“Um, no. I cannot be caged inside that thing; I can’t breathe.”
“It’s literally illegal for you to not wear it. You got pulled over for not wearing it.”
He is dragging down this entire adventure already, and I think about breezing off and just plain old leaving him here. But I’m in a freaking hurry, so I smash the stupid helmet onto my head and rev the engine like a purring cat—no, a jaguar!—ready to prrrowwwwl.
We whizz through Verona Cove and I relish the Vespa’s rhythm beneath me, the way a rider feels the horse’s steady heartbeat beneath him, and they are one. That’s a lost dream of mine, to be a jockey in a tall velvet cap and high leather boots, and I would have been a fantastic jockey, too, because I love horses; I love their proud features, their spirit, their loyalty, even the names of their coloring—bay, palomino, pinto—and I always thought equestrians looked attached to their horses, both being operated by the same control system, like trunk and branch, except you can’t tell which is which because they move together. The Vespa and I breathe in sync and it gallops beneath me and I grip the reins tighter, tighter.
The road transitions into Highway 1, or maybe it’s not even called that—like, I only think it’s called that because it’s the number one highway in the world, if you ask me. On the left side we pass trees and trees and little houses, and the right side drops off into the ocean.
“Viv, pull over! Pull over!” Jonah is screaming, blah-blah-blah, overreacting, holding on way too tight to my waist, blah-blah. “I swear to God, Vivi!”
I don’t really hear him until he digs his fingernails into my ribs, and I feel that, yipping.
When I finally veer off to the side of the road, I feel him leap from the bike. He whirls back at me, pulling his helmet off his head. “WHAT is your PROBLEM?”
I push the plastic screen on my helmet up. “Shhhhhhh, stop yelling, I can’t hear my own thoughts, Jonah!”
“You’re speeding like you’re on coke! And did you not see the stop sign back there?”
“Oh, Jonah. Stop signs are just red octagons that people assign power to.”
“Let me drive. Give me your keys.” He’s standing in the grass, a bend in the road, and he has become a bend in my road. I just can’t have him keeping me from my destiny. “I’m driving you home because you’re obviously drunk or high or both.”
“I am NOT, and you will do NO SUCH THING.”
“Viv, you’re scaring the hell out of me right now, okay? Blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah.” That’s what I hear anyway, so I toddle my head back and forth, la-la-don’t-care-not-listening. I tune in only for the end of his red-in-the-face rampage of blah-blah glory. “. . . then I’d rather walk home.”
“THEN WALK HOME FOR ALL I CARE, BYE!” I call, and I wish I wasn’t already on the scooter so I could traipse away from him, so I could flounce without a care in the world. Gotta go! Got a whole big world to see, and a whole big world that needs to see me, too, and I can’t be held back by a boy who is naysaying my journey, no matter how beautiful he is, because I’m going to thrash down the coast, scouring through between sea and sky, and I CANNOT BE HELD BACK.
The engine growls, and I stand up on the bike as it lurches forward and the wind grabs my skirt, and I yell “AYE-YI-YI!” because I am made of moondust and twinkle lights, because I’m impervious to the shortsighted mortality of my peers, to their finite days on this planet that they spend being closed-off and insecure and inert. No, no, no, I am more than this world, as wide as the trees all around me. Huzzah!
My grip loosens and my legs compress for a moment, like springs of a coil pressed down. When they release, the tension pushes me up, and I’ve done it. I’m airborne and weightless and soaring and free.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Jonah
What just happened, it happened so fast, what, what, what, NO!
It happened.
My legs and arms go cold, shaky, cramped. I try to run forward, but I stumble. My knees hit the ground, the heels of my hands burn from skidding against ground. I struggle up again.
Someone is screaming. Someone is screaming “HELP SOMEONE HELP.”
I think it’s me.
It happened. Just now. I saw it. Was she actually drunk? I could’ve stopped her.
Vivi went flying from the Vespa. It hit a tree. Was she on it when it hit? I don’t know. Oh God, the thud of her body, the crash of the metal. How she crumpled. I see blood—from her shoulder—and, oh God, bone. My legs fold beneath me again, and I’m retching onto the grass. I try to move toward her even as I heave and heave. When I’m done, I try to pick myself up again.