Convergence

I’m thirteen and allergic to cockroach saliva when Dad buys me a Huffy with a digital speedometer. From then on, life explodes, like drinking a hormone Molotov cocktail— peach fuzz, crop-eared haircut, pencil mustache— At the top of a hill, we hold hands, legs lifting above spinning pedals at an unregistered speed. The coasting is too fast, so I let go. Sex will be different for me than for him: a backward, brakeless pedaling.