Chapter 37 Sadie
I wake before the sun, in the half-light of dawn, after a night of fitful sleep.
For once, I didn’t dream at all: nothing steamy to make me miss Thorn even more, and no nightmares to amplify my concern for his safety—just fragments of awareness interspersed between shallow sleep.
I give up trying, rummage around for my coffee gear.
As soon as I unzip my tent, I’m met with a surprise: a very Thorn-shaped surprise, stretched out and sleeping in the narrow gap that separates my tent from Zoe’s, not even a sleeping bag beneath him. He’s out cold like he’s never met a more comfortable bed in his life.
Maybe I should make sure he’s breathing, now that I think about it.
I’m pretty sure he is, though he’s lying at an angle that makes it hard to tell. I lean down until we’re face-to-face, hoping for clear proof that he’s not just a corpse on my doorstep.
His eyes fly open, two inches from mine, and it’s all I can do to stifle my shriek of surprise before I accidentally wake the entire camp.
It takes him a minute to process the fact that it’s me right here in his face, especially since I must look like a freshly minted ghost after that jumpscare—but when it registers, he dissolves into a fit of silent laughter.
“What are you doing here?” I whisper, still trying to catch my breath.
“I was sleeping,” he whispers back.
“Well, I did gather that much,” I reply. “What time did you get back? Aren’t you exhausted?”
“Hence,” he says, “the sleeping.” He gives a sleepy grin. “Sometime around two in the morning.”
It’s the sort of easy banter we had before everything went sideways between us, surprisingly effortless after all that’s happened.
“Danica wanted to end the trek early,” he mumbles, eyes back to half closed. “Today.”
“What do you mean today?” I ask. “We’re not climbing the mountain?” After it sinks in for a beat, I also add, “Why?”
“No, we’re still going up, I talked her out of that.
” His eyes flutter open again as he runs a hand over his jaw; his stubble has turned darker and thicker over the last day.
“Everything’s a disaster—Matty, Joshua, everything.
But we’re so close to the end, and she agreed you all deserve the chance to finish strong.
The only thing I could think about, the entire way back, was how much I wanted you to experience the view from the top—and how much I owe you an apology. ”
He looks like a wreck.
He pushed himself harder than he probably should have, just so he’d get a chance to talk to me as soon as he possibly could.
I can hardly handle it, so I try to make a joke instead. “You’re welcome for the distraction,” I say, emphasis on the distraction part, just to call back to the reason he pushed me away. “I’m glad it was the good sort this time!”
He doesn’t laugh, though—and on second thought, I realize it wasn’t very funny at all.
“Sadie,” he says earnestly, propping himself up on his elbow, “meeting you has tipped my world on its side. I can’t get you out of my head—even when we weren’t talking, and even when I was alone in the woods, you were right there with me.
I don’t think there are any circumstances in which you won’t be in my head, ever. ”
He’s fully awake now, fully aware.
“What I realized last night is that I like it that way. I’m so, so sorry I told you it would be most helpful for you to go away.
I’ve never been in this situation, and I see now that I handled it in the worst way possible.
I said what I did because I liked you so much I couldn’t see straight, or think straight—not because I didn’t want you around.
I wanted you too much, Sadie. And I guess I just worried that it would be all too easy for me to lose myself in you, and that scared the hell out of me, because it’s my job to care about other people out here.
All I wanted was to just be selfish for once, to spend time with you, but I didn’t know how to do that and stay focused enough to do right by the group.
It’s a me problem, and very much not anything wrong with you.
” His brows pinch together. “I’m so, so sorry if I hurt you in the process. I can tell I hurt you, right?”
I consider it, everything he’s telling me.
I know it’s all true because it’s completely in line with what I already suspected—it makes so much sense. I think I just needed to hear him say it.
“It did hurt,” I say. “It hurt to know you were pushing me away just because you thought you had to—especially because I could tell, underneath, that was the last thing you actually wanted.”
“You’re right,” he says. “I didn’t want that at all. You’re the best thing that’s happened to me in a really long time, Sadie.”
“You too,” I tell him, and it’s the honest truth.
“You’ve made it so easy to just be myself out here.
Everyone I’ve ever dated has made me feel like I need to tone things down somehow, or pretend to be chill or flexible or whatever else, even when I’m not—but with you, I can just be real.
