I was a foot from the edge of the flattest, straightest stretch of my ride route when the mirror of a black pickup struck me in the back of the head as it passed. The driver stopped ahead and I, still upright, dismounted from my bike and walked toward the driver’s side with it. A man was silent as he opened his door and watched me approach.
“I’m not going to yell at you, because I’m alive right now.”
I then told him that there was no reason he couldn’t pass me in the opposite lane. There were no other cars around. Visibility was clear.
All he said was, “I don’t know what to say other than I am sorry. Please forgive me.”
The dragon that eats injustice left me to handle this on my own. The man, clearly regretful, doing nothing to excuse himself, looked at me with a face that, even as the scenario could have become deadly for me so easily, would not let me become worse.
I swear, those that do not defend when they hear they’ve messed up revert to their childhood selves, and I don’t mean that as derogatory. I’ve seen this twice in recent months, a particular expression that is reminiscent of a child who is anticipating a parent telling them they’ve done a bad thing. I recognize it because when someone puts up a fight, I become loud, but when they’re just taking in the negative feedback, I instead do something like,
Genna, your message is delivered. Be careful.
I am as sensitive to a vulnerable face as I am to a lying one.
I walked the bike over to the opposite roadside and let the driver leave. I didn’t ask him for his information or take his plate. All at once I was trying to determine how hard my head had actually been hit, whether I should ride five miles home, if I should call 911, or just call someone to pick me up.
And that last part is what took this woman who tends to be calm and efficient in an actual emergency to frozen in a driveway because the only person I knew to call was out of the state.
I had a handful of local numbers to bridges that weren’t necessarily burned, but,
I was physically okay, so,
I shouldn’t bother them.
I scrolled my contacts and saw the name of a person who had already offered me a ride to the end of the Katy recently and called them for a ride to the hospital to have my head checked. Just after sharing my location, a woman in a white SUV stopped in the driveway across the road and asked me if I needed help. Usually, I wave drivers off.
I hate explaining myself to strangers.
But instead of taking me at my word that I had it handled, she said she was already headed to the same hospital to visit a family member. She told me her name was Laura, and as I put my bike in the back of the car, she became a friend.
I was absurdly lucky. We both recognized it. She told me I was being looked out for this day, and I can’t disagree even as I don’t hold concrete beliefs about a higher power. I am much more interested in the power people have over one another, and themselves. I didn’t need to be sold on the practice of prayer to know the sacredness of Laura taking my hand before I walked into the emergency department, asking God for me to be unharmed.
The physician found no indications of a concussion and did not see reason to proceed with a CT scan.
After I was discharged, I met Laura on the same floor of the hospital where I happen to work frequently, and she introduced me to family that had gathered in their patient’s room. And, as happens for me frequently enough that it’s become its own study of mine, she had me tell them the story of where the heck this random came from. If one thing can be predicted about me, it’s that I am never short on entertaining answers to common questions.
I am also, despite being a writer and an open book, never telling the full story.
On that day, as much as I felt rescued, I was also struck again (no pun intended) by the reflection in the mirror (pun very intended) of a young person having to build a sense of community from strangers because she couldn’t rely on the one she was born to.
And even then, I was still afraid to call anyone I didn’t have verbal proof from that it wasn’t too much to ask.
And the doctor could not clear me of that one.
_____
As it turns out, as I am trying to break out of the confinement of a tiny audience reach and cold emailing potential publishers for Reorganism, Laura has a friend that is a career writer and has written 15 books.
She showed me where she lived, only a couple of miles from me, and then dropped me off at home with my cracked helmet and an ornate mirror she was carrying in her car to be donated.
I look into it and see that the fear I’m carrying right now is not visible.
But my dad’s “I hope you get it figured out,” while I was stranded with the van, and “I can’t help with that because I don’t get anything out of it,”
last year’s “I am not getting a return on my investment,”
and too many examples of transactional concern have now made “I could use your help,” potentially permanently tied to the expectation of “Okay, but you owe me.”
So I just don’t ask.
It probably won’t be palpable when the group rides start again next spring either and I once again barely speak unless spoken to.
I’ll just be regular, independent, don’t-need-nobody-for-nothin’ Genna.
And I’ll be lying to you.
