Ghost Bird Fanfiction: Sang's Lyric, The Story of Sang Sorenson's Mother

Bikes and Boys

I waited until it was nearly dark before I left the library. I turned on the blinking light on the front and back of my bike before hopping on and starting to peddle. Darkness fell quickly and I cursed myself for not leaving earlier. It's not like I had a lot of choices; go home early and deal with Tim and my mom, or wait to bike home in the dark and hope they'd left for the bars by the time I got there. I chose the lesser of the two evils, taking my chance with traffic.

I biked along easily enough. It wasn't completely dark yet and I knew the road well. I was rounding a corner when I heard a loud beep next to me. It surprised me and made me jerk my handle bars. I heard laughing and someone calling out, before I went over the handle bars and into the culvert.

The breath was knocked out of my body when I landed on my back, hard. I stared up at the sky, the black branches framed against the lighter sky. I tried to suck in air, but I couldn't and my hands moved panicked to my throat.

"It's okay," I heard a voice say near me. "Just relax. You're okay. You'll be able to breathe in a moment."

I looked toward the voice and into the most beautiful brown eyes I'd ever seen. A boy kneeled next to me, his face close to mine. I stared at his eyes. They were a brown I'd never seen before, almost golden, and they hypnotized me.

A weight seemed to leave my chest and I felt my ribs expand. I sucked in a grateful breath and then another one. I put my hands on the ground and tried to sit up.

"Just wait a minute," the boy said. "Just breathe."

I wanted to obey him. 

Had I ever heard a voice so kind before? 

I nodded. He breathed with me, showing me what to do and I copied him. 

I heard the squeal of tires and then another voice. "James!"

"Down here!" the boy called out, looking over his shoulder.

I heard rustling in the leaves as feet came down from the side of the road. I wanted to sit up now, feeling a return of nervousness at the thought of another new person near me, so I pushed my body up. I jerked when my wrist protested the move, but I bit down on my lip until I could sit on my knees.

Headlights from another car illuminated the ditch so I could see the boy who had helped me, and the person who had just arrived.

"It's a little late for going off-road," I heard the other boy say.

"I wasn't..." I started hesitantly.

"Some idiots in a jeep startled her and she went over the handlebars of her bike," the boy, James, said.

"Thank you for stopping," I replied quietly, moving away from them both and attempting to stand.

It was getting harder and harder to see in the dark, but I could make out the bent wheel on my bike. My finger came up to my lip, pushing it toward my teeth. I tried not to cry when I realized that I wasn't going to be able to bike home.

The new boy picked up the bike, and looked at the tire. "It's not meant for off-roading anyway. This is a road bike, Crash," he said.

I stared at him. "Um," I answered softly, "I don't know what kind of bike it is."

He stared at me for a minute before shaking his head. He had long, dark blonde hair and dark green eyes. His hair fell around his jaw in a shaggy cut and the ends were sweaty, like he'd just come from working out. I noticed he was wearing athletic shorts and a letterman's jacket, and realized he must have come from practice at my high school.