What Would You Say?

My days off have become predictable. I sit up too late. Sleep comes in scraps. I wake before the restaurants open. If I’m lucky, words come first, something honest, something alive.

Then the ritual.

Isopropyl alcohol on my toes and left foot. Antibiotic ointment on wounds that still haven’t healed. Wrapping my knee. Wrapping my thigh so the Morel-Lavallée lesion keeps settling down. Lotion on the scars that line my lower leg. Then clothes. Then the day.

This is how I start mornings now.

Yesterday, my best friend and I were talking about how hard the day had been. Somehow the accident came up, and for the first time she really talked about how it affected her.

That nearly broke me. Because she doesn’t do feelings easily.

Somewhere in that conversation, she said something that I’ve also thought about before: that it might actually be healing to see the woman who hit me. And my friend asked the simplest question: “What would you say to her?”

I didn’t have an answer.

I still don’t. Because I’m not a mean person. I don’t fantasize about berating her. I don’t rehearse speeches about fault and recklessness.

I don’t even remember the night. What I’d want is information. What does she remember? Did it shake her? Did it keep her up at night? Did she replay it over and over, or did she internalize whatever story was easiest and move on because insurance made it procedural?

But this morning, in the middle of my wrapping ritual, it hit me. I wouldn’t want to say anything new. I’d want her to read.

I’d want her to start with November 27, 2025, one month after the crash, the first blog I wrote after almost dying.

I’d want her to read every post about the accident. Every scar. Every sleepless night. Every medical appointment. Every quiet fear.

I wouldn’t need to yell. The truth is loud enough.

At one point, my friend said something that startled me. She said it would be powerful if the woman who hit me became an advocate for the RIDEST initiative. If she helped push rider safety reforms forward. If she spoke honestly about what happened. If she owned her part. And I had to admit, yeah. That would feel like justice.

Because I don’t actually want her to suffer forever. I don’t want someone paying daily penance for the rest of their life. But I do want to know that something changed in her. That she lost a little skin too.

Not flesh. Perspective. Because I wake up every day and tend to the physical cost of that night.

If something meaningful came from it, if it reshaped the way she drives, the way she sees motorcycles, the way she thinks about attention, that would matter. That would look a lot like redemption.

And maybe that’s what I’d say. Nothing.

I’d just hand her the story. And let her decide who she wants to be next.