“Don’t worry about herpes,” he said, “It’s a cold sore, you’ll live. It will be good for you, you’ll be ugly briefly and see how the other half lives. What the hell is a wall?” Danny asked.
“A crappy metaphor for I’m not into you,” I replied.
“Did she give any other reasons besides the wall?” Danny asked.
“Other than herpes? No.” I said.
“Are you sure you didn’t do something to her? Say something mean?”
I thought about it and said, “Normally that would be a valid concern, but no Danny, I don’t think so. I’ve never been so nice. For God’s sake, I watched
The Bachelor
with her. If I did anything to her it was being too pathetic.”
“That could be it, no one likes a pathetic person.”
“Could be, but she likes the show, along with most of America, so she probably doesn’t realize how much I sold out by watching it.”
“It’s been a long two weeks,” Danny said, “Maybe she’s just tired. After tomorrow’s rest day, she’ll come to her senses.”
“We’ll see,” I said, but I seriously doubted it.
* * *
The next day, the second rest day, Alyssa was gone when I woke up. A few hours later, she and two other teammates came into the house. They had taken my car to get coffee and hadn’t even invited me. They did the same thing a week ago, but I didn’t care then. Now, hate and jealousy rose up into my throat as we prepared to go for a two hour team ride to spin the legs out.
As we took off, I positioned myself next to Alyssa. The entire team was riding two abreast. Each pair would spend five minutes or so in the wind, then peel off and move to the back of the line. I rode next to Alyssa for fifteen minutes, wanting to say something, but not knowing what. Finally, it was our time to pull into the wind.
The pace for the previous fifteen minutes had been twenty-two miles per hour. When Alyssa and I took over, I half-wheeled her. Half-wheeling is when you’re riding next to someone at a conversational pace and you lift the pace by a half a wheel length or so, upping the ante slightly. The message is, “My easy conversational pace is faster than your easy conversational pace.” Alyssa responded by meeting my half wheel and raising me a half wheel a few seconds later. Neither of us got out of the saddle or made an obvious effort while raising the pace; the idea was to make the lift appear unconscious, that it’s so easy you don’t even notice you’re doing it. I reciprocated, bringing the pace to twenty-four miles per hour.
Twenty-four miles per hour is still a conversational pace, but not effortless. Alyssa half-wheeled me again and I reciprocated until we were up to twenty-six miles per hour, doable, but no longer conversational. I can hold twenty-six for a while, but hadn’t planned to do so today because I just wanted to spin out my legs easy. Alyssa upped the pace yet again and so did I. Then we did it again. We were now traveling thirty miles per hour, a pace neither of us could sustain very long. It was now a matter of who blinked. I would sooner slit my throat than ease up and lose, but it was becoming harder to appear at ease and I was supposed to be resting my legs. My breathing was getting louder by the second. I covered this by casually taking a sip of water, so Alyssa could see out of the corner of her eye that I was not in difficulty. That seemed to do the trick and she slowed down.
I won the meaningless half-wheel contest and felt good, briefly. I pretended not to notice that Alyssa failed to keep pace, and kept riding at thirty miles per hour for a few more seconds. Then I turned my head and pretended to notice, for the first time, that Alyssa was having difficulty with our little jaunty pace. When I looked back, she was already thirty yards behind me. Our teammates were nowhere to be seen. Obviously, they were content not to burn out their legs on their rest day, as even sitting in the draft at thirty miles per hour is an effort.
I turned around and rode back to the host house by myself. After a few turns, I realized I was lost. I sat at a red light, panicking that I’d spend the entire rest day lost, in the sun with no food or water. As I straddled my bike on the side of the road, a pickup truck pulled alongside me and turned on his windshield wipers, knocking wiper fluid into my face. He cracked up and peeled out. Asshole.
Two hours later, I finally found the host house. I grabbed Sonny, and went outside. The euphoria of my triumph at the “half-wheel” game was long gone. I sat outside and felt sorry for myself in the shade. Danny came out back and asked, “Did you eat lunch?”
“No,” I said. “I’m not hungry.”
“You need to eat,” he said.
“I will.”
“You need to snap out of this before you ruin your race. She’s not worth it. You’re acting like a girl.”
“I am a girl.”
“You’re acting like the type of girl you don’t like.”
