Cycling Downhill: A Sweet Young Adult Romance (Love is a Triathlon Book 3)

by Chrissy Q Martin

  Paul’s phone chimes. He pulls it out of his pocket, looks at it, and sighs. I lean against him, taking in his clean scent while he texts.

  “Everything okay?” I ask after a few minutes. Paul’s body is rigid next to mine and he seems tense. He keeps his phone turned away from my view.

  “It’s Bridgette again.” Paul’s fingers punch fast on his phone.

  “What does she want?” I ask. She’s been texting Paul on and off all day.

  “She’s still mad at me about the race,” Paul says. His fingers fidget on the phone. “She swears she didn’t trip you.”

  “Oh.” I don’t want to add fuel to the fire. Paul doesn’t need to be stuck in the middle of his best friend saying she didn’t do it on purpose and his girlfriend saying she did. “It’s fine,” I say. We can’t change what happened, and I know Bridgette won’t own up to the truth.

  “Has she said anything to you?” Paul asks. Another concerned look crosses his face, and he shoves the phone in his pocket.

  “No.” I’d be surprised if she apologized.

  A relieved look passes over Paul. “Good.”

  “What do you want to do?” I ask. The evening is still young, and we have the house to ourselves.

  My phone starts to ring. Paul looks at it and swears. My eyes widen because I’ve never heard Paul swear. I glance at my phone and it’s a number I don’t recognize. I reach for it, wondering why it alarms Paul. He grabs my wrist.

  “Don’t,” Paul says. I twist toward him, confused. “It’s Bridgette,” he says.

  Paul keeps his hand clasped around my wrist and the phone remains ringing on the coffee table.

  “I guess she can leave a message if it’s important,” I say when the phone quiets.

  Paul’s shoulders hunch and he lets go of me. He places his head in his hands and I hear him swear under his breath again.

  “Is everything okay?” I ask, concerned because Paul is acting strange.

  Paul jerks his head up and glares at my phone as if it’s going to hurt him. “You should take the scholarship,” he tells me again.

  I place my palms on Paul’s chest and lean into him. “But I like the idea of Eastern.” Paul and I could be together every day, and not supervised by his mom, like we are at his house.

  “I should go home,” Paul whispers.

  I let my lips brush against his cheek in small, feathery kisses. “But we’re alone,” I say. I place my lips on Paul’s, but he gently pushes me away. Confused, I look at the furrows between Paul’s eyes.

  “Ash,” Paul says softly. “This isn’t working.”

  I wrinkle my nose. What is he talking about? “But I…”

  “I think we should break up,” Paul says fast.

  A whoosh of air leaves my lungs, like I’ve been punched in the gut. I’m not sure I heard him correctly. This is coming out of nowhere. I never expected this. Not at all.

  “What?” My response is drawn out and confused sounding. I must have heard him wrong. He can’t be breaking up with me.

  Paul grabs my hands, which are still on his chest. His thumbs run over mine. My hands feel frozen and I’m not sure if it’s from cold air or the terror running through me.

  “We need to break up,” Paul says.

  It feels like I’m underwater and hearing the words through liquid. This can’t be happening. While the rest of me feels frigid, hot tears pool in the bottom of my eyes.

  “Why?” I yank my hands away from Paul. His eyes blink and mine fill with tears.

  “It’s for the best,” Paul says in his soft voice, but I hear him clearly. He can barely look at me.

  “How? Why?” My eyes overflow with pooled tears.

  “It just is.”

  “Did I do something wrong?” I ask.

  Paul’s head shakes. “No.” He closes his eyes and opens them again. “It’s me.”

  A tear rolls down my cheek. He’s giving me the generic break up excuse and I don’t believe it for a minute.

  “Is there someone else?” I ask. My thoughts flicker to Bridgette. Paul texted her just moments ago.

  Paul shakes his head. “No.”

  “I don’t understand,” I whisper. Why is he breaking up with me?

  “You’ll understand someday,” Paul says and stands. “It’s just better if we break up now, rather than later.”

