Chapter 1
I've always had a knack for making the best of a bad situation.
"Everything is an opportunity," Mom used to say. Today I'm using the fact that the bags under my eyes are deep enough to hold a Costco grocery order as an opportunity to wear the electric fuchsia lipstick that's been biding its time at the bottom of my makeup bag for months. It's amazing. It's wrong for my skin tone. And today, it's going to distract everyone from the top half of my face.
At least that's what I tell myself as I crowd the mirror, filling in my lips. The camera picks up every detail in high definition, so each swipe needs to be perfect, the corners precise.
My chest is tight, and I can feel my heartbeat in my head. Everyone has seen the video.
Michelle, my friend and roommate, pops her head into the dressing room. "I told everyone to give you space. You have five minutes."
"Great!" I force some chirpiness into my voice. If I act like I'm okay, eventually I will be. And whether I'm okay or not, this needs to go smoothly.
I close my eyes and mist my face with setting spray. I'll be talking and sweating for forty-five minutes, so this paint can't budge.
Michelle's face is circumspect as she watches me. She's older than me, early forties, with closely cropped dark hair and a knack for seeing through bullshit. She's a CycleLove instructor too, but today she's only here for moral support. "People are on your side, if that's any motivation," she says. "But if you want to cancel, you absolutely can. Or I can sub in."
"No. Thanks." My voice wavers this time. "I have to do this. Can I just have a minute alone?"
"You can have four." She grabs the door handle. "I'll be in the studio."
I usually don't need reminders about the time. I'm always prompt. "Let's be early girlies," Mom used to say before every Jolee sales "party," and while she may have been wrong about ninety-seven percent of things, I agree with her on this one.
Normally I spend the last few minutes before class listening to the day's playlist and doing visualization exercises. Yes, I know, shut up. It works for me.
Today I pull up the video instead, ignoring the ashamed, sinking feeling in my gut that tells me this is a terrible idea. I don't need to watch it. I've already done that plenty of times in the twelve hours since it's been posted. In the video, my ex-boyfriend, fellow CycleLove instructor and indiscreet asshole Caleb, is sitting in a booth at a restaurant, cozied up to our colleague Paige. He's talking shit about me, clear as day, oblivious to the person filming surreptitiously from several feet away.
I skip to the comments.
She's annoying as hell. Too peppy. Don't know how he put up with her for 2 years.
Umm CULT. They broke up and now he's with Paige? Or was there overlap? Are these people only allowed to date
each other?
He's kinda right about her tho. I always thought she looked dead in the eyes even with that big smile.
Was not expecting the people who tell me how to ride a bike to give me so much drama but I. AM. HERE. FOR. IT.
This is BS. She's a genuine ray of sunshine. I look forward to her rides every week.
That one. That last one, that's why I need to suck it up and get out there. Approximately fifteen hundred people are clipping into their spin bikes at home right now, waiting for me to show up and kick their asses with rainbows (metaphorical) and glitter (occasionally literal, though not today) so they can feel good in their bodies.
I straighten my sports bra-fuchsia, to match my makeup-and pull up the waistband of my metallic black leggings. I may have the sad brown eyes of a basset hound right now, but I also have the lipstick, and my recently highlighted horse mane of a ponytail is as perky as ever. There is nothing I can do about the video, or the things people are saying about it on the Internet. The only thing I have control over right now is what I do when I walk out of this room.
I lift my chin and open the door.
My producer, Isabel, is hovering outside, an unfamiliar pinched line between her eyebrows. "Oh, thank god," she says. As we stride toward the studio, she scrolls through metrics on her phone. "There are a lot more people than usual taking your class today. You're up, like, thirty percent."
"Awesome!" My heart thumps. "You're a star for helping me with the playlist. I don't think they'll be disappointed."
She blinks. "And you're, uh, good?"
"Of course."
The tension in her face disappears. "That's my girl."
