The Breakaway(62)

Morgan swallowed hard. Andy was such a nice guy. Like a Great Dane puppy, all gangly arms and legs. He’d probably jump up and start licking her face if she let him. He had bright blue eyes, and freckles, and a friendly, welcoming kind of face. He’d offered to fill her water bottles that morning, and pumped up her tires the day before, and his eyes followed her wherever she went. She could tell he had a crush on her, and she was getting ready to take advantage of that, and she felt horrible about it, but she was going to do it anyhow.

Andy reached across his plate, piled with sandwiches and orzo salad, like he was going to pat her arm or take her hand, then seemed to think better of it and let his hand drop. “What’s going on?”

Morgan licked her lips. “It’s…” Without meetings his eyes, she said, “I have an appointment in Syracuse, tomorrow morning.”

“An appointment?” Andy repeated.

“At Planned Parenthood.”

“Oh,” said Andy. Then, after a beat of silence: “Oh.” She didn’t miss the way his gaze dropped toward her belly, then quickly flickered up and away.

Yeah, Morgan thought. Oh. She felt shame burning through her, along with anger at Brody, her boyfriend, who was walking around an army base with no idea what was going on, while she was all alone, trying to find a way out of this trap.

“I know where it is, and it’s not that far from the B and B where we’re staying.” Morgan had checked and rechecked the map to make sure of it. The Planned Parenthood office was less than two miles from their lodgings for the night, and less than one mile from the trail. “I’m going to ride there. I just need to figure out how to do it so that my mom doesn’t find out.” She paused. “And I need someone to come with me.”

“Your mom doesn’t know?” Andy asked, his voice cracking.

“No,” Morgan said. She looked around and lowered her voice. “No,” she repeated. “She doesn’t know and she can’t find out. I’d be in so much trouble.”

“Okay.” Andy nodded. “Okay.” He drained his water bottle, then tapped his fingers on his knee, thinking. “Okay. So maybe, in the morning, we can tell Abby that you and I are riding together, and that we’ll catch up with everyone at lunchtime? We can hang back from the rest of the group, and I’ll go with you to your appointment.”

Morgan nodded. That’s what she’d been thinking.

“Only… are you going to be able to ride when it’s over?” His Adam’s apple jerked as he swallowed. “And do you know how long it’s going to take?”

Morgan shook her head. “The appointment’s at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. I don’t know how long I’ll have to stay, or how I’ll feel when it’s over. I don’t even know if they’ll, you know.” She swallowed hard and made herself say the words. “If they’ll do it—the procedure—at the appointment, or if they’ll give me pills to take later.” At least she knew that those were the choices.

“Okay,” Andy said.

Morgan looked at him. What do you think of me now? she wanted to ask. Do you look down on me? Do you think I’m dirty, or dumb? Are you hoping I’ll sleep with you because I slept with some other guy? But Andy didn’t seem to be thinking any of those things. Maybe she’d underestimated him. Maybe he was better than that.

That, somehow, made Morgan feel even worse.

“You’ll help me?” she made herself ask him. Andy swallowed hard, then nodded.

“Sure,” he told her. “Whatever you need.”





Abby


She’d tried her hardest to avoid Sebastian, but it felt like everywhere she turned, every time she looked over her shoulder, there he was, pedaling along, smiling at her. When they’d stopped at Utica Bread that morning, before they’d gotten on the trail, he’d ordered her a chocolate croissant. That afternoon, at lunch, he’d offered her a packet of electrolyte powder to dump into her water bottle. That night at dinner in Syracuse, at Dinosaur Barbecue, he’d asked the waitress for an extra pitcher of water and kept her glass full. “So tell me,” he said, nudging a plate of corn bread toward her, then making a show of pulling out his skinny reporter’s notebook, “how you got started riding your bike?”

Abby pushed her plate away, and sat her hands flat on the table, thinking about how to begin. If she was going to be honest, she’d say, Biking saved my life. Only that sounded horrifically cheesy; not the kind of thing she could say to Sebastian. She’d never even said it to Mark.

And a guy like Sebastian had never needed his life saved, had he? The world was an endless series of red carpets for a guy like that; unrolling, one after the other, so that his feet never had to make contact with the dirt. Every door (and many pairs of legs) would open at a touch. The Sebastian Piersalls of the world glided. The Abby Sterns of the world, on the other hand? They thumped along, gracelessly. They had to hustle and grind. Or shrink.

Abby shook her hair out of its bun, then smoothed it over her shoulder, thinking about how to begin.

“My parents split up when I was thirteen. My dad moved out, to a house five miles away.” Four point seven miles, actually. Abby knew the precise distance. She’d ridden it hundreds of times as a teenager. Even after she’d gotten her license, there wasn’t always a car available for her to drive. And she’d still preferred to travel under her own power. “My parents shared custody. I spent three nights a week at my mom’s house and three nights a week at my dad’s, and I’d switch off every Saturday.”