That morning, Sebastian rode the twenty-three miles to Niagara Falls and spent the day following Lincoln around like a despondent six-year-old who’d been dragged on a family road trip, riding the Maid of the Mist, feeling the water from the falls beading on his face and in his hair, trying not to think of that day in the rain with Abby, the day when he’d kissed her.
She’s thinking, he told himself. She’s making up her mind. He only hoped that she wasn’t dwelling on the TikTok mess; that she wasn’t reconsidering him or rejecting him completely; ghosting him again.
“Give her some space,” Lincoln told him, over dinner at a bar that night. “If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it’s yours. If it doesn’t, it never was.” He tilted his head. “A wise man told me that.”
“I hate you right now,” Sebastian said, glaring at the table and his barely touched burger.
“Hate yourself,” Lincoln said. “That’s what you told me when Lana and I broke up. And that worked out!” He clapped Sebastian’s shoulder. “Just be patient. What will be, will be.”
“You like seeing me suffer,” Sebastian said.
Lincoln shook his head. “No,” he said. “But it’s possible that it’s your turn. You know?”
Sebastian considered this. He thought about how lucky he’d been, right up until Alyssa had posted that TikTok, how his life was an unending stream of Frisbee games and bike rides, drinking with friends and sleeping with an endless variety of girls. He had work he loved, a nicer apartment than he should have been able to afford, the guaranteed advantages that being a white guy would give him, even as some of his fellow white guys complained that those advantages weren’t real, or that, at least, they weren’t as meaningful as they’d once been.
He wasn’t used to losing, he realized. He picked up his burger, feeling the ketchup on his fingers, and set it down without a bite.
“Can I make a suggestion?” Lincoln asked.
“Can I stop you?” Sebastian replied.
Lincoln visibly steeled himself. “If you really want to be in a relationship with Abby, or with anyone, maybe you need to think about what’s been going on. Why you felt compelled to sleep with so many different women.”
“I didn’t feel compelled,” Sebastian said. “It was more like feeling, Why not?”
Lincoln tore open a wet wipe and didn’t respond.
“Are you going to tell me that I’m compensating for some hole in my heart? Some void in my life? My mother didn’t love me, my dad was never home?” Sebastian was trying for sarcasm, but Lincoln was still looking at him, without his usual expression of tolerant forbearance. Instead, his friend was looking at him pityingly. Which, of course, made Sebastian remember the many occasions when his mother had been unavailable and his father had been busy tending to her; how neither of them had ended up with a lot of time or energy for him.
Sebastian couldn’t stand it. “Not all of us have perfect nuclear families. Not everyone gets lucky the way you were lucky,” he said.
“You’re right,” said Lincoln.
“I don’t need therapy,” Sebastian said, feeling his lips twist as he almost snarled the last word. He was remembering the family sessions at his mother’s rehabs; how frustrating and pointless they’d felt. What was the point of blaming your parents, when you couldn’t go back in time and make them do it differently? Why dwell on the past when it couldn’t be changed? Just keep moving ahead. That was Sebastian’s motto.
Lincoln held up his hands. “I didn’t say anything about therapy. Maybe you don’t need it, although I kind of think everyone could benefit from having someone to talk to. And look, I don’t know what’s going on with you. Why you are the way you are. Whether it’s your family, or whatever. But Lana and I have discussed it—”
“Oh,” Sebastian interrupted. “Oh, great. I’m glad I’m giving you two something to talk about.”
“—because we’re worried about you,” Lincoln concluded. His voice was quiet, firm, and steady as he held Sebastian’s gaze with his own. “We want you to be happy.”
And Sebastian found he had nothing to say about that.
Abby
Philadelphia
On Sunday morning, Abby slept in.
It had been a long three weeks since the trip had ended and she’d gone scurrying back home. But she’d gotten through those awful first hours and days after a breakup, and had come home resolving to do better, to make a start toward turning her house into a home and building a life that she wanted.
She got out of bed and opened the blinds. Sunlight striped the hardwood floor and the bright pink-and-gold-patterned carpet that had come from Etsy the day before. The bookshelf that she’d finally assembled was full of her books, arranged by color. She’d gotten three posters framed, and had hung them, along with a giant antique mirror she and Lizzie had found at a vintage store on South Street (they’d needed to hire a U-Haul to get it home, and to recruit four members of the bicycle club to wrestle it up the stairs). There was an actual table in the kitchen, and a dedicated work-from-home space with a desk by the window. A row of potted plants stood on the windowsill, and the bags of clothes had finally made it to the donation bin. It didn’t look like Lizzie’s place, with its layers of belongings, collected over a lifetime of adventures. But it no longer looked like a dorm room, or a featureless, anonymous place to sleep.
Abby had told Marj, at Breakaway, how much she’d enjoyed leading the group, and Marj told Abby that Abby had gotten excellent feedback from her riders, and promised she’d keep her in mind for future adventures. Abby had gone back to work at Pup Jawn, so she’d be able to cover her rent. And then, she’d started to figure out the next piece and whether there was a way to get paid for doing the thing she loved. A bike club to empower young women. She would start by talking to Lizzie, and Gabriella, her librarian friend, who’d set up the camp in Kensington. They’d probably know who else could help.
She’d done her best to keep busy, but she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Sebastian. At least, so far, she had managed to keep herself from calling or texting him. Nor had she googled him, or tried to find him on social media.
The day that Mark had confronted her in Buffalo, and for a few days after, Sebastian had barraged her with texts. Abby, please call me and Are you okay and Can we talk? She hadn’t responded, and the texts had stopped. Since then, there’d been nothing. Abby told herself that it was for the best and turned toward the task of telling friends and family that she and Mark were no more.
She’d started with Lizzie, biking to her friend’s apartment and giving her the whole saga as she sat on Lizzie’s couch with Grover snoozing on her lap.
Lizzie was enthralled, sympathetic, and outraged in turns as Abby told her about Morgan Mackenzie’s detour, her nights with Sebastian, and about how the Breakaway ride had concluded.
“Do you know how awful it is to tell a guy that it isn’t him, it’s you? No matter how much you mean it, it always sounds like a lie,” Abby said. She could still picture how devastated Mark had looked, that blank, shocked expression on his face. She could also still hear the bitterness in his voice as he’d asked, That guy, Abby? Really? “I hate myself for wasting so much of his time.”
“You couldn’t have wasted his time if he wasn’t willing to let his time be wasted,” Lizzie said. “Look at it this way—he got to spend, what? Almost two years with you? He was lucky,” Lizzie said, as Abby groaned.
“I feel like I ruined his life.”
“I think,” Lizzie said carefully, “that maybe you’re giving yourself a little too much power here.” She leaned forward. “And Eileen? Did she see it go down?”