The Last Ride

A motorcyclist in the pouring rain

The wind had always been Jack's freedom. On his motorcycle, he felt untouchable, fast, alive, invincible.

That feeling shattered one rainy October afternoon when a truck ran a red light and changed everything.

The crash tore through his body. Multiple fractures, internal injuries, and most devastating of all, the doctors had to amputate his left leg above the knee. He woke up in a hospital bed, hollowed out. The man who once chased sunsets now couldn't even stand.

Months blurred together. Rehab was cruel. Friends drifted. The mirror mocked him. He avoided it.

Then came Ava.

She was a volunteer at the hospital. Brought books. Sat with patients. Asked questions no one else had the patience to wait for answers to. With Jack, she didn’t flinch. Didn’t pity. She listened.

“You ride?” she asked one day, spotting a photo of him on his old bike.

“I used to,” Jack replied, bitter.

“Ever think of trying again?”

He scoffed. “With what leg?”

But she smiled, not the polite kind, the kind that saw through walls. “Plenty of riders have prosthetics. If you still want it, it’s not gone.”

It wasn't easy. Getting back on a modified bike took months of training, fear, and failure. But Ava never left. She sat through physical therapy sessions, wiped tears he pretended not to cry, and once, when he nearly gave up, placed his helmet in his hands.

“You're still you, Jack. Bruised, bent, but not broken.”

He believed her.

Their first ride together was slow, cautious, but breath-taking. He felt the wind again, different now, but still freedom. Ava sat behind him, arms wrapped tight, not holding him back but holding him up.

Jack had lost a leg, but found something more, someone who saw past the scars and into the soul that never stopped riding.

And that made all the difference.

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