They feel like home.
They’remycomfort zone.
And maybe they’ve been holding me back.
A series of vibrations hits my phone: texts from Danica, hours’ worth of messages only just now finding enough of a signal to get through.
Got your voicemail, sorry I couldn’t pick up. Stay safe out there.
Have you found Matteo yet?
Please have him call me as soon as possible.
I clear my throat, and Matteo looks up.
“You need to call Danica,” I say.
He nods, no fight left in him. “Can I use your phone?” he asks. “Mine’s still dead.”
I hand it over.
But before he gets the chance to call, it starts ringing. Danica—finally.
I nod for him to pick up.
“Thorn?” she says, her voice loud on the other end. “Sorry, Charlotte’s still sick, and I’ve also been having issues with my phone today—I only just got your last text—”
“No,” Matteo cuts her off. “It’s me.”
He doesn’t have to elaborate—she’d know his voice anywhere, that light Italian accent that still clings after all these years.
“Whathappened, Matteo? Joshua called a little while ago for an emergency pickup; he’s at the hotel now. He said you’d left him on his own—care to explain?”
“That’s a load of shit,” Matteo says. “Heleftme.”
“You do realize that’s not much better, right?” she says. “Care to tell me why he felt so desperate to get away from you, and apparently throw you under the bus to your boss?”
Matteo fumbles his words, but finds his way to a full confession after some meandering: how he ditched his post at the rappelling site, how he kissed Zoe behind the waterfall, how he followed Joshua into the woods only for Joshua to leave him behind. He tells her how Joshua stole his phone charger and snacks—and left some seriously filthy laundry behind in its place, which is news to me.
I overhear enough to gather that Matteo’s out of a job.
And when she says, “Let me speak to Thorn,” I start to worry that maybe I am, too, even though I’m not the one who lost an entire person out here.
He passes the phone to me.
“Hey, Danica—I’m so sorry about Joshua, I had no idea—Matty told me they were lost, and his phone had died, and I didn’t want them stranded without GPS, so I weighed my options and decided it made the most sense for me to come help, and—”
“Thorn. Stop,” she interrupts. “You’re not in trouble—you were in an impossible spot. You don’t have to defend yourself for things you had no control over.”
Her tone catches me off guard. It’s night and day from the clipped voice she just used with Matteo, and I don’t know what to say. It’s not at all what I expected—and it’s slow to sink in:You don’t have to defend yourself for things you had no control over.
I most definitely always feel responsible for everything that goes down while I’m in charge, whether they’re within my control or not.
“You’re not in trouble,” she reiterates, “but, given the circumstances, I do think it would be in everyone’s best interests—yours included—to cut the rest of this particular hike short.”
I need a break.
I do.
