The Breakaway(115)

I started my trip with all of my armor on. I rode for miles, along roads and beside rivers, through tunnels of green, beneath canopies of trees, as summer slid into fall, with my armor cracked. When the trip was over, I had to make a decision. Did I want to patch up my old suit, put it on again—gorget, gauntlet, breastplate, vambrace, greaves—and keep on the way I’d been going? Or was it time to find a different way of being in the world?

I went for the second option. The road less traveled; the harder path. And it was terrifying. I felt naked in the worst way; soft and defenseless, vulnerable to every faint breeze and passing slight. Which, I have come to believe, is how most people feel most of the time. Life hurts. It’s full of heartache, loss, and disappointment, and even the best things come salted with sorrow. But you can’t leave yourself open to the good things—happiness, true love, real connection—if you aren’t willing to risk being hurt.

So that’s my happy ending. Seven-hundred-plus miles later, I am newly vulnerable and still alone. And if you’re wondering whether I got the girl in the end, if I’ve found true love, the answer is no. Or maybe it’s not yet.

But I know I’ve gotten better. I know I’m not who I was when the journey began. And maybe there’s hope for me yet.



There was a single illustration, a photograph of Sebastian, standing over his bike, with his helmet tucked under his arm and the trail unwinding behind him. His chin was lifted, and he was smiling, just a little, looking right at the camera. Right at Abby. His face was so familiar, and so dear. She wanted to reach through the screen and touch him. She wanted to email Lincoln and ask why he’d sent her the story, and if Sebastian still thought about her, and if there was still a chance for the two of them. She wanted to call Sebastian and ask him those things himself.

But her riders were waiting, and she couldn’t let them down.

She sprayed sunscreen on her arms and smeared it on her face. She pumped air in her bike’s tires, locked her apartment’s door behind her, then lifted her bike onto her shoulder and carried it down the stairs. She road north on Eleventh Street, then west on Spruce, her heart beating fast, telling herself that if Sebastian had changed, she had, too. She’d figured out what she wanted to do with her life. She’d filled in some of the blanks. She’d gotten braver. Maybe she was worthy now. Maybe she was ready.

She bent over her handlebars and picked up her pace, inching past fifteen miles an hour, quads burning, breathing hard, racing to meet her riders. For once, there wasn’t a train blocking access from the street to the Schuylkill Banks. Abby coasted through the gates, bounced over the train tracks, dinged her bell, called out “On your left” to a trio of oblivious runners occupying seventh-eighths of the path, following the trail as it curved along the river, under the Walnut Street Bridge, up a gentle rise, past the skate park, then down a hill behind the Art Museum and onto Kelly Drive.

Mark had found someone new. Abby knew that he would, and honestly hoped he was happy. The last picture he’d posted on Instagram showed him and his new girlfriend, grinning and brandishing their finishers’ medals at the end of the Broad Street Run. Abby was glad he’d found a woman who could run with him, someone who wouldn’t think Mark’s food preferences felt like torture. She wished him well.

She rode on, trying to think about the day ahead—a twenty-mile loop down Forbidden Drive, onto the towpath in Manayunk, out toward Valley Forge, then back again. Their season-ending camping trip was coming up, and the girls had gotten so much better. Hannah could make it the entire way around Kelly Drive and West River Drive without stopping, or complaining, and Connie could ride in the city, in the bike lanes, without turning into a trembling, teary wreck, and Sally could climb hills without getting off to push her bike.

They’d come so far. She was so proud.

She rode past the Falls Bridge, down the sidewalk, past the SEPTA depot and through the intersection of Ridge Avenue and Main Street. The trail narrowed and rose steeply before falling again and meandering along the Wissahickon Creek, beneath a green canopy overhanging trees. Abby was pedaling uphill when she saw the sign. It was a piece of poster board, taped to a wooden stake, stuck into the grass on the side of the trail, with a single word written on it.

ABBY



Puzzled, she braked to a stop and looked both ways before executing a U-turn. She coasted downhill until she reached the sign, and confirmed that it did, indeed, say her name.

Well. There were lots of girls named Abby in the world. Maybe one of them was having a brunch or a baby shower at the restaurant in the park. She started pedaling again, riding past the sign that said ABBY until she reached one that said STERN.

“The heck?” she murmured, and kept going, riding faster, looking to see if there were more signs.

There were. The third sign read I. The fourth one said MISS. The fifth one said YOU. The sixth sign had no words. It was just a heart, a red heart on white poster board.

Abby’s own heart was in her throat as she crested the gentle slope that ended with a parking lot on the right-hand side, and the Valley Green restaurant on the left. Down by the creek, parents were helping kids toss chunks of bread to the ducks. In front of the parking lot, Abby saw her riders, in the new tee shirts they’d gotten the week before, sherbet orange with electric-blue lettering that said PHILLY GIRLS RIDE. And there, in the center of the group, was Sebastian, at the end of the path, standing in front of a bench, holding his bike in one hand.