“How did it go? Did it help?”
“We’re at least more on the same page about the hike now,” I tell her. “I said more than I meant to about some other things, though, and he wasn’t ready for it.”
It’s vague and I know it. I can tell she wants to ask more—what started such a rift between us?—but is trying her best to respect my boundaries.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to talk about it.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to talk about itwith her.
“I first met Matteo in eleventh grade,” I say before I can talk myself out of it. “He was an exchange student from Italy, and his family sent him to live with us for an entire year. I’d never had a brother—we hit it off right off the bat. At the end of the year, he asked his parents if he could finish out high school with us, and then he just…never went back. He was the closest friend I ever had.”
“I’m sensing abut,” Sadie says.
“But,” I go on, and she gives a small smile. “There was this girl, a few years later, after college.”
She shakes her head. “It’salwaysa girl.”
“He could have had anybody he wanted,” I say. “But he wanted the one I was dating.” I swallow, watch as a large heron swoops low over the water and lands on a distant rock. “Called me from Peru one day saying he’d decided to move there—and that my girlfriend had gone with him.”
“Sothat’swhy you always make that face whenever he talks about Peru.”
This surprises me. “I make a face?”
“Well, yeah. And it sounds totally justified—I would hate Peru after that, too. Howcouldhe?”
“I’ve been asking myself the same thing for years.”
“Is he still with her, at least?”
“He is.” And then, because something about her legs and her pajamas and her eyes in the moonlight compels me to, I feel the need to clarify: “I’m not still hung up onher, though. We were happy, and she was great, but I always had this feeling she’d move on eventually. The hard part was that she moved onto Matteo. That he not only didn’t resist her—he uprooted his wholelifefor her.”
Sadie studies me. “You lost your girlfriend and your best friend at the same time,” she says sadly. “I get what you mean. Girlfriends come and go—but your best friend is supposed to be there for you no matter what, not part of the problem. And now you’re stuck out here with him for nearly two weeks?” She shakes her head, brows furrowed. “I’m so sorry, Thorn.”
She really does get it.
“If it makes you feel any better,” she says after a long, silent moment, “I got blindsided by a breakup, too.”
The wave of emotion that crashes over me catches me off guard, especially because of the thought attached to it:How could any man lethergo?
“Don’t look so shocked,” she says with a rueful grin. “You’ll laugh when you hear why—he said I was ‘too high-maintenance.’ He was always telling me I should ‘live a little’ and ‘be more spontaneous’ and rolled his eyes whenever I packed too much stuff or did too much research or made too many plans for our weekend trips.”
But I don’t laugh. There’s nothing funny about that.
“He said those things?”
I’m not normally anI-want-to-punch-himsort of guy, but…I kind of want to punch him.
“He did.”
Clearly, his words left a lasting impression. I’ve only known Sadie for a few days, and I already know enough to know there’s some truth to them—she’s definitely an overpacker who’s afraid to be caught in a situation she’s not prepared for—but he made those things into dealbreakers, and it sounds like he made it sting.
“He’s the reason I signed up,” she goes on. “We were supposed to be in Italy right now, but he said he wanted to come here instead—right before he said I wasn’t invited, because he thought I’d ‘die after one day.’?” Her gaze flickers down to her hands. “Turns out he flaked on signing up altogether, though, so…it’s just me.”
I want to take back everything I said to give her a hard time about how much she stuffed into her pack. She had every chance to back out—to not come at all—but she still chose to be here.
“Listen,” I say, and she meets my eyes. “The fact that you’re out here at all, that you’re pushing yourself to try new things that scare you and make you uncomfortable…it’s ahugedeal, Sadie. There’s nothing ‘high-maintenance’ about a trip like this. You’re doing the work, and you’re doing a good job.”
She blinks a few times in rapid succession, hugs her knees tighter to her chest.