  “Later?” The word comes out choked. I have no plans to break up with Paul. Was he planning on doing this? There’s been no sign, no indication of anything. We both verbally professed our love for each other today. I finally told Paul I love him.

  Paul leans forward and places a tender kiss on my forehead, but it feels like I’m being stabbed. “I’m sorry, Ash.”

  Paul walks away from me. The guy I love doesn’t even look back before he leaves.

  THREE

  It hurts. My heart is breaking. The pain is immense, more than anything I could fathom. I know it’s emotional pain, but it’s so much I feel it physically. It amplifies the pain of my injuries and my body pulses in hurt.

  I’m confused. How did I end up here? With a broken heart? No matter what I try, I end up hurt. It’s been an hour since Paul broke up with me, and I lie curled up in the fetal position on my bed. My eyes are swollen, and my nose is stuffy, though my sobs have diminished to a raw numbness. Shaky breaths enter my lungs and I grip the edges of the sheet tight in my fists. I don’t understand why he broke up with me now. Why?

  My phone pings with a notification. It has to be him. It has to be Paul texting to say he made a mistake. He didn’t mean to break up with me. He didn’t mean to break my heart. He didn’t mean to say the stupid cliché line.

  It’s not you, it’s me.

  I roll over on my bed and grab my phone from the nightstand. My hand trembles, from nerves and tiredness, and I try not to drop the phone. There’s a voicemail from earlier and a new text. I listen to the voicemail first, afraid to look at the text.

  Bridgette’s angry voice penetrates my ear. “I know he’s with you. Tell him to call me or I’ll be calling you back.”

  The tears I’ve been crying all night start afresh and roll down my cheeks in big drops and I trash the message. With a clenched fist, I wipe the fat tears trailing down my face and check the text. It’s useless to wipe away the barrage of fresh tears pouring out of me like a waterfall.

  Aquaman: I win

  It’s only been what…I look at the time on my phone…an hour since Paul told me this isn’t working and broke up with me. How did Dylan find out this quick? I slam the phone on my pillow. This is the final nail in my coffin of pain. I’ve lost the bet I have with Dylan. Why did I ever make that stupid bet?

  Dylan winning the bet means I have to go out on a date with him. If I won the bet, Dylan would have to leave Paul and me alone and not work with me during the summer. It was such a stupid bet to make, especially on my part, because I stood to lose more, and not gain anything. I really thought I was going to win this bet, even Dylan thought so.

  I pull a tissue out of the box on my nightstand and use it before I add it to the growing pile on my floor. Everything’s been taken away from me. I didn’t defend my state championship in swimming, I lost my place as valedictorian of the senior class, and I didn’t win a scholarship to my dream college. I overlooked it all, and thought I was running down a new track when Paul and I started dating. An audible sob escapes me, because now I’ve lost Paul too. Plus, I owe Dylan, my ex-boyfriend, a date. He’s the guy who wasn’t really my boyfriend, but I thought it was real. Dylan fake dated me because he was blackmailed by his younger sister to distract me. Andrea was my teammate and one of my biggest rivals in the pool.

  When Dylan started working with me, I forgave him. We became friends and somehow, I let him charm me again and made a bet with him. I was high on a new relationship I thought was perfect. Paul
was the guy I had crushed on, the guy I went to homecoming with, and the guy I thought was perfect for me.

  I sob again and grab another tissue. Paul and I dated for nearly four months, but we didn’t make it to the end of the school year. There’s still one whole trimester left before we graduate. This has to be a mistake. A huge mistake. I told Paul I love him. Why did he break up with me?

  My phone pings again, the noise cutting through the quiet of my empty house. It startles me and my body quakes.

  Please, please, let it be Paul. Let this whole thing be a mistake. Let me not believe this is happening. My fingers punch at my phone.

  Aquaman: You owe me

  There’s an urge in me to chuck the phone across the room. I want to throw it at the poster on my wall of the woman swimming breaststroke. Swimming and school, all the things I loved before and lost, are like my relationship with Paul. Whatever I love, I lose. It’s time to get help and take care of this. I push a speed dial on my phone and wait for the person on the other end to pick up.