“Yeah, I am pathetic,” I replied. “I just can’t stop thinking about her. I’m confused. I just want to know what happened.”
“Does it really matter? How many people have you dumped who had no clue why you dumped them?”
“All of them,” I said. “That doesn’t mean there wasn’t a reason. There’s a reason and I want to know what it is. She put opera on in the car when we drove back from hooking up and I changed the channel. Maybe she thinks I’m not cultured.”
“You’re not cultured,” Danny said helpfully.
“So, should I be dumped for that? Fuck culture. Who wants to hang out with someone cultured?”
“It’s possible that Alyssa does,” Danny replied. “Who cares what it is? It could be anything. Maybe it’s because you curse every other word, or because you’re a total slob.”
“I am not,” I insisted, though I knew he was right.
“Your car looks like you took a garbage can and dumped half of it in the front seat and half of it in the back.”
“True, but eight women are using that car right now. I doubt she realizes the car always looks like that. Plus, I’m not a total slob. My clothes are clean, I’m clean, my bike’s clean. Maybe it’s because I’m a music idiot.”
“This is a fun game,” Danny said. “I’m learning all of your insecurities. Why do you think it’s because you’re a music idiot?”
“Because she had a lady singing on her voice mail and it sounded so unpolished, I thought she sang into her voice mail because it sounded a little like her. She looked at me like I was an idiot and said, that’s so and so. Some lady I never heard of. From the context, I take it that it was someone famous, but I don’t know because I’m a loser and listen to Neil Diamond and Barry Manilow.”
Danny laughed hysterically and said, “Don’t forget Air Supply.”
“That’s not the worst of it. I tried to cover my mistake by saying, ‘I know that, I thought maybe it was you singing her song into your recorder.’”
“I think we’re getting closer to the problem, but does it really matter? What will you do when if you find out?”
“Depends,” I replied. “If it’s a valid reason, I’ll change. I’m all about self-improvement.”
“Right. You’ll change. You’ll be a neat, cultured music snob, then you and Alyssa will live happily ever after.”
“Maybe,” I said. “Part of me wants that. The other part of me just wants her to like me again so that I can then crush her soul.”
“That sounds healthy,” Danny said.
“That’s the way it is. I don’t even know if I’m thinking about her because I like her, or if I’m thinking of her because I’m competitive and don’t want to be rejected. Either way, I want her back.”
“You have to stop taking this personally,” Danny said as if getting dumped isn’t personal. “You’ll ruin your life like that guy who didn’t realize you dumped him for confusing the words advice and advise, in an email to you.”
“But I didn’t do anything stupid like that,” I said.
“That music thing was pretty dumb if it’s really someone famous. But forget it, you read that sex advice columnist, Dan Savage, right?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Well, one time some guy wrote in and said he was weirded out because he caught his girlfriend having sex with her brother. Her excuse was that they started doing it as kids and never stopped as they entered adulthood. The guy wanted to know if he was being a jerk for judging her for fucking her brother when she was great in every other way. Dan’s advice was, dump the mother fucker. He then explained that the guy shouldn’t worry about it because there’s some other man out there who is going to think that’s the hottest thing in the world. Let her find
that
guy.”
“I’m confused,” I said. “Am I the judgmental boyfriend or the brother-fucker in your scenario?”
“Neither. The point is, whatever Alyssa doesn’t like in you, someone else will love. Meet that person.”
“I’ve met plenty of men that love my flaws and I’m sure there will be women, too. I don’t want them, and actually, I usually can’t stand them. I want Alyssa for some reason.”
“Then you’ll get her back.” Danny said, “You always get what you want. And, once you get her, you’ll realize you’re straight and not interested in her.”
I knew Danny was trying to help, but I was in no mood to hear how I always get what I want. I was also sick of him telling me I was straight. It was like Danny had no concept that I was going through a tough time because I was gay and heartbroken. I lashed out. “Do you know how I know I’m not straight? The thing that seals the deal?”
“How?” he asked.
“Because of you. You’re jealous of Alyssa and you’ve never been jealous of anyone before. And you’re jealous because you’re in love with me and always have been and now you know it’s not going to work because you know I’m gay even though you’re trying to convince me otherwise.”
