“Sometimes the truth can be 

so boring…”

Chapter 8

“Oh my God!! Are you kidding me? Cooper hasn’t ever ridden on a motorcycle…and she doesn’t have a brother! She doesn’t even have a sister!” Franny was laughing so hard she almost fell off Bob’s bike.

Unwilling…at this point…to make eye contact with Hank, I gazed…with what I hoped was some degree of nonchalance…off into the distance at the bright, yellow, sugar maples that dotted the area where we had stopped.

How very pretty they look, I thought…trying to at least mentally absent myself from this situation that was becoming increasingly unfriendly.

I knew full well that Hank was looking daggers at me.  I was surprised I wasn’t actually bleeding.

I also knew…it was probably not a really good idea to suggest to Hank that this would be a good time to  show me the “ins and outs” of being a proper passenger on a motorcycle.  I had some brains…

So…I kept that suggestion to myself and chose a different strategy.

As I made an attempt to get off this damn motorcycle…I indignantly declared with a voice full of totally, undeserved self-righteousness…

“Well then!!  If you’re going to get so mad…forget it.  Who wants to be here anyway?   I’m going home.”

Again.  Today.  What the hell was I thinking?

Like a lot of my good ideas and intentions…I had overlooked a few facts.  In this particular case…the simple fact that there was a considerable number of miles between “here” and “home”.

Also.  I continued to find it extremely difficult…if not impossible…to get off of this fucking bike by myself…without falling flat on my face!

And I was surely not holding out any hope that Jake was going to lend me a hand any time soon…

So, there I sat…trying to ignore the now muffled laughs of my ‘former best friend‘…what’s her name…?

And, of course…trying not to bleed from the wounds I had suffered from Hanks’ disappointed looks and reproachful words.

No one said anything.  As they say…”the silence was deafening”…except for the damning whoosh of cars speeding by us…

Yes.  Yes.  I know!!  Going really, really fast.