  I seriously have the best friend in the world. She left a date with her boyfriend, Nick, who ironically is Dylan’s current best friend, to come over and comfort me after I called her.

  “How did I get here?” I ask. “How have I ended up like this?”

  Nora sits next to me on my bed and hands me another tissue. A growing pyramid of discarded ones litters the floor. “Sometimes you’re high on the saddle and other times you’re left in the dust,” Nora says while I blow my nose. “But you always get back up. You always get back on the saddle. And you’ll do it this time too.”

  “You’re quite the motivational speaker.” I sniff and throw the tissue on the pile.

  “If Paul’s dumb enough to dump you, he’s an idiot.” Nora lies down on my bed and rests her head on my pillow. Her red curls fan out around her. “Did he give a reason?”

  “No.” I wipe my cheek with the back of my hand. “I don’t know what to do. We have classes together and we’ll probably end up at the same college and be on the swim team together.”

  “You’re not going to take the water polo scholarship to the State University?”

  I shake my head. I haven’t told many people of my decision. Dylan accepted a water polo scholarship to the State University and Nora’s also going to attend there.

  “I want to swim, not play water polo.” Eastern is a Division III school, which doesn’t offer athletic scholarships, and I can swim without pressure. For half a second after Paul broke up with me, I considered taking the water polo scholarship, if only to avoid him at college, but I can’t do it. I want to go to Eastern.

  Nora puts a hand on my arm and rubs it. “I’m sorry, Ash, about Paul, and everything.”

  “You know what makes it even worse?” I grab my phone and bring up the text string with Dylan.

  “How did he find out so quick?” Nora asks. “I didn’t tell Nick.”

  “I don’t know,” I say. Paul and Dylan were best friends in middle school, and it’s lucky they ended up at different high schools, because they’re currently mortal enemies. The fact I’ve dated them both hasn’t helped them to reconcile.

  “Now you have to go on a date with him?” Nora asks. Besides my coworker Sabrina, Nora is the only other person to know about the bet I have with Dylan.

  I sigh. I’m true to my word. “I suppose I do.”

  “It’s just Dylan and one date. Isn’t he a friend?” Nora asks. “It’ll be alright.”

  I’m not alright when I wake up Sunday morning. My eyes feel puffy and I rub the crust off my eyelashes. It’s a new day, but I don’t feel like I’m going to be okay. Paul’s broken up with me, and it wasn’t a bad dream. Nora is still asleep, having stayed the night with me. I grab my phone, a sliver of hope still in me Paul texted or called to say he made a mistake. I would take him back quicker than it takes my heart to beat.

  I exhale and glower at the phone. There are no new notifications, and my overwhelmed emotions don’t know what to do. Dylan’s text sticks out at the top of my texting list. He’s always been arrogant with an ego full to the brim. He usually tempers it around me, but having Paul break up with me has made him smug. He couldn’t wait to let me know he’s won our bet.

  In anger, and resentment, I type out a text to him. It really doesn’t matter if it’s six in the morning and he’s asleep. I hope the text wakes him up.

  Me: You couldn’t wait to rub it in my face that he broke up with me. You’re a jerk. I can’t believe I have to go out with you. Don’t expect it to be fun

  It’s less than a minute when my phone vibrates with a text.

  Aquaman: I’m sorry. I didn’t know he broke up with you. I meant I win our bet about Nick and Nora. I’m really sorry to hear about you and Paul

  My stomach suddenly feels like a lead weight is in it. I forgot about our other bet. Nora’s a casual dater, rarely dating a guy beyond three weeks. Dylan and I made a friendly bet on how long Nick and Nora would date. If they date less than three weeks, Dylan’s going to buy my favorite coconut chocolate cream pie for me. If they date longer than three weeks, I’m going to bake cookies for Dylan. They’ve made it one day over three weeks. I groan and Nora twitches. With wide eyes, I watch her, but she doesn’t wake up. I return my attention to the phone. Now I just outed to Dylan he’s won the important bet.

  Me: Well, he did. And you win

  Aquaman: I’m sorry. Need to talk?

