It was only by chance that she’d looked up, mid-insult, and had her eyes on Sebastian, not on the road or her phone, in its waterproof case, at the exact instant that Sebastian went down. One minute he was pedaling, his feet moving so quickly that they were almost a blur. In the very next instant, his bike went skidding out from under him, and then he was airborne, flying headfirst over the handlebars, his body finally hitting the road with a sickening thud.
Abby swallowed a scream and rode to him as fast as she could. She reached him as he was getting dazedly to his feet. Shit, she thought. Shit shit shit. In all her years of riding, she’d seen only one bad injury: a woman who’d gotten her tire stuck in the ruts of train tracks, and had gone over her handlebars, just like Sebastian. She’d broken her collarbone. That had been bad. This looked worse.
“Are you okay?” she called. Sebastian had gotten to his feet but didn’t seem to have heard her. His bike was lying on the road behind him, the back wheel still spinning. Both of his knees were bleeding. His fancy rain jacket was torn, and he was covered in grit and shivering, with water dripping from his hair and his face.
Abby got off her bike and grabbed Sebastian’s shoulders, looking him over, standing on her tiptoes to inspect his helmet, running her fingers over its segments to see if any of them were cracked. “Does anything hurt? Did you hit your head?”
He gave her an annoyed scowl, but she saw his lips were blue and could hear his teeth chatter. “I’m fine. Let me get my bike.”
“I’ll get your bike. You sit.” She led him to the guardrail by the side of the road, quickly checking for poison ivy before she made him sit down, and trotted back onto the pavement, thanking God for an absence of traffic while she collected his handlebar bag and his pump and both water bottles, all scattered on the pavement, then his bike, which appeared undamaged. She wheeled it over to the guardrail, wincing as thunder boomed overhead.
“What happened?” she shouted.
“Don’t know. Must’ve hit something. Branch. Or something.”
Sebastian didn’t sound good. His teeth were still chattering, his knees were both streaming blood, and his face was alarmingly pale. Abby pulled out her phone and called Jasper.
“Hey there.”
“Hey, Jasper. Sebastian’s having some mechanical difficulties.” She didn’t want to alarm anyone else in the van, in case she was on speaker—especially not her mom—and mechanical difficulties sounded a lot less dire than went headfirst over his bike into the road. “There was a little bit of a wipeout, though, so I’m going to call an ambulance…”
“No.” Sebastian grabbed her arm. His teeth were still chattering. “No ambulance. I’m fine.”
“You have to get checked out.” Abby blinked rainwater out of her eyes. “Company policy.”
“You. Take me.”
She gave him a careful look, examining his pupils, trying to see if they were the same size. “I don’t have a car.”
“Sag wagon.”
She shook her head. “Jasper’s all the way in Seneca Falls. That’s going to take too long.”
“Uber, then.”
Abby thought. It was possible that a rideshare made sense. Certainly, it would get them to the hospital faster than waiting for Jasper. Assuming she could even get an Uber here, in the ass end of nowhere. “Okay. Jasper, I’ll call you back.” She ended the call and looked at Sebastian, trying to figure out what to do first.
“Let me see your helmet.” His hands, she saw, were shaking, and it took him a few tries to unclip the straps. “Do you think you passed out when you fell?”
“No.”
“No, you don’t think so, or no, you didn’t?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Does your head hurt?”
“No.”
“Any dizziness? Nausea?”
“No.” He pulled in a breath, looking genuinely contrite. “I just feel stupid.”
You should. “Don’t worry about it.”
“It’s my fault.” He sounded truly sorry. More than sorry. He sounded wretched. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have made you ride in the rain.”
Facts, thought Abby. She ran to her bike and pulled the first aid kit out of her handlebar bag, removing what she’d need: gauze, rubbing alcohol, Neosporin, Band-Aids. “Let me see your knees.”
Sebastian looked down at his legs, then immediately jerked his head up, squeezing his eyes shut. “Eugh,” he said, and planted both of his hands on the guardrail like he was trying to keep steady.