Chapter 32 Sadie
I wake to birdsong and warm sunlight streaming in through my tent walls. Combined with the babbling brook outside, I feel like I’m in a fairy tale—
Until I remember my conversation with Thorn, and register the raging caffeine headache from yesterday that’s still going strong this morning.
This day of silence and solitude came at a great time: it’s the perfect excuse to keep to myself and work through all the feelings.
From somewhere deep in my backpack, my phone vibrates, a sound I’m not used to at all after so many days out here.
I honestly can’t believe I’ve managed to forget about my phone for this long—the only reason I even charged it last night is so I can film more vlog footage at some point.
I rummage around until I find it, then discover I’ve missed a series of texts from Abby, the most recent from just a minute ago.
Dread pools in my stomach as soon as I scan through them.
How am I supposed to not look at Instagram after seeing her texts? My phone is a grenade, a ticking time bomb. I want it as far away from me as possible—in another solar system, perhaps, or at the bottom of an active volcano.
Whatever it is, it’s probably better to just know than to put it off—I’m only going to wonder until I check. It’ll be like a bikini wax, I tell myself: even if it turns out to be a searing flash of pain, at least it’ll be over soon.
I take a deep breath and open the app.
Caden’s photo is at the very top of my feed.
Actually—to be more specific—the collab post between Caden and Gabriella is at the very top of my feed.
Glittering Italian water. Glittering diamond ring.
Smiles, sunlight, sparkling champagne in sparkling glasses, glaring and blindingly bright, every bit of it filtered and airbrushed to cover up the inevitable imperfections that might have marred their moment.
They’re engaged.
He proposed.
I don’t even want to do the math on that timeline. It’s either too fast or too insultingly, infuriatingly, overlappingly slow.
Even if I’m over him—which I absolutely am (this is all the more confirmation that we would never have worked out in the long run)—the sting of being rejected, not good enough, pushed aside and moved on from at lightning speed is a jagged pill to swallow—
Especially right after Thorn pushed me away, too.
Tears streak hot and fast down my cheeks.
Suddenly, the birds are too chipper, the morning too bright, the ground beneath me too rocky and uneven and hard.
What I could really use right now is a spa day.
I close my eyes, try to imagine I’m anywhere else but here, all alone in my tent in the middle of nowhere: I’d start with a long, hot shower. My hair would be clean, and I’d get a blowout in the salon—yes, even before my two-hour massage and the facial that would wreck it to pieces.
The massage would come with eucalyptus essential oil and hot stones and a soundtrack that would almost put me to sleep, but not totally, because why sleep through something that hurts so good?
The facial, too, would be relaxing in its own way. And when I emerged from all this pampering, I would take a paperback into the sauna, read until I couldn’t stand the heat anymore, take yet another shower (followed by another fabulous blowout), and then read for a few more hours by the pool.
All of this would need to happen in, say…March? Late March, or maybe even early November. Any other month in Texas, I’d just get sweaty again by the pool, or it would be too chilly to be enjoyable.
So in this fantasy, we’ll just say the weather is perfect.
My daydream includes a fruity beverage, complete with an umbrella and a tray of chocolate bonbons.
Also, crucially, it is all free.
To my left, Abby and Jonathan would be on lounge chairs, too. She would be reading a magazine, while he would be…hmm. I bet he’s the sort of guy who reads really twisty sci-fi novels, so maybe one of those?
To my right, there’s—
Thorn.
My eyes fly open. The sudden brightness only intensifies my headache, so I fling my arm across them to block the sun, but in such an uncoordinated way that I accidentally hit the bridge of my nose with my wristbone.
Welcome back to reality, Sadie.
Sweaty, rocky, achy, miserable reality.
I have a choice to make, I decide an hour later, after I’ve (unsuccessfully) tried my best to just go back to sleep and forget.
I could either continue to wallow—about Thorn, about the engagement grenade, about how I’m stuck out here for another few days—or I could try to look for silver linings somehow.
Wallowing has its appeals.
But I’ve been so good this whole trip, not spiraling into a boneless heap of self-pity—and I kind of feel like the smoke from my bonfire of self-destruction would somehow find its way out of this forest and into the internet and across the ocean, all the way to Caden and Gabriella in Italy, and they’d just look at each other and laugh.
