Chapter 14 Sadie
Sunrise yoga is brutal.
For starters, I’m terrible at yoga on a good day. My definition of a good day, at the moment, is one in which a) I’ve had more than four hours of sleep, and b) my muscles aren’t already sore from an intense amount of hiking. I feel like I have the hangover from hell.
I dragged myself out of bed mostly because I gave Thorn such a hard time yesterday about going—and also because I’m eager to see Thorn, especially after last night.
Last night…yeah. It was so worth it.
I’m also here because of Zoe. She was so enthusiastic about sharing yoga with us, and I know what it feels like when people don’t match your enthusiasm, so I wanted to show up for her. But, um—if she wants people to come back again? Let’s just say I could make use of a suggestion box.
“I thought yoga was supposed to be peaceful,” Thorn whispers when Zoe’s out of earshot, adjusting Brittany’s form, all of us inverted in downward dog.
“I never applied for the military for a reason,” I agree. “Well, for many reasons. But mostly because I don’t like the idea of people barking orders at me before I’ve had my coffee.”
Thorn snorts. “As opposed to people barking orders at you after you’ve had your coffee?”
“Time for a plank, people!” Zoe calls out. “Keep that back flat or I’ll come and make it flat!”
“So threatening,” I murmur as I straighten out into my plank. “Better do what she says or she might come climb on top of us.”
I glance over at Thorn, and oh—what a mistake—
His dark green T-shirt strains over his arm muscles, and I can see every sculpted curve of his shoulders, biceps, and triceps as he holds himself perfectly in the pose.
“I thought you said you were bad at this?” I whisper.
“Bad at yoga,” he whispers back. “Not bad at this part. I do push-ups every day.”
Of course he does.
“No talking!” Zoe yells, finally aware that we’ve been chatting during her class. “Take in the serenity of the moment, people!”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Thorn shaking with silent laughter.
Stop it, I mouth at him, trying hard not to burst into a fit of giggles myself—but this only makes him laugh harder, and it’s totally contagious.
Zoe gives us a look, but she’s in the middle of correcting Trey, who can’t keep his back flat to save his life.
Only a handful of us showed up this morning—Trey, Brittany, Emma, Thorn, and me.
We’re spread out in a single line on a flat, wide rock down by the water, close to the kayaks and where the tennis girls set up camp last night.
The session hasn’t been entirely bad: the view is amazing, and it feels better than I thought to stretch my body.
Zoe knows what she’s doing, yoga-wise, so the class would actually be pretty good if she weren’t in such a bad mood.
She leads us through some sun salutations and on into some poses requiring a bit more balance. I absolutely nail tree pose, if I do say so myself.
Thorn, alas, struggles.
“You don’t have to get your foot all the way up to your inner thigh,” Zoe tells him, her hands on his shoulders to reinforce his balance. “You can just rest it lightly against your calf if that’s better. Imagine you’re a tree, and that your roots go deep into this rock.”
Thorn’s eyes light up, and I know he wants to crack the same joke I do—that trees don’t make a habit of growing their roots into rocks—but we somehow both manage to keep our composure.
When we finally get to Savasana, also known as corpse pose, I’m surprised at how much better I feel. The things that ached before we started are feeling warm and loose, and best of all, Zoe seemed to mellow out a bit toward the end of class.
“The challenge of this pose is to get every single part of your body to relax,” she says. “Close your eyes, listen to the sounds of nature. Let yourselves just be present in the moment.”
It goes well enough until the smell of coffee finds its way over to me—Silas and Hunter and their usual morning routine, no doubt.
“How much longer are we supposed to lie here?” I say under my breath, opening my eyes just long enough to make sure Zoe’s not close enough to notice.
“Until we’re dead,” Thorn replies, and that’s it—I can’t—
I burst out laughing, so loudly I’ve probably woken up any birds that, like me, had a late night.
On my other side, Trey starts to laugh, too, and it’s all over from there.
“Thanks for showing up, everyone,” Zoe says, sounding more irritated than grateful. “Same place, same time tomorrow.”
It sounds more like an expectation than an invitation, but I know better than to point that out.
“Coffee time,” Trey says, leaping up. “Let’s gooooo. Thanks, Zoe! That was awesome.”
Did he have coffee before class, too? Or has he just had so much coffee in his lifetime that it flows through his veins now, making him perpetually energetic?
Brittany and Emma hang back to ask Zoe some questions, while Thorn and I follow Trey up to the campfire.