I slap the faux graffiti on the brick wall just outside the studio, like every CycleLove instructor does before class, putting enough oomph in it to make my hand sting. guts, it says in white spray paint. I used to get chills every time I performed this ritual. It felt like a miracle that Tracy, our VP of Content, chose me to join the ranks of the largest interactive fitness platform on earth.
I still love the wall. It's a symbol of determination, only keeping you out if you aren't tenacious enough. Or if you can't find the door.
"Morning," I sing as we enter the room. Aran, our camera operator, waves, a new Dodgers hat atop his head. "I knew you'd cave and get the black one eventually." I make my way to the bike.
He flashes a sheepish smile. "I couldn't resist it."
"Hey, I will never argue against you buying yourself a treat, Aran."
The studio is dark and minimalist. Neutral tones, a plain background, the only lighting focused on me. Other than Aran and Isabel, the room is usually empty during my classes. This is a recent change, and it took some getting used to. Before Tracy recruited me, I taught live to big groups of people, and for my first eighteen months here, we had in-studio riders.
The company got rid of them after a shake-up with the board of directors-something about a meddling investor and a failure to maximize our stock price. At the time, I didn't pay much attention. I didn't realize corporate politics would have such a big effect on me. Maybe I should've watched Succession.
But then they implemented "strategic changes." New music licensing deals that oblige us to highlight certain artists. Odd brand partnerships, including one that required me to apply deodorant on camera in the middle of class. And toughest of all, scrapping the in-class riders.
I always used to feed off everyone else's energy. Now, it all has to come from me.
I climb onto the bike and clip in. My water bottle is here, and my sweat towel is neatly rolled in the left cupholder, exactly where I like it. My plan for class is cued up on the monitor to my left.
But something isn't right: Tracy is in the corner of the room, with her chunky round glasses, meticulous gray bob, and suit-and-sneakers combo. My stomach lurches. Tracy is great, but she rarely watches my classes live. This can only mean one thing: She saw the video.
CycleLove has over fifty instructors, and I'm not dead last in terms of popularity, but I'm not near the top either. It didn't concern me before the board shake-up-I get paid generously to do what I love full time, and that was enough-but then people started getting fired. Replaced with instructors who better fit the new strategy.
Tracy's always had a brilliant vision, and she's committed to nurturing talent. She spends time with each of us individually, reviewing recordings of our classes, critiquing fairly, and listening to us when we express an opinion. She's a badass who goes toe-to-toe with the other executives and uses words like stakeholder with confidence, but she's also perceptive and creative. With everything happening at the corporate level, she's under a lot of pressure. The last thing I want to do is let her down.
Besides, I don't have a choice. This job is the best thing that's ever happened to me. I get to do something fulfilling and, thanks to the healthy paycheck, rebuild my dismal credit score in the process. To secure my place, I have to claw my way up the ranks, not hover in the middle.
I need to prove to Tracy and the board that I'm irreplaceable, regardless of how many other cheerful blondish cycling instructors there are in this world. And now, it appears, is my chance.
"One minute," Isabel says.
In the video, Caleb talked to Paige as they sipped their cocktails. On the outside she's bubbly and perky, but on the inside? There's nothing there. She's a cold, empty person. I actually feel bad for her.
I lean forward so no one can see my face, pressing a towel against my eyes. Breathe: in and out, in and out. Are those five hundred extra riders here for a workout or to see whether I let the humiliation get to me?
"Thirty seconds, Quinn. Are you going to be able to do this?" Isabel asks. The bright lights prevent me from seeing Tracy, but I know she's waiting to hear my answer.
guts, the brick wall says.
"Yes." I fight to keep my voice steady.
"Fifteen seconds."
I take one more deep breath. As I exhale, I visualize everything bad I'm feeling-the swirl of unpleasant emotions threatening to overwhelm me-as an awful red mist filling my body, and I breathe out every last bit of it. When I inhale again, it is lush, sunlit green, the color of springtime and fresh starts.
"Five," Isabel says. "Four."
I can do this. I will do this.
"Three. Two."
