Saturday, May 12, 2007

The Sweetest Ride

When I was twelve, Stephan was one of my best friends, though we sometimes had our difficulties. I don’t remember what it was he said. It had something to do with my bike, and I was offended. Stephan sugarcoated nothing. In fact, sometimes he could be downright abrasive, blurting it out with his hands on his hips.

“Well,” I said to him, “Since you have a problem with my bike, you’ll never ride it again.”

“Fine,” he answered back, “I don’t like your ugly bike anyway.”

Over the next few months, Stephan and I remained friends. We hung out together all the time, but my bike stayed off-limits to him. Some days he would test the waters. He would watch as I allowed other boys to ride. Then, when he thought I was in a good mood, he would ask for a ride. My answer was always, "No."

Sometimes the other boys would ask what was going on. Neither Stephan nor I ever told them. In fact, I had forgotten what Stephan initially said to offend me. All that mattered was that I had given my word, and I was standing my ground, whether it was rational or not. Stephan, however, continued to pick happy moments to ask his question.

“Can I ride your bike?” His question was always the same. So was my answer.

“No.” Then we would continue playing.

One day, several of us were jumping ramps in front of Stephan’s yard, nearly six months had passed since I had announced my bike off-limits to him—and he hadn’t asked his question in almost two months. He approached me in the middle of the laughter.

“Can I ride your bike?”

“Yes,” I answered.

He did a double take. “Did you say, yes?”

“Yes,” I said.

The biggest smile came across his face as he ran over to the boy who was sitting on my bike.

“Junior said I could ride!” Stephan announced, excited. Indeed, my bike was ugly; but it was a big deal to Stephan. I watched him as he climbed on and started riding. He rode that raggedy bike as if it was the best ride of his life, sitting high in the seat and smiling the entire time.

8 comments:

claudia said...

i really like this one, good job!

jafabrit said...

I love your stories.

Anonymous said...

thats a nice story

zeezee said...

=) good post. lets ride on the friendship bike!

paisley said...

thank you very much for the memories and the levity... i have bookmarked your site and will drop in daily to see whats going on... thank you again....

Nia here! said...

Thanks. I also like the fact that I could actually see imeem in action. The black site theme makes looking at the site a bit of a challenge for me but I'm glad that I stopped by to read a bit anyway. All the best, Nia. :) P.>S I'm going to send this to my Dad. I think he might get a kick out of listening to the Sweetest Ride.

Nomarless said...

Great story. I think we can all relate that jumped our ramps..I did.

Hoo Ra!

Flawed And Disorderly said...

Newfound appreciation. :D That's great!