And so, instead of walking up the stairs to Sebastian’s room, she went out of the living room, managing to nod pleasantly at Lily Mackenzie, then back outside, to where she’d left her bike.
She pulled out her phone and used Strava to find a popular thirty-mile loop around the city. She went outside and filled her water bottles at a hose on the side of the house. She reapplied her sunscreen, squeezing the dregs out of the bottle in her handlebar bag. She shook out her hair, then smoothed it back into a ponytail, which she threaded through the gap in her helmet. Then she set her phone in its handlebar-mounted holder and swung her leg over the top tube. She allowed herself one last look over her shoulder at the house. Then she started to ride.
Sebastian
Sebastian couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt as wretched and miserable and powerless as he’d felt watching Abby lead Mark into the house.
He’d started to go after her. Lincoln had stopped him, with a hand on Sebastian’s forearm and a warning look on his face. “Give her some space.”
And so he’d gone past the living room and up the stairs, to the room he’d been assigned. It had its own tiny bathroom, hardwood floors, two big windows that looked down over the street, and a high four-poster bed.
Sebastian took a quick shower, listening for the sounds of slammed doors or raised voices, for Abby’s feet on the stairs or Abby’s voice or her knock. He imagined opening the door and seeing Abby there, telling him she’d sent Mark away. Reassuring him that she’d believed him when he’d told her that he’d changed, that he genuinely cared for her, and that she was not the final square on some fictitious bingo board.
After ten minutes of waiting in a towel, he was starting to get cold, and he’d noticed that his wet hair was dripping on the floor. He got dressed, combed his hair, put on his shoes, and sat on the edge of his bed, scrolling through the pictures he’d taken on the trip, lingering on the one of himself and Abby, in front of the blue-and-gold metal plaque that marked the end of the trail. He had his arm around her waist, and she was looking up at him, smiling. Where are you? he texted. Is everything okay?
Abby didn’t reply. When a knock finally did come, Sebastian jumped off the bed.
“Just me,” said Lincoln.
“Have you seen Abby?” Sebastian asked. Lincoln shook his head.
Sebastian went downstairs, asking Jasper, then Lily, then each member of the Spoke’n Four, if they’d seen her. Nobody had. He’d gone outside, to the garage where they’d stowed their bikes. Abby’s bike was missing… so at least he knew what she was doing, even if he didn’t know where.
He thought about getting on his own bike and trying to find her, but by then night was falling, and he realized that, unless she’d lost her phone, or her phone had died, she knew he wanted to talk to her, and was choosing not to respond.
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.