I began to brake, even though I knew from long-ago experience that this was the moment to pedal fastest, gain the momentum I would need to get myself up the other side. But up at the top of it, looking down into the dip without the benefit of being in a car, I could understand why this had seemed so insurmountable when I was eight. Had I really once done it as a matter of course? And even more than that, had this really been a hill I had raced Henry up, both of us red-faced and puffing with exhaustion as we tried to beat each other to the opposite side? I braked a little harder, but the incline had already started pulling me down the hill. I could have just let myself enjoy the ride down, but instead, as the bike slipped out of my control, I felt myself braking, hard. My front wheel hit a patch of gravel, and before I knew what was happening—it only seemed to take a fraction of a second—the wheel was turning, and I was losing control. I felt the whole bike waver, off its axis, and then my foot was getting tangled in the wheel, and then I was on the ground, the bike resting on top of me, front wheel still uselessly spinning.
As I shoved the bike off me and pushed myself to my feet, I was especially grateful that it was very late—or early—and there had been nobody around to see me wipe out like that. I was more humiliated than hurt, but the palms of my hands and both of my knees had gotten scraped. I brushed off the dirt and gravel and pulled the bike up. I walked it the rest of the way down the Dip, then back up the other side. I was embarrassed, but mostly I was mad at myself, that I had chickened out on doing something that I’d conquered when I was still in elementary school. When I made it up to the other side, I got back on the bike, looking forward at the road, riding extra quickly toward the beach, as though this would make up for bailing out on the Dip. It wasn’t until I was nearly at the beach that I realized that I could have given it a second try, rather than walking my bike. I could have picked myself up and tried again. But I hadn’t. I had just left. I tried to push this thought away as I steered my bike toward the beach. But unlike so many other times, it didn’t go easily.
Since Lucy had just told me to come to “the beach,” I had no idea what to expect, or if I’d have trouble finding her. But this didn’t turn out to be a problem, because when I got close to the beach, I saw her standing on the side of the road yelling into a cell phone.
“It is so over,” she said. “And you should know, Stephen, that you just lost the best thing you’re ever going to—” She stopped, and her expression changed from fury to disbelief as she listened. “Oh? Is that so? Then why don’t you have the guts to come out here and explain yourself?”
I slowed the bike, feeling very much like I was intruding, even though this confrontation was going down in the middle of the street. I noticed that the driveway of a nearby house was filled with cars, and I could hear, faintly, the thumping bass of music playing and random party sounds—yells and laughter.
“And I will have you know—” Lucy finally saw me, and she frowned as she lowered her phone and stared at the bike. “What is that?”
“What’s what?” I asked.
“Where’s your car?” she asked. She looked around, swaying slightly, as though it might be hiding behind me.
“I didn’t bring it,” I said.
Lucy stared at me. “Then how are you going to drive me?” Stephen must have weighed in then—I could hear his voice, loud and a little whiny, through her phone. “I’m done here, you asshole,” Lucy snapped, though I noticed she didn’t hang up, but appeared to be listening.
I felt incredibly stupid as I stood in the middle of the road, with my bike, at two thirty in the morning. And I could feel myself getting mad at Lucy for the first time in a long time. Ever since we’d met again, I’d been constantly aware of what I’d done, and why she was mad at me. But she had dragged me out of bed to give her a ride home when she would barely talk to me at work? And hadn’t even been able to specify that I should bring a car?
Even though Lucy was still on the phone, I felt the need to defend myself. “For the record,” I said, raising my voice to be heard over Lucy’s phone call, “you didn’t tell me you needed a ride—or ask me to give you one, by the way,” I said. “All you said was ‘come to the beach.’ So I biked here.”
“Well, I would have been more specific,” Lucy said, “but I’m in the middle of breaking up with this complete moron—” She yelled these last two words into the phone, and Stephen might have finally had enough, because a moment later, she lowered the phone. “He hung up on me,” she said, incredulous. “Can you believe it?”
Actually, I could, but thought this might not be the moment to tell her this. “Was he in there?” I asked, pointing at the party house.