Abby sat on the sofa. She wasn’t sure she could move, and she knew she’d be crying soon, but, so far, the tears hadn’t come. She imagined a woman ripping up a winning lottery ticket and throwing its snippets down a sewer. Was that what she’d done? Had she just tossed away her only chance at happiness? Would life with Mark have made her happy? Or would it have ultimately felt like a too-tight pair of jeans, something that looked good from the outside but made her feel constrained, confined, like she’d never take another comfortable breath again?
She rested her head in her hands and thought about how Mark had felt like her destiny; how running into him in Kensington had felt like Karma nudging her toward the natural next step. But maybe she’d been on the wrong staircase. Maybe it was time to stop doing things because they were expected, or conventional, or easy. She’d be home soon, and she’d be at the bottom again, starting over from nothing, but at least she’d be the one deciding where to go.
Abby heard footsteps approaching, someone coming down the hall, and her pulse sped up. But the person who entered the living room wasn’t Sebastian. It was Eileen.
“What happened?” she asked.
Oh, God, thought Abby. “Can you not be here?” she asked. It came out sounding nastier than she’d intended.
Eileen looked startled. Then hurt. She folded her arms over her chest and pressed her thin lips together.
“I wanted to make sure you’re okay.”
“I am fine,” she snapped, somehow managing to make the words sound closer to Like you care.
“Did something happen with Mark?” Her mother’s brow was furrowed. Her voice was full of what sounded like genuine concern. Too little too late, Abby thought.
Her head was crackling with static. Her fury built and built, and crested, and she said, in a voice that hissed like a whipcrack, “Just leave me alone. I don’t want you here, I never wanted you here in the first place, so just go. Okay? Just go.” Her face was burning. “Maybe if you hurry you can catch Mark before he takes off. You guys can go be thin and happy together. Eat hummus with a spoon and brush your teeth for dessert.”
Eileen’s eyes got very wide. She opened her mouth, starting to say something, before she changed her mind and turned around, hurrying back down the hall. Abby stood for a minute, breathing hard, hands shaking, wondering what she’d done, and what else was left in her life for her to blow up or burn down. She’d lost her boyfriend (Lost? a mocking voice inquired. More like threw away) and pissed off her mother, and where was Sebastian? Why hadn’t he come to find her, to comfort her, to tell her that he wasn’t what Mark said he was, what the whole world thought he was, and that he’d take care of her and always be true?
Abby balled up her fists and squeezed her eyes shut. Sebastian is not the answer, she told herself again. But oh, God, she hated the thought of being single or, worse, dating again. She had already spent so many years alone, had endured so much humiliation. Guys in the world whose eyes skipped right over her as if she were invisible. Men on the apps with weak chins and receding hairlines, beer guts and bald spots who felt absolutely no compunctions about inboxing her to tell her how much prettier she’d be if she went to the gym, went on a diet, ate less, exercised more. She loathed the idea of more of that.
She could hear the other cyclists moving through the house, clomping up and down the hallways, talking. She let her gaze move toward the stairs again. Sebastian was so appealing, and everything they’d done had felt so good. Abby could still feel her cheeks, her chest, the insides of her thighs tingling where his stubble had abraded them. Part of her wanted to climb the stairs, take off her clothes, take a hot shower, and go to him, letting him hold her, letting him make it all go away.
But she couldn’t. She couldn’t just fall into bed with another guy. Or, even if she could, it would not be the right thing to do. She’d let her relationship with Mark fill in too many of the blank spaces in her life, and it was more than Mark, or any man, should have been responsible for doing. It was her job to fill in those blanks; her job and no one else’s.
And so, instead of walking up the stairs to Sebastian’s room, she went out of the living room, managing to nod pleasantly at Lily Mackenzie, then back outside, to where she’d left her bike.
She pulled out her phone and used Strava to find a popular thirty-mile loop around the city. She went outside and filled her water bottles at a hose on the side of the house. She reapplied her sunscreen, squeezing the dregs out of the bottle in her handlebar bag. She shook out her hair, then smoothed it back into a ponytail, which she threaded through the gap in her helmet. Then she set her phone in its handlebar-mounted holder and swung her leg over the top tube. She allowed herself one last look over her shoulder at the house. Then she started to ride.
Sebastian
Sebastian couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt as wretched and miserable and powerless as he’d felt watching Abby lead Mark into the house.
He’d started to go after her. Lincoln had stopped him, with a hand on Sebastian’s forearm and a warning look on his face. “Give her some space.”
And so he’d gone past the living room and up the stairs, to the room he’d been assigned. It had its own tiny bathroom, hardwood floors, two big windows that looked down over the street, and a high four-poster bed.
Sebastian took a quick shower, listening for the sounds of slammed doors or raised voices, for Abby’s feet on the stairs or Abby’s voice or her knock. He imagined opening the door and seeing Abby there, telling him she’d sent Mark away. Reassuring him that she’d believed him when he’d told her that he’d changed, that he genuinely cared for her, and that she was not the final square on some fictitious bingo board.
After ten minutes of waiting in a towel, he was starting to get cold, and he’d noticed that his wet hair was dripping on the floor. He got dressed, combed his hair, put on his shoes, and sat on the edge of his bed, scrolling through the pictures he’d taken on the trip, lingering on the one of himself and Abby, in front of the blue-and-gold metal plaque that marked the end of the trail. He had his arm around her waist, and she was looking up at him, smiling. Where are you? he texted. Is everything okay?
Abby didn’t reply. When a knock finally did come, Sebastian jumped off the bed.
“Just me,” said Lincoln.
“Have you seen Abby?” Sebastian asked. Lincoln shook his head.
Sebastian went downstairs, asking Jasper, then Lily, then each member of the Spoke’n Four, if they’d seen her. Nobody had. He’d gone outside, to the garage where they’d stowed their bikes. Abby’s bike was missing… so at least he knew what she was doing, even if he didn’t know where.
He thought about getting on his own bike and trying to find her, but by then night was falling, and he realized that, unless she’d lost her phone, or her phone had died, she knew he wanted to talk to her, and was choosing not to respond.
He texted her again—Where are you?—then allowed Lincoln to drag him into the van, and out to dinner. He ate Buffalo wings and waited. He drank beer and waited. He listened to the other riders talking about their favorite days of riding, the best things they’d eaten, where they’d be going on their next adventures, and waited. Back at the bed-and-breakfast, he called Abby’s phone and got no answer, and he texted, and heard nothing, and he finally fell asleep, with the light next to his bed still turned on and his phone in his hands.
Abby wasn’t at breakfast the next morning. Sebastian was eating a frittata, not tasting it, when Jasper approached the table. “If I could have everyone’s attention?” When the group quieted down, he said, “Abby asked me to tell you all that she’s taken the train back to Philadelphia. She had some things she had to take care of. She wanted me to tell you that she enjoyed riding with all of you.”
“But we didn’t get to say goodbye!” said Sue. Morgan looked disappointed, and Lou was straight-up glaring at Sebastian, like Abby’s absence was his fault. He cornered Jasper in the kitchen, pestering him for information Jasper did not have.
“I don’t know anything besides what I said,” Jasper told him. When he went to Eileen to ask if she knew anything more, all Abby’s mother did was repeat Jasper’s line. “She has some things to deal with. That’s all I know.”
* * *