The Breakaway(103)

“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.