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Three
Questions PAGE
TWO This is the memory that came flooding back to me yesterday morning. I was running a bike trail, my fiancé Stephen slowly rolling next to me on his bike. He was complaining about the size of the helmet I had bought for him, and now force him to wear, as his head is the most important head in my life. He was pointing out other bike riders, comparing the thickness of their mushroom-shaped, brightly-neon colored gear. "See? They look normal." Stephen spoke with a boyish bravado, having never experienced an emergency landing on his face. I tell him how much I love his head, and how, if I was allowed, I'd strap six thousand pillows to it before he got on that metal skin-ripping machine. "I think you should try this," he then said, stepping off of his bike. The wheels click-click-clicked! their menacing taunt as the bicycle eased closer. My toes ached in their cross-trainers at the sound of the spokes, my sense memory intact. "No, thanks." Stephen was already lowering his seat, apparently the ultra-large helmet muffling any sound reaching his ears. "Get on," he said. "I don't..." I started. My face was throbbing. I remembered the cold sting of the rubbing alcohol, the wetness of my blood dripping down my neck, my mother's frantic brow knit together in sorrow. Her baby's face was bleeding. Her baby's face was broken. Question one: "Is this something you're afraid of?" Yes. Question two: "Is this something you thought you'd never do again?" Yes. I take a moment and ask myself the third question. "Why shouldn't you do this?" "It's just like riding a bike," Stephen said, answering my unspoken query. He held my hand as I lifted my leg over the boy-bar. Chuckling, he repeated himself so I knew just how funny he was. "Just like riding a bike." When two people begin dating, everything is as fascinating and fun as it was when you were five years old. The summer I began dating Stephen I confessed one day while we were swinging at a playground that I'd never flipped over a stationary bar. I used to admire the girls who would flop one leg over the schoolyard bar at the knee, spinning circles around the metal rod over and over again. Their ponytails would fly in golden rings. Their tanned legs would be locked firm over the steel-gray pole. The girls would swoop again and again, their heads dangerously close to smashing on the dirt beneath them. They never paused to be afraid. I, however, knew if I had tried it I'd certainly crack my skull open. Stephen had jumped off of his swing, walked over to the stationary bar (are they for anything other than girls swinging at the knee?), pressed his hips to it and spun, head-first, in a quick, perfect circle. "I haven't done that in years and I'm a foot taller than you," he said once he was standing again, the blood draining from his face. He smiled. "You can do it." He spotted me, his sturdy hand on the small of my back as I took a deep breath, hoisted myself up, locked my knee and spun. He was right; I could do it. I spun over and over again, taking back all of those recesses when I was too scared to be one of those girls. And now here he was again, holding another playground instrument that had power over me. He stood a few inches away and watched, that gigantic plastic half-globe towering over his head. "You can do it." I put trembling foot to pedal and eased my thigh into action. The wheels spun. A breeze lifted under my arms, cooling the sweat from my skin. I raised one knee, the knee with the small white scar. I pushed down. The wheels were spinning. I was riding a bike. The fear was still there, coming out of me in a low moan. "You're doing it!" Stephen said from somewhere behind me. "Go fast! Go fast!" I looked over my shoulder and saw him cheering as if I was in a triathlon. The excitement was contagious. He wasn't there the day I gave up riding bikes forever, but he was the reason I suddenly wanted a bike of my own, to race him to the end of the block and back, to ride over dirt and grass and even gravel. This is why that man, in less than six months, will be my husband. Because even though I know he can't always be right behind me, he'll never let me fall. I stood
up in the pedals and coasted, the fear easing away as the cool air
rushed over me, Stephen's voice fading out as I pushed the bike
faster and faster, my muscle memory instantly returning. I had ended
seventeen years of fear in less than thirty seconds. I was riding
a bike and I wasn't falling and all the skin on my face was still
there. I had asked myself three questions and answered them all
correctly and was now doing the thing that scared me the most and
I was okay. Better than that: I was free.
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The
scab that eventually formed went from my left temple down to my
chin, resembling in shape the continent of Africa. One particularly
witty nemesis of mine began referring to me as "Scarface Al
Capam." It took over a month for it to finally heal.
A month of wearing a stiff skin mask that itched and drew more attention
than I'd ever had before. People would openly stare at me in school.
My mother stopped taking me on errands with her, as she would receive
accusing glares, silent judgments from complete strangers. When
the last scab finally fell from my body, I was left with scars on
my knee and shoulders. I still have one black line at the edge of
my left eye that people often mistake for a pen mark. It's a reminder
that my mom is always right.
