At first, I resisted and pulled away. “Don’t fight it,” he shouted. When I tried leaning with him, I felt the ease with which we turned, the way we felt connected to the road, the way the rumble of the motorcycle engine vibrated in my bones. For a moment, we were in sync. And for once, I was not the scared little girl, afraid of being pulled over by the police, or tipping over and scraping flesh against pavement. Inside the roar, I clutched my father’s waist, braced the helmet against his shoulder, and let the speed take us away.
Katherine Briccetti is a Pushcart Award nominee and LAMBDA Literary award finalist. She is at work on a novel about race and relationships in the middle of America in 1968. KatherineBriccetti.com