The guy who’d been hit was bleeding a little bit on his arm. He stood up, as Ayanna offered him some Band-Aids from her bag. A girl with maybe too much hair waved at him, but he did not notice, and she kept walking to class with her headphones on. There was a cigarette on the ground, still smoking, and Ayanna realized it had been knocked out of his mouth by the collision. He seemed like the type of white guy Ayanna liked best, quiet and polite, alternative enough that you could look at him and think the odds were higher that he was not racist, and who probably, when he was drunk, would be able to tell you an actually funny story. It was a lot to pin on someone based merely on looks, but Ayanna was trying to make sure she saw at least one person in this situation as a person. She wanted to help him, felt it a relief to think briefly about someone or something that was not her or the situation she was in.

“Do you think you need to go to the hospital?” Ayanna asked him. His eyes were bright, and he was clearly listening to her.

“I can’t believe I got hit by a bike.”

“People are assholes,” Ayanna said.

She was trying hard to focus on him and not herself.

Matthias did the sign of the cross and came over to the man hit by the bike. “You are bleeding internally.”

“What?”

He quickly put his hands on the man’s face. “God is with you.”

“I feel asleep,” the man said. “That’s the only thing that can explain this.” He winced and put up one hand, trying to get Matthias to stop touching him.

“You’re going to live now, my brother,” Matthias said, and let go.

“If I don’t”—he turned to Ayanna—“I need you to tell my friend Kiki that I was in love with her. Her boyfriend sucks.”

He made Ayanna text Kiki’s name to herself, as well as her phone number from his phone. She saved the number as “Actual Person Named Kiki.” Then, someone came from the coffee shop and asked if they needed to call the cops or the hospital, and everyone started taking off, except the bicyclist, who was saying performatively, “But my bike got wrecked.”

“I saved his life,” Matthias said. “And maybe yours too.”