  I hold the phone with my left hand, close to my face. The bracelet Paul gave me for our one-month anniversary clings to my road rash injured wrist. The thin cotton strands, once colorful when they were new, are now faded from months of wear. A small silver swimmer charm hangs off the bracelet. Another tear drips down my cheek and I type out a reply.

  Me: No

  Dylan’s the last person I want to talk to right now. I wait for him to text about me having to pay up and go out on a date with him or bake him cookies, but no messages arrive. No more from Dylan and not a single one from Paul. I try to tug the bracelet off my wrist, but I can’t get the knot to loosen. It’s like the knot in my gut, stubbornly stuck in place.

  FOUR

  I hate this. I sincerely and utterly hate this to the very core of my being. With everything in me crying out to confront Paul, to demand to know why he broke up with me, I won’t do it. It’s easy enough to have made up conversations in my head about what I’ll say but doing it in real life is another thing. I’m a chicken when it comes to confrontation, unless I’m seriously worked up, but I’m depressed and not livid enough to confront Paul.

  I’ll put on my fake happy face and pretend everything is just fine. It’s fine the guy I said I love told me it wasn’t working. It’s fine my boyfriend broke up with me and said it’s for the best. It’s fine I’m utterly heartbroken and can’t tell anyone about it. It’s fine I want to hide in my room and burrow under the covers and never come up. It’s fine.

  Everything is fine.

  “It’s fine, Ash,” Nora says Monday morning while we walk to English class. “Maybe you won’t get a class with him.”

  I sigh. It’s fine Paul broke up with me two days ago and we haven’t spoken. It’s fine we’re starting new third trimester classes this morning and I don’t know his schedule.

  Nora and I grab a table and chairs in the back corner of the room. This is the exact same place we sat together in AP English first trimester when school started. I keep my eyes glued on the door, waiting to see if Paul will walk through. My heart beats in a wild, irregular pattern. In its hurt, it’s confused. It doesn’t know whether to be excited or nervous about the possibility of Paul having a class with me. The bell rings and there’s no sign of him. I breathe a sigh of relief. Only six more classes to go.

  “You can do this,” Nora says, and encourages me with a smile when we leave first period. “You might get lucky and not have any classes with h
im.”

  “Right,” I say with no feeling. First trimester I had four classes with Paul and last trimester I had two with him. There’s a chance I could get lucky, but I rarely do.

  “I’ll see you later,” Nora says, leaving me at the door of my second period calculus class.

  “Yep.” I blankly nod. My day is already horrible because I don’t have lunch with Nora, and I won’t see her until the final bell rings. I find a chair in the back of the math classroom and pull out my notebook. Paul walks in, and my heart hitches a beat, and my breath stops. I lower my head to the desk. Paul doesn’t even glance my way. I slyly peek through my eyelashes at him. This stinks. With the way things have been going for me, I’m due to have a little luck, but there is no such luck.

  In third period physics, I can’t decide if I’m seriously lucky or immensely unlucky when Paul joins me at the four-person lab table. I sit on the far right of the table and he takes the stool to my left. This must be a good sign. He’s choosing to sit next to me. If I had walked in the room after him, I would have chosen the seat furthest away so the hurt in my body wouldn’t be magnified the closer I am to him.

  “Hey, Ash,” Paul says. I think there’s a tiny smile on his lips and my body floods with anticipation. “How are your injuries?”

  I blink. My injuries? Does he mean my broken heart?

  Paul’s eyes glance at the road rash on my palms.

  “Oh.” I realize he’s asking about my fall, the one Bridgette caused. “Fine.” My knee is still swollen, and it hurts to walk, but the physical pain is nothing compared to the heartache he’s caused me.

  “Can you do something for me?” Paul asks.

  The anticipation in me turns to relief. He realizes he’s made a mistake. He wants to get back together with me. “Anything,” I say and smile. I wait with a bated breath for what he’s going to say.

  Taylor, my co-captain of the swimming team, approaches us, a grin on her face.

  “Can we still be friends?” Paul asks.