Heproposed.
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 wouldneverhave 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 wouldalmostput 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 yetanothershower (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?LateMarch, 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 beensogood 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 excursionwithoutcompletely 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.
