The Breakaway(104)
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.”
* * *
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—”