Hunter and Silas are seated on one log; Matteo and Joshua are on another.
The only person unaccounted for, at the moment, is Parker—she must have slept in.
(If this can even be called sleeping in, since it’s still pretty early.)
“You weren’t wrong,” I say to Thorn as we walk. “You are the most inflexible person on the planet.”
“Oh, you noticed?”
“It was hard to miss.”
“That’s an interesting way to admit you couldn’t take your eyes off me,” he says with a smirk.
“And that’s a confident thing to say for someone who had, like, maybe-we’re-in-an-earthquake balance issues—I couldn’t help but be distracted every time you almost fell over!”
“Well, I can’t help it if my hips are tight,” he says, not even bothering to defend himself on the subject of his balance.
“Actually, you probably could if you stretched more.”
“And what’s your excuse?” he says with a wicked grin. “You couldn’t touch your toes, either.”
Touché.
“I should probably stretch more,” I reply, and we both laugh.
A few minutes later, we’re both sipping coffee from camp cups—the guys made extra again—the two of us pressed right up against each other due to limited space on the log.
“How was yoga?” Silas asks as he rinses off his coffee gear.
“Gonna be sore for days,” Trey says, at the exact same time Thorn says, “Memorable.”
“Zoe was in a mood,” I add. “I’d never done angry yoga before.”
Thorn gives me a subtle nudge in the ribs, and only then do I remember Joshua is sitting right there.
Fortunately, he doesn’t seem to register my comment about his fiancée. He doesn’t seem to be paying attention to anything we’re saying, actually—he’s distracted by Zoe herself, an uneasy look on his face as he watches her demonstrate a complicated pose to Brittany and Emma, who look on in awe.
“I haven’t forgotten your promise from yesterday,” I say to Thorn once the others have started to split off.
His face goes slack. “The…promise…that I made? To you?”
“Okay, so maybe it wasn’t a promise. But you did tell me you could show me where I might be able to get a cell signal.”
“Oh! Yes. It’s a little bit of a hike, but if you’re good for it…?”
The very last thing I want to do after the last couple days of hiking is more hiking. But between the endorphins that have settled in after angry yoga and the artificial energy courtesy of the coffee, I’m feeling optimistic.
We head back to our tents first so I can grab my phone and he can grab his journal. I grab my journal, too, and then we head out.
The hike isn’t long—but it is steep.
“It’ll be so worth it,” Thorn reassures me when we’re halfway up and my legs are screaming.
“Because I’ll be able to text Abby one last time to let her know I’ll be stuck at the top of this overlook for the rest of my life?”
He laughs. “Because the view up here is incredible.”
It’s all wildflowers and rocks so far, but I give him the benefit of the doubt. We aren’t going all the way up the mountain, but there’s apparently a little enclave just off the path that overlooks Mackenzie Lake.
It feels like we’ve been climbing for at least an hour when we finally get there.
One look at my watch says it’s only been twenty-three minutes. Thorn’s right, though: it is an incredible view.
The enclave is little more than a rocky cliff, but it’s not so narrow I’m afraid we’ll fall. We sit cross-legged on the stony ground and take in the water below, along with our campsites just beyond its banks.
I pull out my phone, turn it on.
There’s hardly any battery left—taking that video of Zoe during yoga drained it all the way down to 8 percent—but at least it isn’t entirely dead. I wait and watch and hope, and then: a miraculous two bars of signal!
I beam at Thorn. “It worked!”
“Told you it would,” he says with a lopsided grin. “Better text Abby while you can.”
He pulls out his journal and starts writing, as if to say here’s as much privacy as I can give you.
I snap the world’s quickest selfie and send it to Abby.
Proof of life, I type out in a rush.
Only when I hit send do I notice an unfamiliar message in our text thread—she must have sent it sometime after I left, when I was already out here and didn’t have a signal.
Missing you so much already! I know you probably won’t see this until you’re back, but just wanted to tell you how proud I am of you.
You DID it, Sadie! You are the bravest person I know.
(Also, Jonathan FIIIIINALLY asked me out to dinner!
Torn between fancy French or something romantic but low-key…)
My battery percentage dips down to 6 percent.
I tap and hold on her text until my favorite pink heart emoji appears.
I miss you too and this message is so perfect I could cry, I write back, not even joking about the crying.
I’m so happy for you! I’m also so so so so so sore, and there are a lot of things I hate about being out here, but there are also a lot of things I like…
one of them is named Thorn (and I can’t wait to tell you all about him)