I stopped when I saw Danny’s face. It was bright red, including his ears, but he was just standing there taking it. I had never been mean to Danny before because I valued his friendship so much and didn’t want to lose it. But I was so mad and hurt about Alyssa, and so mad that Danny had been such a dick about it, that I couldn’t help myself from turning into a raging bitch. After looking at Danny for a few moments, wishing the words never came out of my mouth, even though I knew they were true, I said, “I’m sorry.”
Danny responded by saying, “You need to eat.” Then he walked away.
“I will,” I said to myself, knowing that I had even less of an appetite than before. I’d heard of people losing their appetites when they get dumped. Break-uporexia I believe it’s called. This was the first time I ever suffered from it and the timing could not have been worse.
* * *
The next morning, Danny was gone. I asked around, but no one knew anything. I didn’t have time to look, as Stage 15 was about to begin. Stage 15 was the stage after the rest day and turned into the bad day I had been dreading the entire race. In cycling, there are inevitably days when you just don’t have the legs. The odd thing is that sometimes you can start a cycling race and not feel strong, then after a few hard efforts, your legs and lungs are better than ever. Unfortunately, the reverse is also true. Sometimes you start a race feeling great, then all of the sudden each pedal stroke is an effort and you lose the will to live. I drank a can of Mountain Dew, praying that the caffeine and sugar would give me energy rather than make me vomit. Neither happened.
The stage finished with two mountains. The second mountain started as soon as the first finished. However, neither were very steep or long. They were actually just steep enough to dislodge the sprinters, though this was mostly because the sprinters weren’t interested in overall time and thus content not to kill themselves up the climb. Normally, I’d be able to hang on this terrain without any problem. However, as the road tilted upwards, vicious attacks ensued. After three accelerations, my legs revolted. They kept turning, but decidedly slower. This was particularly bad, because the third acceleration took place with sixteen miles remaining of the ninety-eight mile stage. Normally, I would take these gradual climbs in my big chain ring, using intermediate gears that I could push fast enough to accelerate, but that were big enough to keep a high speed. Instead, I switched into my “granny gear,” the easiest of my small chain ring and cassette. I generally only use my small chain ring for easy rides where I’m spinning out my legs, or when I’m climbing a steep hill or mountain. The granny gear is reserved for insanely steep hills or mountains. However, on this day, I remained in granny gear and struggled to turn the pedals the entire time. I cursed Alyssa. It was possible I would have sucked on this stage no matter what. But my hard rest day workout and failure to eat could not have helped.
I wound up finishing with the
gruppetto
or
autobus;
the group of sprinters and domestiques unconcerned about their overall time. The
gruppetto’s
only concern is to beat the time cut so she can target a different, flatter stage in the future. The time cut varies on each stage, but is generally twenty percent of the winner’s time on a mountain stage and five percent of the winner’s time on flat stages. Staying with the
gruppetto
was actually a challenge for me, but Alyssa was in there, so I killed myself to stay in the pack, well aware that I was riding on pure hate.
I would have liked more than anything to have finished ahead of Alyssa, but I stayed just behind her so she couldn’t see me, as I looked like pure hell. In an effort to get as much energy as I could, as soon as possible, I ate and drank everything I could get my hands on during the climbs. In addition to the Mountain Dews, I had two bottles of water, a Snickers bar, two cookies and three sugary gel packs. My stomach hurt and became so distended that I couldn’t stand to have the elastic of my cycling shorts around my waist. I moved the waistband down to my pelvic bone, causing me to flash my ass crack for the final ten miles of the stage. I had never suffered so much on a bike.
I finished inside the time cut, but lost eight minutes on the stage. Overnight, I dropped from third place overall to an anonymous eighteenth. I’d lost the race, Alyssa and Danny within twenty-four hours. I didn’t even have the energy to change out of my sweaty cycling gear. I just sat at the finish line, staring off into space.
An hour later, I slid into the Greenburgs’, our hosts for the evening. I wanted to go unnoticed, but everyone was right by the door when I walked in. My teammates tried to comfort me and their support made me tear up. Even Brenda seemed sad for me. Erica looked both sympathetic and upset. She took a chance on me and I let her down. I was holding back the tears successfully until Alyssa came up to me and apologized. I left to sob in peace, with no idea where I was going in this big house.