Prompt filled for the darling @transistored who suggested Moyle and his first handmade bike. Sorry this took me longer than intended!
Scars from his first wreck are still fresh on the mind whenever he sets his eyes on it: Tucked away in a corner, a nameless relic. Dust collecting in the spokes. Her leather seat, cracked and dull. Handlebars bent and the wheels twisted out of place. A trail of dented metal from front to back, chipped mother-of-pearl. His masterwork in adolescence—a flaunted pride, his initial spark—now wilting away in the back of his garage. A memento, marred and mangled.
And the scars, echoed. Pinpricks on his skin, faint pangs firing through his nerves as he runs fingers along the throttle grip. The feelings flare up yet again. Heat all around him, the world tumbling about. He collides with pavement and earth, skids. Skin abrasions blossoming on his lower back, blooming at the knees. And a snap in his right arm, fractured in an instant. There’s lightning shock at the pain, at the suddenness of it all. The questions. Why? How?
He’d bit too quickly into a curve, tumbled straight into a ditch. Street racing in an unmonitored district, nothing but young souls collected at dawnbreak on a stretch of mottled road. Thrillseekers, the lot of them, and inexperienced. He’d been inexperienced. Reckless. Nearly paid for it, dearly. Paid for it, instead, through surgery and the following months of recovery. Pins and screws latched to bone, limbs stiff and sore. Cut off, for the moment, from his newly kindled passion. His calling, his purpose, and…
That wound ran deeper than all the others.
Almost a decade ago, now. Odd that he’s kept it for so long, odd that he’s left it. Odd, when lingering is not his way. He’s a forward moving force, a creature of constant motion. His strides are grand, ambitions aimed high, and rarely does he stop to reminisce. Rarely does he falter. He could scrap this now. Break it down, start anew. He’s done it time and again, with many a bike. It should be no different.
He lets his hand wander down the length of his battered creation, heaves a small breath.
Firsts, rough as they may be, are always the hardest to let go.
