TO BILL DENBROUGH

just for you

You stuttered and still led. You wrote stories where the monsters lost because you needed one universe where that happened. You carried Georgie's death like ballast nobody could see and still rode into the deadlights on a bicycle built for two.

"He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts" — the sentence you beat into rhythm until fear had grammar. Leader isn't the one who talks best. It's the one who rides back down.