter how much I try to let her go, she clings to me even in my dreams. There’s no recourse for this. My only respite? The shadows. The alleys. The city that built me. If I die, then so be it.
It’s the middle of the night and I jolt out of bed. I head to my bike and kick it into overdrive.
The streets are nearly empty. There’s no moon outside, just a few dimming stars. I see nothing but concrete.
I sprint through red lights like they don’t exist. The heat in my body builds and my legs blur.
I fly through another red light and look into my reflection on a passing window. A large shadow forms. Before I can even see it, I hear screeching.
I try to evade, but everything slows and flashes. The honking is almost deafening, but there’s nothing I can do.
Glass explodes. Metal sings.
The wind rips from my lungs.
Then an impact.
My body cracks.
Before the black swallows me whole, I wish it would’ve flung me farther.
I find myself outside of a chapel. I’m wearing a black suit. I’ve never owned one. It fits anyway. The chapel looks stunning, but inside I see other men in black suits and women in black dresses. Their faces are a blur, but I hear them crying. I look towards the front and see an ornate wooden casket open and adorned with flowers. It almost pulls me towards it as I walk forward past all of the crying people. Someone reaches for my shoulder. I slap it away. I get to the casket and see Miranda inside of it, peaceful and dead. I caress her face with my hand.
Everything begins to fade back to black. I sit in it for a moment and try to accept it all. I want to scream, but the chapel steals my breath. My eyes open. It wasn’t Miranda who died.
It was the kid who thought love was salvation. This was always where it ended.
Bright fluorescent lights burn into me. Beeping noises from machines I can’t see drone softly. Pain barges in and then settles into a steady crawl.
I see a middle-aged woman in scrubs checking my vitals with a finger clip. I try to shift in my bed, but she stops me.
“Don’t move, dear. This will take just a second,” she says calmly.
She removes the clip. I shift. The pain sets back in. My arm is contained inside of a sling. I can’t move my shoulder at all. I groan painfully. The clock says that it’s four in the morning.
“You broke your collar bone pretty good,” the nurse says. “That’s probably where you hit the ground after that car got you.”
I nod weakly and look away. Let the pain crawl further in. At least I feel real.
Several days pass. The clock ticks slowly. All I can do is sit in stillness. I spent so much time in constant movement I forgot how this sensation felt.
My nurse delivers my lunch. A turkey sandwich with some yogurt. I try lifting the spoon. It drops onto the tray and falls to the floor.
The day continues and all I can do is look back. I feel myself back on my bike. The tires skid across the pavement as the wind rushes across the back of my neck. I hear Miranda’s voice in there, laughing softly.
There was no betrayal, just loss. It was always mine to carry. She was just an excuse.
Night falls. The hospital is quiet. A small voice calls out to me.
“You’re ready. Write the letter.”
I look around for a moment, confused. It sounded like someone calling out from outside my room, but it was a whisper.
The letter feels like an old dream, but the voice was right. I didn’t want Miranda to bleed anymore. This was for me.
I ring for the nurse and ask her for a pen and paper. She brings me a black pen and a small notepad. I write.
The words don’t scream out of me like I thought they would. “You didn’t ruin anything. You’re just gone.”
The scars write for me. “It’s like you were a cathedral and I was searching for God.”
I don’t want to hurt anymore. Just to understand.
A few weeks pass by. It’s a hot summer day and the air is thick and humid. My sling feels tight as I walk down that same crosswalk I saw Miranda at. Out of the corner of my eye, a courier dashes through the intersection.
I want to look back. I don’t.
After crossing the intersection, I spot a blue mailbox. I pull a folded envelope from my pocket and drop it in.
It gets quiet.
The ghost is still there. But it walks beside me now.
The streets don’t miss me. But I remember them.