The Great Outdoors

Prologue

Whoever came up with the term the great outdoors must never have had the pleasure of staying at a five-star hotel: where mai tais by the pool are only an order away and the spa gives all the refreshing rainforest vibes without anything venomous trying to kill you.

That’s about as outdoors as it gets for me.

Which is why I should have known better than to fall for Caden O’Connor.

I should’ve known by his polite, insincere laugh when I told him the legendary story of the one and only time my mom went camping as a kid: how she and her five siblings helped my grandparents set up the tent, how they gave it their all for two entire hours in the middle of nowhere—but then the bugs set in, and so did the humidity and the lack of electricity, and they collectively decided to go check in to the nearest hotel instead.

I should’ve known on our first date, when he took me for that picnic by the lake. He’d hardly noticed the ants and the mosquitos, didn’t seem to mind the sweat beading on his skin as the temperature climbed. I, on the other hand, hardly noticed anything else.

And I should’ve known by all the comments he made along the way—little things here and there about how long it took for me to get ready, how I couldn’t go anywhere without packing my entire house, how I should learn to “live a little” and “be more spontaneous.”

I brushed his comments off because of course having a plan was better than being spontaneous—being a generally risk-averse person who takes comfort in routine meant I wouldn’t just get to live a little, but live a lot.

I had no problem with his problems with me.

Didn’t even truly define them as problems.

Maybe if I hadn’t brushed them off, I wouldn’t have been so blindsided by the breakup.

It was going to be a pivotal night for us—I could just feel it. I wore my brand-new dress from Kate Spade, a bubblegum-pink A-line with delicate white daisies embroidered on the collar, and my hair has never looked more like that of Catherine, Princess of Wales, than it did that evening.

Which all turned out to be a complete waste.

It was a pivotal night for us, all right, but not in the way I’d imagined.

There was no proposal over chocolate soufflés, no sparkling diamonds or champagne—just Caden and his whiskey sour and the way he casually mentioned he’d be leaving for a huge chunk of June due to a backpacking adventure in California that he’d signed up for on a whim.

One I was, apparently, not invited to.

“But what about Italy?” I asked. I had our entire itinerary planned out, hotels and a food tour and even a day on a private yacht. We’d been talking about it for months, though it hadn’t yet occurred to me that I was the only one to ever contribute to our shared Google spreadsheet.

“Italy’s not really my thing, Sadie, you know that.”

I did not, in fact, know that.

“And backpacking is?” I pressed. “What happened to going on adventures together this summer? You made these plans—even though we’d already been talking about Italy—and on top of that you didn’t even invite me?”

“Come on, babe,” he said, voice dripping with condescension. “You’d be miserable out there. You’d die.”

I scoffed. “I would so not die.”

He was probably right about the misery, but I refused to acknowledge it because it was beside the point. The point was, he should have let me make the choice for myself—and he shouldn’t have planned the trip without me in the first place, especially since he knew I had my heart set on Italy.

“Sadie, come on,” he said, as if we were both in on the same joke. “You know backpacking just isn’t your thing.”

“My…thing?”

He took a long sip of his whiskey sour. “Well, yeah. You like to be pampered, you like five-star hotels.”

Like the ones on our Italy spreadsheet, my thoughts filled in as he paused, probably thinking the same thing and choosing to ignore it.

“You could never sleep in a tent,” he went on. “You melt anytime the air conditioning takes too long to kick in. You can’t live without espresso. You’re too—”

“Too what?” I cut him off, leveling him with my best glare (which, in retrospect, likely had the ferocity and general vibe of a kitten threatening a dinosaur).

“Too extra for a trip like this. Too high-maintenance, you know?”

My only regret in that moment was that I had already drained my wine and there wasn’t even a drop left to toss in his face.

“You could have at least given me the chance to try,” I argued. “You could have at least asked.”

Sure, I’m particular about certain things, a creature of both comfort and routine. But I’m also a person who thrives on being underestimated: nothing motivates—or infuriates—me quite so much as someone saying they think I’m not capable.

“I didn’t think you’d be interested,” he said with an unapologetic shrug.

