Probably, love for motorcycles and speed was in my blood with my brother. The only thing we have in common, apparently. "It's a pity he doesn't know about it," I thought with a grin. By the time Max and Gleb got carried away with motorcycles, we no longer talked. But I still eagerly listened to his stories about speed and different models of motorcycles, on those rare evenings when the whole family gathered for dinner. At first I just googled the names I heard to understand what it was about, then I got involved and realized that I wanted to know more.

It was easy to find an instructor, but I did not manage to open a category for driving motor vehicles. My father didn’t even want to hear about it, although he didn’t mind driving a car at all and even gave him a brand new Audi for his eighteenth birthday. He considered motorcycles to be exclusively “male fun”, which he declared to me as soon as I hinted at them.

Sometimes I think that maybe these words prompted me to get on a bike at all costs ... It's better than thinking that I owe my passion for speed to my brother, or even worse - to Gleb.

I knew that Maxim rented a box on the track, and brazenly took advantage of this by stealing a duplicate key card from him. I used to have to ask my stepmother about my brother's travel schedule all the time. Fortunately, Max could not stay in one place for a long time and was constantly leaving somewhere, even if just for a couple of days, and I only rejoiced at these absences, because I could come to the track and use his property. When he got a place for an internship in Riga in the summer, I was probably more excited than he was, because it gave me unlimited access to his motorcycle.

And now, having driven the car into the box, I changed clothes, put on a helmet and gently stroked the chrome side of the bike.

When I first ventured to use him, I was sure that he would guess that someone was here in his absence, if only just by running on a chronometer. But the years passed, and my brother still did not suspect anything, and so I continued to come here again and again.

I rolled the bike out and looked around the track. Today is a weekday, so fortunately for me, it was not crowded. In the distance I could see two motorcycles, I stared at how they go almost side by side and guessed that they had a race. I always wanted to participate, but I was afraid that in this way I would definitely attract attention to myself and my brother would be informed that some girl was riding his bike.

Even watching the races on TV, my heart rate and adrenaline levels always increased. I could only imagine what effect real involvement would have on me. “Perhaps someday, in the next life,” I thought, and realized that again it was as if I was postponing life itself for later, and only recently, thinking about my again free life, I promised to finally start living and, moreover, to receive pleasure from this very life!

I started the engine and the bike roared forward with a loud roar.

Despite the helmet, I easily breathed deeply. Riding a motorcycle has always made me feel special, maybe because I was in control of the situation, while in ordinary life I had too many restrictions.

Absorbed by my thoughts and euphoria from speed, I do not immediately notice that another motorcycle is catching up with me. I slow down before the turn and the second bike starts honking me and waving in the direction of the safety zone, which I was just passing by. This zone is designed to exit the highway in the event of a vehicle malfunction. Everything is fine with my motorcycle, so I see no reason to follow the lead of an unfamiliar pilot. But he is in no hurry to lag behind, almost caught up with me.

- Do you want to have a race? I ask, knowing full well that no one can hear me. - Well, I'm all for it.

I really want to add something like “swallow the dust, dude”, but even in a conversation with myself, I can’t bring myself to utter such a banal thing. Instead, with my right hand, I squeeze the throttle even harder. The speedometer shows 240 km / h, my record on this bike is 250 km, but I don’t think about stopping. There is a rather sharp turn ahead and it would be nice to break away from an uninvited opponent before it. Easier said than done. We are almost on a par. In theory, now we need to slow down to enter the turn smoothly, but I stubbornly wait for the co-pilot to do it first. And he doesn't seem to be planning to back down easily.

I should have managed to run into some kind of kamikaze in my first race in my life. Is he really going to go into a corner at that speed? Fortunately, his common sense wins and he still slows down. My common sense seems to also understand that it would be necessary to slow down, but at the same time, the realization comes that I don’t have time to maneuver, and therefore, remembering everything that the instructor taught me, I lay the motorcycle almost horizontally and enter the turn. I really want to stop the bike, take off the helmet and give myself a sickly slap for such a stupid act, but I remember in time that our so-called race is not over yet. Now, of course, I have every chance to win. I won only a few seconds with a dangerous maneuver, but in a motorcycle race, seconds usually count, or even fractions of them.

My heart is pounding, the level of adrenaline in my blood is going through the roof and I finally understand how much I missed in life by denying myself participation in races.

I come to the finish line first, and mentally count: one, two, three, four, five, six and my opponent slows down next to me. I raise my visor, about to thank the driver for the race, as I've seen others do.

I do not count on a particularly friendly greeting, after all, no one likes to lose, but the vicious grin of an opponent puts me in a stupor. Though I don't think it has anything to do with losing. This person simply does not know how to look at me differently.

Uritsky! Damn him! How did I manage to get into a race with him?! And then it dawns on me belatedly that initially he did not invite me to any race. He wanted to get my attention and honked because he recognized my brother's bike and, knowing that he still hadn't returned, was trying to figure out who was riding it.

I seem to be in big trouble. Very big problems! But I am an adult girl, so I will solve problems in an adult way. Some other time and some other problems. And now, while Uritsky got off the bike, I was glad that I did not have time to turn off the engine and jerked sharply from my place.