The Distance: A Small Love Story

By Cody M. Hanson

The first time Hank sees her, he knows he's in love. It's perfect. But as he gets ready to head off to college, delusions of grandeur begin to haunt him. Can Hank balance his lust for power with his love for the girl of his dreams, or will temptation destroy a bright young romance?

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Aug 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483506548

Book preview

9781483506548

CHAPTER ONE

My thoughts were scattered as I drove into the darkness. The road turned to dirt and I slowed. I pushed the clutch to the floor and let gravity pull me forward across the dust, an inch at a time. The stars were bright. The mountain air surrounded my face and neck and hands as I rolled down my window with my left arm and dipped my head out for a better look upward. I pressed the brake gently until I felt the rolling cease. The idle vibration of the old truck’s engine let me know I was still at the wheel. But my mind was lost in the massive black shadows above. The tall, dark pines met the insistently bright stars and said hello. People always said the trees looked like they were reaching. They weren’t reaching; they were standing—happy and diligent, like a speechless population for as far as I could see, all the way to the valley. And all the way to the cold desert floor in the other direction. Those trees stood shoulder to shoulder on more land than I could understand at the time. More land than anyone could really understand on a personal level.

A deer snapped a branch nearby. I glanced over as it slid startled behind a tree. I pulled myself back into the cab, cranked the window up, put the truck into gear, dropped the clutch, rolled on the throttle and flicked the brights. The bald tires lost traction in the powdery dust, launching a horizontal plume behind the truck. A grin slid from left to right across my face. Friday night felt so good.

The ripped bench seat of the old Chevrolet gave my thin body no traction for the bumps on the rattled dirt road. The trail thrashed the truck like a carnival roller coaster, but I didn’t much care.

Finally, I crested a steep rise in the road. The stars disappeared and the sky grew yellow. As the massive square hood of my truck dropped back to level, my eyes fell upon an incredible glowing fire. People were everywhere, running around, standing, screaming, laughing, talking.

This town’s got it right, I thought. The last weekend before school started back up and half the senior class was out here partying. Pallets from behind the dusty hardware store in town made up the base of the inferno. Bright yellow flames licked the cold air twenty feet up. The clearing was plenty big though, and the trees in the area had been cut and burned long ago. There was nothing sacred to this crowd. And just like that, I was a regular high school kid again. The silent trees didn’t mean so much anymore in the fervor of this crowd. Burn ‘em!

I skidded to a stop on the edge of the clearing, garnering the attention of the crowd. It was always good being the last one to arrive. People took notice, which at seventeen was exactly what I wanted. But truthfully we all knew each other. We knew our places in the social lineup. My cool entrance was just a thrill more than anything. I wasn’t the cool kid. But I wasn’t at the bottom of the food chain either. My dad taught me early, sometimes it’s best not to say anything at all. So that’s what I did. It didn’t make me popular, but I was usually able to avoid saying something stupid.

My friend Rob was already buzzing. He threw me a cold, cheap beer. The melted ice fell down the length of the can, trickled into my sleeve, down to my elbow, causing a shiver that I quickly hid.

What took you so long?! he yelled.

I got held up stacking wood at home, I replied.

Oh man, bummer. Well, it’s a good night, let me tell you. There are some hot, I mean hot ladies here tonight, Hank. Hot!

Okay man, I said. I stepped out of my truck and we walked toward the raging fire.

Rob was a good friend. He didn’t always say the brightest things, and sometimes he was a little strange to the girls, but he was kind-hearted, always said what he meant and wasn’t really into the high school scene. It helped that we both raced on the weekends. When other kids were partying, sleeping in and reliving their beloved football games, Rob and I would rouse our parents at four in the morning, load our dirt bikes into the family truck in the cold darkness of the pre-dawn Sierras, and drive the three hours deep into the Nevada desert, or three hours down to the San Joaquin Valley, to race…

I say goodbye to my parents at the truck, who begin their walk to the starting line. Kids and dogs and riders are making their way through the dirt parking lot. It’s thirty minutes from the start and the energy is building. No cameras, fans, banners, or lights. Stifling heat fills the valley, encompassing the riders and their machines. Racers’ families gather on the hills above the starting line and I am feeling invincible in my helmet and goggles and gear. I am no longer me but an anonymous rider, ripe for speculation, riding past those on foot who watch each rider go by like a horse or a soldier more than a person. I am no longer a face, no longer human, but a new being. The small, powerful engine heats quickly. There is no starting gate, no concrete, nothing but a faint and broken line of chalk in the dirt. The ground is uneven and cumbersome. I find a spot on the line far from the center, away from the frantic jockeying of the tight pack of riders to my right, and roll my wheel forward in the dead brown grass until it touches the chalk line. I’m in the first row, the first to go, with five waves and five chalk lines behind me, each line graced by its own set of eager tires and faceless riders. I see heat radiating off the helmet on the rider to my right while an official stares at me from the left, holding his clipboard over his beer gut with an air of suspicion. The engines are cut, as tradition requires, and the small valley becomes tomblike. I stop breathing and focus my foot on the kicker, my hand on the clutch, looking down at my fender with a rare focus that I have only felt in moments like this. Then a pop. Someone was faster and I hear one, two, three engines fire through the silence in quick succession. My first hard kick throws spark into the motor and my bike ignites as I drop the clutch to launch forward from the very first explosion of the engine. The gears come to me like stop signs in a drag race but I never let up. The clutch smokes from the slip but it’s okay, it was made for this. The first turn nears and still I see no one around me, as forty of us yearn for the first shot at the constricted path of dirt and grass. I begin to lean to the right, cutting out the space and hoping for traction as the tall knobs of my tires fight for grip in the grassy field, the stakes and ribbons closing in on my left. I see a wheel, then six more to my right, and my perspective intensifies in an instant. Someone comes in too fast and I’m slammed from the right, my leg caught between the other rider’s bike and my own. There is nothing to do but keep the speed and wait. Keep the throttle on for as long as possible, because the first one to let off is the first one to the ground, and the ground is not a good place to be. The pressure releases as the other rider lets off. He hits the grass and dirt hard, as do four more behind him. I remember to breathe once. My trajectory has changed from the hit though. I’m too far outside, not on the course, but now in the untracked expanse of field where dangers lurk under the tall brown grass. I’m struggling to veer back to center, but I can’t and I won’t let off and the momentum of the bike carries me in a wide,