“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.”
“That must have been rough,” Sebastian said. Abby nodded, still trying not to look at him, not wanting to be so vulnerable in his presence. She still barely knew him. It was possible he was the kind of guy who would weaponize a confession to serve his own ends.
“So both of your parents got remarried?” Lincoln asked.
Abby nodded. “Right. Parents split up, dad moved out.” Abby remembered how they’d broken the news, calling her and her brother and sister into the infrequently used living room, where they both sat, her mother in an armchair, face perfectly composed, legs neatly crossed, her father on a love seat, his jeans rumpled, shirt untucked, hands dangling, looking like he’d been crying.
“Your father and I have decided to separate,” Eileen had said… and, for all the fighting they’d done, for all the times they couldn’t agree on anything, Abby had found herself dry-mouthed with shock. Eileen’s voice had been uncharacteristically gentle as she’d explained how it would work, how Abby’s dad would have an apartment nearby, until he found a house. How the kids would spend Saturday nights and Wednesday afternoons with him. How he’d call the house every night, how he’d be available to them. Abby’s father’s voice had been muted and hoarse when he’d told them, “I’ll always love you, and I’ll always be your dad.”