Read Discovering April for Free Online Page B

me of him. I need to just not think right now. My eyes stare at the sun until light is all I can see, blinding me from the real world.
    I don’t know how long I sit there until I see a shadow cross in front of my face.
    “Are you okay?” I vaguely hear asked of me somewhere outside my head. I blink a few times before my mind clicks back to reality and my neighbor’s face begins to form around the sun’s setting rays. “April?”
    “Yea…” I murmur, my head rolling away from his judging eyes.
    “Are you okay?” he repeats his question as he leans over, inspecting me.
    I sit up from the porch and rest my elbows on my knees. I hate showing weakness, but I have a feeling it’s written all over my face, anyway. “I’ll be fine.”
    Surprisingly, he comes to sit beside me on the stone steps and we sit in silence next to each other for a few minutes. I almost don’t notice because my numb mind is focusing on a crack in the sidewalk. I feel his eyes darting around like he wants to say more.
    “You know what always makes me feel better?” I hear him ask through my cloudy mind before he answers his own question. “A ride. What do you say?”
    I look up from the crack in the cement to the brand new – practically sparkling, he wipes it so often – motorcycle parked in the middle of his driveway. I finally wake up.
    “Yes,” I say, fully returned from my trance.
    “Really?” He sounds surprised.
    “Yes, let’s go!”
    I jump up and walk over to the shiny contraption. I’ve never been on a motorcycle before. I refused to hop on the back of my dad’s hog when I was younger. My first time on a motorcycle isn’t going to be with my father, I used to tell myself. Now my first time will be with my neighbor in a selfish attempt to risk my life, trying to feel some form of emotion again. Fear, excitement, adrenaline: I’m not picky. Any emotion will feel better than nothing. I grab an extra helmet from the corner of his porch and strap it on as he continues to stare at me from where I left him on the steps.
    “I’ll go without you!” I say as I throw my leg over the side of his bike and grab the handlebars. I’m pretending to kick up the kickstand by the time he’s at my side.
    “If you think I’m going to let this baby out of my sight, you’re delusional.” The way he looks at me when he says it leaves me wondering if he was talking about the bike.
    I slide back and he hops on in front of me. Starting up the bike, it jerks forward and I grab his sides abruptly. He gives me a side-glance that makes me feel like it was intentional. But before I can mention it, we are off down the street. The exhaust flares behind us as we round the corner, and I feel the wind in my hair and the sun on my face. Noticing I still have my vice-like grip on him, I loosen it up until I’m just slightly holding his waist. I realize this is the closest we’ve been in seven years or so. He smells good; freshly showered, if I had to guess. The scent of his soap is still on his skin and his white tee shirt is still kind of wrinkled, like he just pulled it out of the dryer. My eyes gravitate to his strong back when he revs the bike out onto the highway. I don’t know what possesses me to do it—some can claim it was a survival instinct, but I think I was just curious as to how it would feel—but I slide close against his back as I wrap my arms around him like a hug. I lean my chin against his back as I peer over his shoulder at the highway before me. I can almost feel him smiling and I understand why this makes him feel better. It’s freeing, dangerous, fast, and fun all at the same time. I see a line of brake lights extending far ahead, but he doesn’t seem to slow down even a fraction.
    “Traffic!” I croak over the exhaust.
    “What traffic?” he responds sarcastically before gunning it.
    I grip him tighter and close my eyes, awaiting the impending impact. I feel the bike swerve and speed up again before I finally open one