Paper Flowers (Pretty Plastic People) ★

052. Downhill

052. Downhill

Spencer's back at the house the next morning, but he spends all day in bed. He'll have to go back to get his stitches removed, and he still has a throbbing headache from the collision. Our uncomfortable post-breakup conversation is postponed until he feels better, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.

I hate putting off bad things. I'm the person who does my hardest homework assignment first, who wakes up and does the thing I'm dreading most just to get it over with. But this drags on and on and on. And on and on.

The mood in the house is obviously dampened, but we take our rented bikes out for a spin on the beach anyway. The sand is packed tightly—a perfect surface for the bike wheel—and none of us want to stay cooped up inside all day.

"Sure you're okay to exercise?" Cassidy's asking Nathan, swinging a leg over her bike.

Nathan got completely cleared last night, miraculously without even a concussion, but Cassidy's still nervous. "I'm fine," he says. "Swear. It doesn't even hurt."

"But I read this story about a girl who hit her head in a skiing accident and felt totally fine and three days later she died."

"I'm fine. I'm not going to die." But Nathan's smiling. At least he appreciates her concern—I know it's only out of love. It's not nagging like Spencer always did to me.

"Well I think we need to go kind of slow," says Brynn. She's so short her legs can barely reach the pedals on her giant bike. "This is going to be really awkward for me."

"Just jog alongside us," jokes Liam.

Brynn rolls her eyes. I plop my sunglasses on the bridge of my nose and grip my handlebars tightly, pantomiming revving an engine. "All right! I'm going."

Then I'm off, kicking sand up behind my wheels, whooping. It's at least a hundred degrees outside, and the cool breeze from my momentum is welcome.

It's also a welcome feeling to not have to worry. When I'm biking, I only have to think about dodging people tanning in beach chairs or passing a volleyball back and forth. Not the car crash, and my unwarranted suspicions. Not Celia and Taylor's urgent conversation at the hospital last night. Not even Spencer, who I'm still really worried about.

I'd woken up this morning dazed, uncertain if the previous night's events had actually happened. It 's an increasingly common sensation. Things just feel surreal—they hover in front of, blurry and out of focus like a piece of abstract art. And no matter how much I tilt my head and squint, I can't make sense of it.

My wheel sticks to a huge chunk of wet sand, probably left over from a little kid's toppled-over castle. I skirt around it and Liam, who's the closest behind me, follows. Then he pulls up next to me, close enough that he's within earshot.

"How'd last night go?" he asks, shading his eyes with one hand. He's forgotten to bring his sunglasses despite us telling him how bright the glare would be.

I dodge an upturned plastic bucket. "I feel like now isn't the most effective time to have this conversation."

"Nonsense! Tell me what happened. At dinner. How'd he take the breakup?"

"Not too well. That's why we went home in separate cars. It should have been me in there with him and Nathan."

The next time I glance over at Liam, he's staring straight ahead, concentrating very hard.

"Would you mind talking to Spencer for me?" I ask. "I don't want to put you in the middle, but maybe feel out the situation. Get a vibe. He seemed really upset last night."