Did Sadie seriously think she could make it through a twelve-day wilderness excursion without completely falling apart? they’d say to each other. I bet she’s been miserable this entire time! At least she didn’t die.
Well, screw that.
I’ll be going the silver-linings route after all, I guess.
Step One in the playbook: if I can’t pamper myself with a spa day, I can at least put on my freshest set of clothes. I’ve only worn my light green tank top twice, and my flouncy sky-blue lululemon skirt (skort, technically) has spent most of the trek at the bottom of my pack.
Step Two: my hair.
My dry shampoo is on its last legs, so I’ve been going extra days between applications. Now seems like a good time to use it—and a few minutes later, after I’ve distributed it throughout and run a brush all over, I can say it was definitely worth it for the smell alone.
People have given me a hard time, on occasion, for getting all dressed up even when I’m not planning to go anywhere.
To which I’ve always replied: never underestimate the power of feeling cute.
Everything is easier when you feel put together, I don’t care if it’s the dishes or the laundry or being in survival mode out in the middle of the wilderness.
I’m testing my own theory today—fake it till you make it, as they say—hoping that everything underneath my skin will start to feel as fresh as I look on the surface.
As soon as I unzip my tent door, I freeze: it’s like I’ve seen a ghost—and the ghost in question is all of my coffee stuff, complete with my beautiful ceramic mug.
I know who it’s from before I even notice the note tucked beneath it all. Only one person even knew I left it behind, and only one person would rescue it, and carry it in his pack, and then leave it for me when I need it most.
Unfortunately, that person is one and the same as the guy who essentially told me to go away last night. So rather than being purely thrilled to see it all again…I’m feeling mostly confused.
It doesn’t get better when I read the note.
Sadie, it reads, Heard the guys ran out of coffee. Saved this for you—you’ve come a long way out here, and I thought now might be a good time for you to have it back. I did not, unfortunately, rescue your copies of WILD and EAT PRAY LOVE. ;) xo, Thorn
The more I read it, the angrier I get.
He says I’m a distraction, and he expects me to keep my distance—but he leaves the most thoughtful gift ever, all while calling back to one of our first conversations and making a joke?
And what is with the winky face?
And the “xo, Thorn”—???
It is the most jumbled of mixed signals. Does he want me to leave him alone, or does he want me to fall head over heels in love with him? Because this note—this gift!—does not communicate go away. Not at all.
If he’d wanted to talk to me, though, he would have just given it to me. He would’ve wanted to see the look on my face and reap the rewards; I can think of a number of ways I would’ve liked to say thank you.
I have no idea what to make of this.
Silver linings, I coach myself.
I won’t have to have the caffeine headache from hell today. Neither will Hunter and Silas and Trey—after all the coffee they’ve shared with me, I’m happy to return the favor.
I rip out a page from my journal and scrawl out a little note.
Before I left home, Abby helped me portion my coffee grounds into their own little Ziploc bags so it would be easy to know how much I needed without having my coffee scale with me; I pull out six of them, enough for the coffee bros to have two servings each. There’s plenty left over for me.
The guys aren’t around when I finally emerge to go drop off their surprise, but I arrange everything in a neat pile outside of Hunter’s tent like Thorn did at mine.
At least I can feel good about that one thing today.
Twenty minutes later, I’ve successfully brewed my own cup.
Thorn was right, I admit, despite myself: today really is a good day to have this small luxury back.
The guys’ coffee was delicious, but mine feels like home.
So does my beautiful mug, the weight of it just right in my hand—and the artwork, its cheery little sun-and-rainbow scene, feels like a pep talk from Past Sadie, who paid an eyebrow-raising amount of money for this little ceramic vessel simply because it sparked joy.
I meander down by the brook, looking for a good place to set up for a while.
Some of the others had a similar idea—Parker is reading in the meadow, and Trey’s made his way to a little hill full of wildflowers.
Zoe’s much farther down, set up with a good view of the waterfall, sunbathing in her stylish one-shouldered swimsuit.
For the first time today, I spot Thorn: he’s about halfway down the brook, a central location between here and the waterfall where he can keep an eye on as many of us as possible. Probably best to keep my distance.