“Then why plan it at all?” I asked. “And why in June, when we already had Italy on the calendar?”

We hadn’t put serious money down—just some refundable reservations here and there—and it was beginning to dawn on me that maybe, maybe, I’d been too blinded by my own enthusiasm to realize he wasn’t quite as into the whole thing.

“Honestly, Sadie”—those two little words made the bottom drop out of my stomach—“I’ve been thinking for a while that we might just be too…”

I held my breath, as if that could stop the inevitable.

“Too incompatible,” he finally finished.

I blinked. “For a backpacking trip?” I said, the full weight of his words slow to sink in.

“For everything,” he said. “You and me…it’s been fun, babe, but long-term? I just don’t see it working out. We’re too different. We should stop trying to pretend this works.”

“You can’t be serious—are you serious right now?”

Had he never heard of opposites attract?

That was what made us perfect for each other!

So perfect I thought he might propose, not rip the relationship out from under me altogether.

I was the bubbly overplanner, he was chill and go with the flow, and that was why we worked.

We had our little differences, sure, but in a “You complete me!” sort of way. We balanced each other out.

That was when I realized Caden hadn’t embraced—or even brushed off—our little differences like I had: he’d stockpiled them like matches, all these tiny little splinters between us, and then he used them to light us on fire.

I was so stunned, at the time, that my only thought was: maybe it was possible for me to salvage us before we completely burned down to ashes.

“I could still go backpacking with you, though, right? It’s not too late to sign up?”

But then he laughed. Laughed.

“I mean, feel free to sign up,” he said. “People eat that shit up on the internet! Girls who are out of their element and in over their heads? Please do a travel vlog, Sadie—I’d love to see that.” He grinned. “You’d make great entertainment.”

The way he said it did not sound like a compliment.

It was at that precise moment I knew: even if I did manage to prove I was more compatible with Caden than he thought, I wasn’t sure I even wanted him anymore—

But that didn’t mean I was opposed to giving him a front-row seat to my metamorphosis.

I could sign up for the trip, fight through the misery, and thrive.

Sure, it might be more than a little awkward being on a backpacking trip with my ex, but that was part of what appealed to me about the idea!

I could watch his regret start to sink in, that he chose to let me go…

and it would feel so, so sweet for him to admit he totally underestimated me, and was wrong to do so.

I left the restaurant feeling determined but disoriented, dizzy from the emotional whiplash I’d just experienced.

And despite my best efforts to forget, the words too high-maintenance have been tattooed on my brain ever since that night.

I can’t unsee them. Can’t unfeel them. I’ve always been proud of knowing exactly who I am: of knowing exactly what I want, and the meticulous planning it takes to make sure I have, or get, those things.

Caden—chill, laid-back Caden—is the first person I’ve met who not only didn’t praise me for being the most prepared person in his life, but made it sound like a bad thing.

Like I was deficient somehow, like I was overly fragile and might fall apart the instant something didn’t go my way, the instant circumstances were outside of my own control.

Which I was certain wasn’t true at all.

When I told my best friend, Abby, what had happened, she took my side immediately—but hesitated slightly before starting in on the reassurances.

“What?” I’d said at the first lull. “What is it?”

She didn’t reply until I pushed.

Abby looked me straight in the eye. “Okay. So. You’re my best friend, Sadie, and I love you just the way you are. But—as your best friend, I can’t lie to you. Caden isn’t wrong.”

I was quiet for a long moment.

“To be clear, I don’t think he was right for breaking up with you over it, or for not inviting you on the trip, or for planning it when you were supposed to go to Italy,” Abby went on.

“But—c’mon, Sade. I think even you would admit you’re one of the least flexible people on the planet. You like things to go your way.”

“Who doesn’t like things to go their way?” I’d argued, but it was futile.

My ex-boyfriend and my best friend both believed I had a significant flaw in the way I approached life—like I could only be happy and fun to be around under certain circumstances.

Certain carefully curated circumstances.

Well, screw that—I could thrive under any circumstances.

And I was absolutely committed to proving it.