Chapter One

I almost didn't stop. The white ghost bike was chained to the wooden trail fence just below the bend where the road narrowed, a small, defiant monument clinging to the edge of the pass, where the mountain began to drop away.

Two years of harsh weather had dulled the paint. More gray showed through now than white, rust bleeding from the weld seams, like old bruises that never quite healed.

Someone had added fresh flowers since the last time I was here, grocery-store carnations tucked into the hollow of the frame, like they refused to die.

To most people driving down Berthoud Pass, it was just another roadside memorial. Something sad and anonymous. Something to slow for, then forget.

To me, it was where everything ended, and somehow never did.

I pulled into the narrow emergency lane, hazards clicking in the crisp October air. Gravel crackled under my tires as the Jeep settled. I checked my rearview, then my side mirror, then both again before opening the door.

A rush of air flooded in, wet leaves, damp earth, the sharp cold of elevation. The air here always felt closer to the bone, as if there was less room for error.

The road was quiet in that pre-ski season way, stillness stretched tight, broken by the occasional cyclist grinding through the climb, or a lone truck growling as it downshifted around a curve.

It was Saturday, but the mountain hadn't fully woken up yet.

I crossed the shallow ditch and climbed the small embankment toward the fence, the wind knifing through my jeans, boots slipping on loose shale.

Up close, the bike looked smaller than I remembered.

I crouched beside it and ran my fingers along the top tube. Flakes of paint caught under my nails. The metal was ice-cold, immune to warmth, to touch, to me.

One of the photographs had curled at the edges, sun-bleached and warped.

Lucas in his helmet and sunglasses, his race number still safety-pinned to his jersey, his grin crooked like he already knew he’d outrun whatever tried to catch him. His bike hoisted overhead in both hands, like the world hadn’t learned yet what it would take from him.

I straightened the picture and pressed the tape back down, smoothing it like that might keep it from lifting away.

“Two years,” I tried to say.

The mountain wind tore the words from my mouth before they could settle. My throat tightened, the rest of it stalling somewhere I couldn’t reach.

The ribbons around my wrist fluttered like they wanted to escape. I unwound them slowly. The balloons tugged upward immediately, awkward and impatient, bobbing against the hard blue sky above treeline.

Just two white balloons. No message. No declaration. Just air and quiet and the ache I refused to dress up today.

I knelt to tie the ribbons at the base of the frame, fingers clumsy in the cold.

The edge of a broken spoke bit without warning, a quick, sharp kiss of pain across my knuckle.

“Shit.”

Blood welled fast, bright against the flaking white paint. I watched it bead up, thick and round, until it overfilled and spilled.

Then instinct took over. I put my finger in my mouth and tasted copper and road dust. I pulled a fresh tissue from my pocket and wrapped it tight.

The red pushed through.

One more wound.

Of course.

A lone car curved around the bend, tires hissing over cold asphalt. The bike rattled. The flowers shivered. So did I.

I touched the handlebars where his hands would've been. The metal refused me, rigid under my grip.

I pictured the bike under him, the slim white frame carrying the weight of his broad shoulders, the way he always made it look like speed belonged to him.

I slid my phone from my pocket and peeled the case back. The folded paper was exactly where it always was, its edges gone soft from my thumb worrying them over and over.

I slipped the letter free.

Seeing his handwriting, messy and slanted and familiar, still knocked the air out of me. My fingers tightened around the page.

Dear PJ,

Heat flooded my eyes. I blinked hard.

I could let myself come undone here.

I didn't.

I already knew what came next. I wished I didn't.

…if you’re reading this, I’m no longer there beside you, and the thought of that shatters me… focus on the what, the love, the laughter, the life we built… remember our promise… if we don’t go out with our boots on together, whoever stays behind has to keep living, not just surviving… Courage Over Comfort… Continue the Adventure, my Love.

My throat locked. The paper trembled in my hand.

Promises were easier on paper.

“Damn you, Lucas,” I whispered.

He wrote this back when love was still a verb, an action and not a declaration. Before he stopped showing up. Before it became something I carried alone.

Back when we still stole late-night Dairy Queen runs.

When Pride and Joy was something he called me, not the song on the radio, the one that twisted my stomach now.

If he’d known how bad it would get, the separate rooms, the slammed doors, the silence that settled between us, would he have written something different?

I wasn't even sure I recognized the woman he thought he was saying goodbye to.

I folded the letter smaller than it was meant to be and slid it back into my phone case.

Exactly where it belonged. Exactly where I kept it.

The wind snapped suddenly, whipping the balloons sideways. I flinched, pulled back into my body.

Before I left, I pulled the small black box from my coat pocket. It was cold against my fingers.

The bracelet inside gave a soft metallic rattle, Lucas's emergency bracelet. The one with my name on it.

The one that turned me from wife into widow in a single call.

A title I never asked for. One I couldn't return.

I crouched and threaded the zip-tie through the keyhole, then through the spokes. I pulled until the plastic burned into my fingertips.

There.One piece of him I was finally brave enough to leave behind.

Another car swept around the bend, the engine whining thin and high as it labored up the pass. The sound cut through me, sharp and unsteady, like something unraveling.

Grief, I understood.

It was predictable. Structured. Survivable.

Hope, that was the thing that wrecked me.

“Rest in peace, LB,” I said, quieter now. I kissed my fingers and pressed them to the frame.

I stood, wiped my good hand on my jeans, and took a step back.

Weeds brushed my ankles, releasing the scent of damp earth, pine sap, and sweetness from things breaking down so something else could grow.

I turned toward the car, unsure whether I was leaving him behind, or the version of myself who learned to survive alone.