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How such a rough giant can make me feel more at peace than I’ve felt in years is…a mystery.
Home. I want to take a minute to savor something I have not felt since my mom passed. What it feels like to be home.
“You ever hear of broken wings, little bird?” he asks. I shake my head. “Is that a biker thing?” He nods. “When a rider has a broken wings patch, it means that rider’s been in a crash. Usually a pretty bad one.” I take a deep breath and focus on the richness of Morris’s voice. His words vibrate through my body like he’s speaking to my soul. “But you don’t just earn the patch by falling off the bike,” he continues. “You earn the patch by getting back on. Riding again. Overcoming your fear and flying—even if you have broken wings.”
“Baby,” he says, his voice low and silky. “It’s exactly the same thing. You think we only fall once in life? We ride, we crash. We ride again, we crash again. Sometimes we’re lucky, and we don’t fall far enough or hard enough to do any permanent damage. But most of the time, a fall means bad news. Real bad. You’re fucked up so bad, you’re not sure you’re gonna make it. But if you wanna earn that patch and ride again, you get back up. You ride again, Alice Sparrow.”
“It all just comes, Alice. We can’t prepare for it. We can’t stop most of it. Sometimes we can run from it, but we can’t outrun it. You always have a choice. How you want to live. Who you want to be. Who you want to let in. I think I decided I’d rather face it my way than spend my time looking at life in a rearview mirror.”
“Everything comes,” she says. “But our truth won’t find us until we’re ready to face it.”
“Say you’ll go for a ride with me, sweetheart. Say you’ll get back up with me, no matter how many times life knocks us down and tries to break us. Say you’ll fly with me as long as we both have wings.”
We ride again, we crash again. Sometimes we’re lucky, and we don’t fall far enough or hard enough to do any permanent damage. But most of the time, a fall means bad news. Real bad. You’re fucked up so bad, you’re not sure you’re gonna make it. But if you wanna earn that patch and ride again, you get back up. You ride again.
