Asher ✓

40 | shattered

JANUARY 9, 2016 / INTERSECTION OF BROOKBY AND WALSH ROADS

The year was off to a good start. 

Ever since his visit to Sydney, Asher had been corresponding with Joshua Lowland about his career in motocross. Fixing cars at the garage with his father provided a reliable income, but Asher felt destined for more. For bigger things. Josh felt the same, and the two had become close friends online while sharing stories and advice.

Always putting him under pressure, Josh was determined to accelerate Asher's abilities as quickly as possible. There was no other way to describe how Josh felt about training Asher, except giddy. He'd never met anyone who learnt as quickly, or worked as hard and was determined to exploit that by always giving Asher new tricks with which to experiment. 

When Asher finally agreed to giving stunts a try, Josh was beyond excited to have him try landing a triple flip. On the last day he spent at the Mackamillan complex, Josh had given him two cans of Monster energy drink and kept singing "I Believe I Can Fly" to him throughout the day. 

It must have worked, because at the end of their trip Asher was staring at the Pacific Ocean flicker past in dots of navy blue and white, with proof of his success in his hands. Josh had given him a USB containing a video of him going around the track doing stunts, and an online certificate for holding a new world record — the youngest person to land a triple flip on a motorcycle.

His new record didn't change much. Life continued humbly, as it always had. Undoubtedly, Asher was proud of his achievement while also keeping in mind that there was much more to learn. The title did, however, make him viable to enter more theatrical, stunt-based competitions and impress girls at parties. 

Asher had always known that people were drawn to motorcycle riders, maybe for the image of danger and intrepidity that surrounded them. He first experienced it during the frenzied celebrations following the Venture Motocross Event, continuing to be an object of attraction through every race and after-party. Now with an official title, people seemed to be that much more interested in Asher.

Certainly, it helped win over the girl he recently began dating, Phoebe. 

They met in a department store, shopping for Christmas presents. Since he left school, Asher hadn't applied for university or had a serious relationship. Vasily would have loved if he had done a degree in whatever science, like he had planned when he was younger. Asher knew his father was disappointed that he'd not chosen an academic career, but still tried to support his decision.

That meant a lot to Asher, seeing as all he'd been doing for the past year and a half was racing and working. During holidays, Ryanel would come up from New Jersey — he was doing a degree in neuroscience at Princeton — and, occassionally, they'd hang out. Aside from that, Asher was quite content with watching his social life shrivel in order for his career to blossom.

But, Phoebe was indescribably different. Before Asher got the courage to ask her out, they only talked online. Over their many Skype sessions, he grew to realise that she was his antithesis, his complete opposite. Whereas he had a far-fetched goal and many insecurities, she walked through life without a map, smiling brightly. 

Her job as a swimming instructor at the local pools paid the bills, and one might find her knitting a scarf or diving off waterfalls in her spare time. Phoebe, unlike Asher, was completely unworried, free and happy. Spending time around her was like watching a sunrise from a serene meadow, basking in calm pastel colours, and breathing in untainted air. She made Asher feel confident everything would turn out alright.

That night had been their first date. Asher had wanted to conjure up the most endearing, original date for Phoebe, because she was the sort of girl who admired quirkiness. But he was not a great romantic, and they ended up at the ice rink. Asher could hold his own on the ice, having ice-skated a lot in Russia. His mother had taught him how, before she fell sick, taking him to the park every winter to skate on the frozen lake.

Rink ice was much smoother than the lake ice Asher had learnt on, but Phoebe glided on the ice like it she was dancing on air. Her limbs seemed to float, pulling off arabesques and spins and leaps with obvious ease and grace.

"Since when were you a figure skater?" Asher had asked her, incredulously.

Phoebe had pulled up in front of Asher, hands on her hips, sliding backwards as he skated forward. "When I was in high school, my mother sent me to these holiday programmes at the ice rink, because she was busy with my stepfather."

"Wow."

Those little secrets about her, and her many, many passions were what enticed Asher so much. He only had to watch Phoebe skate, who could knit leg warmers and do a backflip and hold her breath for two minutes, to understand how some people were drawn to him because of his skill. Talent was magnetic, it seemed.

He almost didn't want to leave Phoebe after giving her a ride home, but Vasily was waiting for him. Home was where Asher was reluctantly heading now, glimpsing the decorations in store windows and hung on streetlights left over from New Year's. It was a cold night, without snow, the air biting down on any exposed skin.

His motorcycle rumbled to a pause at an intersection, exhaling warm exhaust fumes that gave Asher some relief from the chill. Seeing the green light, Asher kicked back into gear and sped forward. He was heading straight forward, and a car to the right of him was zooming out, like it could make it past the red light if it just went fast enough. The car was heading perpendicularly across the intersection. Straight for Asher.

Despite the speed he was going, life seemed to slow down. Even the smallest twitch of his legs felt like trying to sprint through chest-high water, awkward and sluggish. Asher felt his heart begin to thud lethally. All he could hear was blood rushing in his ears, not the roar of two doomed Engines, nor the screams ripping out of his mouth.

Time came to a final stop. Everything just hung in midair, the particles of vapour from his breath, the small flecks of dirt his tyres kicked up. The entire scene could have been just an image in a paperweight.

But, the paperweight shattered.

The nerves in Asher's body seized up in less than a second, and the last thing he saw was the petrified expression of the driver, his own complete fear reflected in the stranger's eyes. A moment of excruciating, deadly pain fell.

Things went black.