I slam the towel to the floor with as much force as I can muster. My head snaps up, and I feel my long, straight ponytail arcing backward over my head as I make eye contact with the camera, a broad smile on my face.
"One."
I raise my arms. "Welcome to CycleLove! I'm Quinn Ray, and I'm so excited to be here this morning. I don't know what the weather is like where you are. It's surprisingly cloudy today in Los Angeles. But it doesn't matter, because for the next forty-five minutes, we're going to create our own sunshine right here on the bike."
The first forty-two minutes are great. My playlist works, my stories and jokes and motivational words flow. Without in-studio riders, I can only gauge my performance by how it feels, and this ride feels good.
I exhale as we near the end of the final climb. "All you have to do to get through this moment, and any difficult moment, is breathe and keep going."
I scroll through the leaderboard to choose a few people for shout-outs. It's then that I see the hashtags below someone's name: #welovequinn #raysofsunshine.
My fingers tense on the handlebars. I keep scrolling and see the hashtags again and again. They planned this, my regular riders. It's a show of solidarity, a message telling me they support me. That they think Caleb is wrong.
"Breathe and keep going," I repeat. "It's what you've always done."
The thing is, I'm not sure my ride-or-die crew is right.
Four weeks ago, I was heating up homemade lentil soup on Caleb’s stove when he told he wanted to break up.
I dropped the ladle, and broth splattered on the backsplash. "What?" Two weeks prior, he'd painted my name across his forehead to cheer me on while I ran a half marathon.
He was in love with Paige, he told me. He hadn't really been visiting his parents in Orange County all weekend. He'd been with her, and he'd be going back to her after I left. "I don't know how it got to this point." He shook his head. "But it did."
"You cheated?" I asked, still a few steps behind.
He had the audacity to look offended. "In my mind, we broke up on Friday."
"And these feelings you have for Paige magically appeared that day? That's convenient."
His eyes went wide. I squeezed the edge of the countertop. In almost two years of dating, we'd never had a fight. "No, I mean-it's hard to say. You and I have been going through the motions for a while. Remember what it was like in the beginning?"
My chest throbbed. On our first date, in a private dining room at a restaurant owned by one of Caleb's friends, he'd told me he was going to fall in love with me. So certain, so open about it. After everything that had happened with Nate, it was exactly what I needed.
"I thought we were comfortable," I sputtered. "We're good together."
"There were good things about this relationship. We're both driven, we're both focused on growing our brands. But there has to be more. I mean, are you really content with this?" He motioned at the space between us, and I felt small. I'd thought I'd done everything right this time, but it was happening again: Me, completely misjudging reality. Me, not being enough. "It's nothing you did," he added, like he was reading my mind. "It's just us."
Did we, like, yearn for each other when we were apart? Did we rush to confide in each other first when something big happened? I guess not. Had we braided our lives together, becoming one unit with two hearts or whatever? That's not a real thing. But we got along, we cared about the same things, we supported each other's goals. I thought that was healthy.
Blood rushed through my veins like river rapids, my chest pounding. I tried to reason the pain away. This wasn't the worst thing, I told myself. He was an untrustworthy shithead, and I was lucky to be rid of him. I wouldn't have to care that Michelle hated him anymore. Everyone at work would be impressed with how gracious I'd be about it. I can handle anything, including this, I told myself, willing it to be true.
"Are you okay?" Caleb asked.
Fuck you, I thought. "I'm fine," I said, and walked out the door.
The video popped up four weeks later. Some people are saying Caleb's words were an attempt to alleviate Paige's insecurities about the shady way their relationship began. But when I heard them leave Caleb's mouth-she's a cold, empty person-I realized they were true.
Caleb was in love with the idea of being half of a power couple. And I liked that too. The difference is, he realized it wasn't enough. I was okay with a relationship that lacked depth because it benefited me in other ways, just like I was okay ditching my best friend Bailey for my career and leaving my parents behind. And I don't know how I became this way.
Copyright © 2025 by Jamie Harrow. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
