You can google it. I’ll wait.
If there’s one thing biking is good for, it’s giving you time to be alone with your thoughts… especially if you’re riding through the woods of upstate New York, where the scenery’s pretty but not especially exciting, and you’re undisturbed by cars, or people, with nothing to focus on but whatever’s going on in your brain. As the miles unspooled, I went through all the stages of grief: denial （this can’t be happening!）， anger （I didn’t do anything wrong!）， bargaining （maybe if I post an apology this will all go away）， depression （my love life is over）， worse depression （my entire life is over）， and, finally, acceptance—as in, maybe I did do something wrong. Maybe I need to think about why I felt the need to behave like a kid who’d just stepped into Baskin-Robbins and was determined to sample all thirty-one flavors before he left. Maybe I need to, as the saying goes, do some work on myself. Maybe there’s a problem here.
That mess was compounded by the fact that the ride leader was a woman I’d met, years before. We had met the old-fashioned way: in a bar, at the tail end of a bachelorette party. We didn’t spend much time together, but I felt an immediate connection with her, a sense of I want to know this person, and I want her to know me. I’d never felt like that before. But I didn’t get her number. I didn’t expect to ever see her again. When it turned out that she was the one leading this bike trip, I felt incredibly lucky, that the Universe was giving me another chance. When the scandal began, I felt incredibly un-lucky, that this woman was seeing me in the worst light possible. I thought she would never trust me… and, worse, that she’d be right not to trust me.
I knew that it was time to make changes. And, as it turned out, the two weeks on my bike were just the start of my journey. Without going into the goopy, woo-woo therapy-speak details, I spent the next weeks and months working on myself, trying to figure out why I’d had bountiful sex but very little intimacy. Some of it had to do with my family, and some of it had to do with toxic masculinity, living in a culture that rewards men for conquests when what we’re really doing is hiding, avoiding, refusing to be vulnerable—which is, of course, a thing you need real strength to do.
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.