The Breakaway(56)

“Want to ride with us? Keep us company?” Sebastian asked, his voice still that low, intimate rumble. Abby could feel herself blushing.

“I should go check on everyone,” she said and picked up her pace, counting the days in her head. Twelve more days, she thought. Less than two weeks, to avoid him, and not murder her mother. She’d get the riders to Buffalo, alive and in one piece. She’d make a decision about Mark, and the rest of her life. She’d figure it out, somehow.





Morgan


Day Four: Hudson to Amsterdam Seventy-one miles




Did you find someone to help you?” Olivia asked.

“Not yet.” Morgan’s mom was in the shower, and Morgan had taken her phone to the far edge of the hotel parking lot, so that she wouldn’t be overheard. She was already dressed, in bike shorts and a tee shirt, and, underneath it, a sports bra that was squeezing her painfully. Her breasts usually felt tender the day or two before she got her period. Part of her wanted to hope that’s what this was, that she wasn’t really pregnant, and that all she had to do was wait.

But part of her knew better.

“Like, I’m not even sure they’ll give you the pills if they don’t think you’ve got someone to take you home, or to your hotel, or whatever, and take care of you,” Olivia said.

Morgan felt her insides clench, and her breath catch in her throat. They would give her the pills. They’d have to.

“How many days until you’re in Syracuse?” Olivia asked.

“Three.”

“I really think you should talk to your mom,” Olivia said. Again. Morgan closed her eyes. “Just give her a chance,” Olivia said, before Morgan could explain to her—again—why the idea of telling Lily was a nonstarter. “And if she tells you no, you can just get to the appointment by yourself.”

“There’s no way.” Morgan’s voice was muted. She knew what her mother would do, if she learned about Morgan’s intentions. Lily would stick to Morgan, every minute of the day, not leaving her alone for a second, not giving her a chance to slip away and take care of things. Then they’d be home, and she’d tell Morgan’s dad, and Brody, and that would be the end of it. They’d probably lock her in her bedroom until it was time for her to give birth.

“I’ll find someone,” she told Olivia.

“Okay,” Olivia said. “And I’m here if you need me.”

Morgan ended the call and went back to the room, thinking that she had no idea how to make good on her promise; no idea who, in this group of strangers, she could trust with her secret.

The hotel room wasn’t fancy, but it was clean. It had two beds, a flat-screen TV, a bathroom with a toilet and a tub. The sink, with a coffeemaker, and their empty water bottles beside it, was outside the bathroom door. Her mother was standing in front of the sink, wrapped in a towel, blow-drying her hair. She smiled at Morgan in the mirror. “Ready for another day of riding?” she asked, and Morgan felt so wretched, so dishonest and deceitful and low that, for a minute, she wasn’t sure her legs would hold her up. She felt herself wobbling and put one hand on the desk to steady herself.

“Yeah,” she said, and made herself smile. “Can’t wait.”



* * *



Be her friend Lincoln had told him. Sebastian was going to do his best… but it wasn’t easy.

“How can I get her to be my friend when she thinks I slept with every woman in Brooklyn?” he’d asked Lincoln that morning. Lincoln had put down his coffee cup, given Sebastian a long, level look, and said, “Maybe you should have thought about that before you slept with every woman in Brooklyn.”

“Not helping,” Sebastian had muttered.

“Okay,” Lincoln had said. “Ask her about herself. Get to know her. Find out what she likes to do.” He squeezed sunscreen out of a tube and rubbed it onto his cheeks and his forehead. “Lana and I were friends before we started dating. Sometimes, it’s nice to genuinely like someone, and spend time getting to know them before you sleep with them.”

“Point taken,” said Sebastian.

“And stop looking at the Internet,” Lincoln said. “You’re making yourself crazy.”

Sebastian knew his friend was right, that he was just torturing himself. He knew, too, that the story would die down, especially if he didn’t do anything that would add fuel to the fire. But he couldn’t stop poking at the wound, or pressing on the bruise, or pushing his tongue into the place where a tooth had once been. Choose your metaphor. He was no longer trending on Twitter, which was good, but the story had jumped to more of the big gossip websites, which was bad. And also meant that the story might have traveled to a place his sister or his parents could conceivably see it. Ignore it, he told himself. Sure, there were people out there laughing at him, but they weren’t people he’d ever meet, so what did he care? Other people’s opinion of you are none of your business. One of the Scoop’s freelancers had told him that, explaining how she never, ever looked at comments on her stories. His sister was a social-media Luddite, who used Facebook to keep up with her high school friends and never ventured onto other platforms. And as for his parents, they were usually too wrapped up in their own drama to pay attention to his.