Free Forget You by Jennifer Snyder Page B

Instead, I continued forward, knowing I was pushing
it too far. Knowing I was out here alone. Knowing this was probably
what had happened to Ryker.
    At the last minute, I let up. My bike slowed
to a more manageable speed. One that was safer. One my parents
would prefer. One that wouldn’t injure me in any way. This was who
I was now—safe. At least on the track. There was a portion of me
that was scared, if I was being honest. Scared that what happened
to Ryker could just as easily happen to me given the right
conditions, speed, and mind frame.
    As I rounded the last bend, a couple of
figures standing off to the side caught my attention. Letting up
and creeping to a slow roll, I came to a stop directly in from of
my bystanders.
    “Dude, I totally thought you were gonna do
it,” Mitch, one of my brother’s friends, shouted over the engine of
my bike.
    “Seriously, you were all hunkered down and
determined-looking,” Tim, another buddy, said.
    They had their bikes with them. Obviously, I
wasn’t the only one with a little speed and some sick jumps on the
mind today.
    “I thought about it,” I admitted.
    “Care if we join you?” Mitch asked. There was
a devilish grin twisting his lips, and the hint of a challenge
reflected in his mud-brown eyes.
    I waved an arm outward. “Plenty of room.”
    My invitation was all it took for the three
of us to be out there seconds later, shredding through every inch
of the track. It was the crazy ass turn at the end—the one I’d
nearly throttled through before seeing them, the same one that
ended Ryker’s life—that I finally wiped out on. Airborne for only a
split-second, I tucked my limbs in the way I’d always been taught,
and I braced myself for the moment of collision. When my right
shoulder hit the ground before anything else, the vibration of
impact racked through my body, causing my teeth to chatter.
    Mitch and Tim were above me as I lay there
motionless on the grooved dirt track. They were shouting things I
could hear, but couldn’t make out clearly. My mind seemed jolted,
stuck in the moment of impact. I wondered if this was what had
happened to Ryker, but only ten times worse.
    “Sawyer, you okay?” Mitch asked. He had bent
down at some point and taken off his helmet. “Sawyer?”
    The panic in his voice was raw and
unbearable. Why hadn’t he been here to help Ryker? If someone had
been there for him—if I had been there for him—he would
still be alive. I was sure of it.
    Sitting up, I brushed the dirt off myself and
pulled my helmet off. My shoulder was sore and stiff already;
tomorrow it would be one hundred times worse. That was all I got
though—soreness and stiffness, but not death.
    “Yeah, I’m all right,” I insisted without
meeting either of their stares.
    Tim nudged my left shoulder. “You scared the
shit out of us.”
    “Seriously, man, I thought something was
wrong and I’d have to call an ambulance for you. Jesus. Why’d you
take the damn turn so sharp?” Mitch held out a hand and helped me
to my feet.
    “I don’t know. Wanted to see if I could do
it.” I shrugged. There wasn’t a reason why. Not really.
    You have some sort of death wish or
something, don’t you? Eva’s word floated through my mind.
    Maybe she’d been right on some sick, twisted
level. It wasn’t as though I thought there was nothing to live for,
or even that I missed my brother so badly I wanted nothing more
than to join him. It was more along the lines of a burning need to
understand.
    That was it. I needed to understand.
    A list of things surged through my muddled
mind. Why had Ryker been taken so soon? Why had he wiped out so
hard on the one corner he’d built into the track himself because he
swore he could handle it? Why had there been no one there with him
when it happened? Why was he out here so late at night in the
pouring rain racing by himself?
    What the hell had happened that night?
    I scooped up my helmet, and dusted it off
with my gloved hand.