Sunlight pierces through the tree canopy above before the camera pans down to eye level. Four hikers, backs to the camera, trudge along a worn path in the forest.
SADIE (offscreen): Say hi, everyone!
At the front of the pack, the guide keeps his eyes on the trail—but the three girls behind him glance over their shoulders and wave. The world blurs as the camera pans around to face the rest of the hikers, some of them quite far behind. Some smile and wave, others are too wrapped up in conversation to even notice.
The camera flips viewpoints, and Sadie’s face fills the screen, narrating as she walks.
SADIE: It’s Day One of my big adventure—I’m on a hiking expedition in California! I’ve never done anything like this before, but I love a challenge. Certain people back home think I’lldieout here after one day—
THORN (offscreen): Can you put that thing away, please? Certain peopleherethink you might die after one day, too, if you don’t watch where you’re going.
Sadie rolls her eyes.
SADIE: That’s Thorn, our hiking guide. He’s been a little uptight ever since we got out here on the trail—but in the interest of proving everyone wrong andnotdying on the very first day, I guess I’ll be following his advice now. Check my stories and reels for daily updates—as long as I have a decent signal—and be sure to turn on notifications so you don’t miss the full vlog recap once I’m back home again!
Sadie blows a kiss to the camera, and the video ends.
4SADIE
I tuck my phone away.
The laid-back guy I caught half naked inside the fake tree isnotthe same Thorn who’s been leading the way all afternoon:uptightwas too kind, honestly.Stick up his assmight have been more accurate, but, well. I was trying to be nice.
He’s been in a mood ever since that phone call with his boss.
“He really is uptight,” someone murmurs from behind me, for my ears only.
I glance back and see the one girl I might have something in common with out here—the one with an engagement ring so large its weight is probably throwing her willowy frame out of alignment as we speak.
“You noticed, too?” I ask, slowing my pace so we can walk side by side. Her fiancé has been glommed on to her ever since they arrived, but he’s lagging behind at the moment, making small talk with the guys from Portland.
“How could I not?” she says, rolling her eyes. “He keeps giving us thislookwhenever Joshua kisses me, like he hates seeing two people in love.”
Thorn probably just hates seeing two people with their tongues constantly down each other’s throats in such performative fashion—it’s a lot even for me, and I’m a romantic!—but I don’t say so. I’m possibly also just alittlejaded: seeing two people so absorbed in each other only drives home the fact that I’m extremely single, extremely alone on this trip, and was supposed to be kissing my own fiancé in Italy right now.
“I’m Zoe, by the way,” she goes on.
“Sadie,” I reply, carefully stepping over an uneven patch on the path. My feet are screaming already and it hasn’t even been two hours. At least the view is worth it: the winding path we’re on is surrounded by the most massive trees I’ve ever seen.
“Nice to meet you,” she says. “You’re here on your own, or…?”
How soon is too soon to share my entire life story and the circumstances that brought me—a city girl who loves soft sheets and sheet masks—to this rugged trail all by myself?
I think it’s too soon.
“Yeah,” I say with a shrug, as if there’s no backstory to it at all. I nod to the giant rock on her finger. “And you’re here with your fiancé?”
I already know they’re engaged—not married—because they both made a point to mention it when we did the briefest of group introductions before heading out.
“Isuggested we spend the entire summer renting out a castle in the French countryside, but did I get my way?” Zoe makes a face, plays it off as a joke, but I sense tension beneath her words.
Maybe I’m just projecting, though, since this trip stood in the way of my own European vacation.
“Let me guess, he surprised you?”
“Yes and no,” she says. “We decided to do two trips this summer—he said I could plan France for July if he planned something epic for us in June. Iliterallyfound outtwo days agowe were doing this hike.Here I was thinking California would just be a stopover on our way to Hawaii, or maybe Fiji.”
I havesomany questions.
