And yet, Abby thought. And yet.
“He doesn’t have anything you don’t have,” she said, her voice muted. “You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s nothing you did. It’s me.”
Mark’s voice was bleak. “So this is it?”
Abby nodded without meeting his eyes.
Mark made an unpleasant noise and got to his feet. “I guess we’ll always have Camp Golden Hills.”
And feet, Abby thought. She’d be on her own for finding pictures of disgusting feet.
“I’ll text you when I’m back home with a good time to come pick up your stuff,” he said. Then he turned and walked stiffly out of the room, out of the house, and out of her life, for good.
Abby sat on the sofa. She wasn’t sure she could move, and she knew she’d be crying soon, but, so far, the tears hadn’t come. She imagined a woman ripping up a winning lottery ticket and throwing its snippets down a sewer. Was that what she’d done? Had she just tossed away her only chance at happiness? Would life with Mark have made her happy? Or would it have ultimately felt like a too-tight pair of jeans, something that looked good from the outside but made her feel constrained, confined, like she’d never take another comfortable breath again?
She rested her head in her hands and thought about how Mark had felt like her destiny; how running into him in Kensington had felt like Karma nudging her toward the natural next step. But maybe she’d been on the wrong staircase. Maybe it was time to stop doing things because they were expected, or conventional, or easy. She’d be home soon, and she’d be at the bottom again, starting over from nothing, but at least she’d be the one deciding where to go.
Abby heard footsteps approaching, someone coming down the hall, and her pulse sped up. But the person who entered the living room wasn’t Sebastian. It was Eileen.
“What happened?” she asked.
Oh, God, thought Abby. “Can you not be here?” she asked. It came out sounding nastier than she’d intended.
Eileen looked startled. Then hurt. She folded her arms over her chest and pressed her thin lips together.
“I wanted to make sure you’re okay.”
“I am fine,” she snapped, somehow managing to make the words sound closer to Like you care.
“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.