2. redemption (or i rode my bike across a seven miles bridge surrounded by blues)

continuation

He had an early start. Thought about quitting already, but decided to keep riding south. He would be resting at the Highlands Hammock State Park eighty something miles later. The day was beautiful, so were the Highlands County roads. He enjoyed riding along a smooth flow of vehicles. Wide and clean shoulders. Scattered wealthy communities of mostly retired people. Fields splashed with orange trees. A place to hide and take a nap. The clouds were not clouds anymore in a blue canvas. They were sailing boats, they were fields of cotton, they were butterflies. Butterflies like the ones he felt in his stomach.

"Love is like cycling," hypnotized. "It's there as long as you keep pedaling... Once you stop, love will still be there, but will eventually fade... How long will it be there? That depends on the friction of the pavement and the slope of the hill... You better be going downhill if you wanna stop pedaling and keeping her by your side..."

But then again, someone used to tell him that the imagination of a child and the reasoning of a grown up are enough to connect life with bullfighting, or death with designing, or, as he was doing now, love with cycling.

While riding, thoughts. A waterfall of them. One after the other. Thoughts he would have never connected arose, one after the other. A headache. He had been in love four times and there was only one thing in common to all of his failures. That was him. A smile. Rafa had told him about two kinds of people, those who are meant to walk alongside with someone, and those who are meant to have an impact in the life of many people, but would always walk alone.

"What kind of person are you?" Sebring was close when he had the first flat tire of the ride, he laughed. "How do I relate this to love now?"

He slept in the middle of the forest, surrounded by trees and animals that kept visiting him all night.

His closest friends, only those who had been close enough to see through his wall of confetti, knew about his bittersweetness. The one he enjoyed then, in front of a beautiful sunset, while listening to Bittersweet Symphony by The Verbe. Jesús, his cousin, used to tease him with his supposed resemblance to Richard Ashcroft. His cousin, of course, uses glasses.

to be continued