I can show you all the ways I feel anxious or afraid or particular, and instead of making me feel like those are flaws that need fixing, you make me feel stronger and more capable. ”
I hadn’t realized until now just how safe Thorn makes me feel—and not only the being-in-the-wilderness-together aspect of things. He makes me feel comfortable in my own skin, exactly as it is, whenever I’m with him.
“So, yeah.” I swallow. “I’ve loved getting to know you out here—but I do understand why you were trying to push me away. Our lives are so different. When this trek is over, I just…I can’t…”
My thoughts flutter around in my head, butterflies on a breeze, impossible to pin down.
“When this trek is over,” I start again, “I’ll go home, but you’ll still be here.
Doing your job. So even though it hurt when you pushed me away, I understood.
You have to be in hiking-guide mode out here, and not just because someone’s paying you to do it—it’s more than that, isn’t it?
You care about every single person. You’re committed to keeping everyone safe.
You’re the most selfless person I’ve ever met, Thorn… you’re just an incredibly good guy.”
My gaze flicks down to his lips, and that stubble I wish I could feel, rough against my skin.
“I wish there was some way for our worlds to be more compatible,” I say sadly. “Because you make mine infinitely better.”
He’s quiet, taking in everything I’ve said.
“I feel the same way,” he finally replies. “About all of it.”
Birdsong fills the early morning silence, a pair of chickadees calling out for each other from somewhere in the woods.
“At least we have today together,” I say. “Want to go climb a mountain?”
Thorn smiles, the biggest one I’ve seen from him in days. “Absolutely, yes.”
Not everyone wants to finish strong.
Zoe’s still exhausted after yesterday and has been extra quiet ever since Thorn told us Joshua wouldn’t be joining us again. As for Emma, she has no desire to experience another heights-induced panic attack, this time on top of a mountain—rappelling was more than enough for her.
Matteo agrees to stay behind with them; there’s a little rest stop with picnic tables and a (currently closed) building called the Valerie Portal Store where they’ll hang out in the meantime.
It apparently has incredible cheeseburgers and fries we can look forward to after we get back approximately seven hours from now.
Which leaves only six of us braving Mount Valerie’s 9,872 feet of steep, rocky trails: Silas, Hunter, Trey, Parker, Thorn, and me.
We pare down our packs to only the essentials. And I mean the bare essentials—I empty mine of everything but my water supplies, snacks, a lightweight long-sleeved shirt, sunscreen, and my disposable camera.
“You’re leaving your phone?” Zoe asks, watching as I transfer it into the tote bag of deadweight that’ll hang back with them here at the picnic tables. “Don’t you want to get vlog footage from the top?”
I feel Thorn’s gaze land on me as I answer, but I hold mine steady on Zoe.
“That’s what this is for,” I say, holding up my disposable camera. “I just, you know…thought it might be better to see it through my own eyes. Not a screen.”
It’s more than just that, though I keep this part to myself: the whole reason I started filming vlog footage in the first place was so I could show Caden how wrong he was to underestimate me, and that I not only didn’t die, but passed the wilderness test with flying colors.
Now that the only person I’m trying to prove something to is myself, the entire vlog just feels…pointless. I might still post everything someday since I have so much footage, but it’ll be more travel documentary than anything else, and for better reasons.
When I finally glance Thorn’s way, I can see it written all over his face: he’s proud of me.
“Hey, Sadie,” Emma says, just before the six of us head up. “Maybe you should take these? I definitely won’t be needing them while you’re gone.”
She’s pointing down to her hiking boots.
My poor, battered Ultraboosts have carried me this far—barely—but I’d be foolish to reject her offer.
“What size are you?” I ask, already pretty confident they’ll fit just from looking at them.
“Seven and a half,” she says.
We trade shoes as Thorn passes out hiking poles, and as suspected, they’re a perfect fit. A little stiff compared to what I’m used to, but what they lack in comfort, they make up for in support and traction.
“Everybody good?” Thorn asks, looking from the coffee bros to Parker to me, and then over to the group that’ll be staying behind. “Matty? You good?”
Matteo nods. “Milkshakes on me for the three of us whenever they open,” he says, tilting his head toward the shop. And probably because he can hear everything Thorn isn’t saying—Can I trust you to stay put? Can I trust you at all?—he adds, “We’re good. We’ll be right here when you get back.”
Seven hours is a long time to stay put, I can’t help but think.