I start writing, my pen fast and furious on the page.
Everything I’ve pushed away for the past few months comes roaring back in messy blue ink: the anger I felt when Caden blindsided me with our breakup, how he treated my tendency to thoughtfully overprepare as a personality flaw.
So what if I have preferences? So what if I’m particular? We only liveone life—forgive me if I don’t want to spend it in a run-down hotel looking at a pipe spewing something brown out into the waters of Galveston! Why would someonewantto eat gas station hot dogs that have been getting wrinkly for hours (or—*shudder*—days) when there’s a farm-to-table brunch spot two more miles away? Why would Ibuy a ten-pack of something cheap when I could buyonethat will last longer for the same price? Why did he act like it was a bad thing that I like to have a plan—like I was some sort of control freak? I mean, yeah, I like to know what’s going to happen. And I don’t like being caught off guard or unprepared. Does that make me insufferable? Does that disqualify me from being girlfriend material?
The worst part is, he treated me this way only to start dating someone who is evenmoreparticular than I am. All the things that supposedly rubbed him the wrong way about me, all the things that made usincompatible—he’s going to get ten times more of them with Gabriella.
And I cannot for the life of me reconcile the fact that he’s in Italy.
The life Gabriella is living right now is such a stark contrast to where I am, roughing it out here in the middle of nowhere—
Those were supposed to bemyolives and cheese.
My bed. My breakfastinthat bed.
I desperately want that chilled glass of white wine, that view of the sea, that yacht.
I write and write and write, letting my most honest feelings pour out onto the page. And at the end of it, when there’s nothing left, I have an epiphany.
The thing I’m left with is this: as much as I wish I had Italy and all the things I’d planned, I no longer want any of those things withhim. Our breakup stung when it happened, everything he said—and his shameless audacity, now, brings that pain acutely back to the surface—
But it isn’tCadenI want.
It’s air conditioning. It’s gourmet food. It’s a manicure, and not the makeshift kind I plan to do in my tent later. It’s everything I’ve been stripped of on this hike, all of the comforts that can blur the sharp edges of life when things get too painful or hard.
Without those little luxuries—when it’s just me and my blisters and the bugs—the painful and hard things have nowhere to hide.
I look up, take in the way the sunlight catches on the lake.
Thorn’s quiet beside me, but his journal is closed. He’s giving me space, I realize, even though he finished his own entry.
A lump forms in my throat, and I bite the inside of my cheek. My tears have finally dried, and I’m determined to keep it that way.
As challenging as this trip has been, and as drastically different as it is from the Italian vacation of my dreams, I’m not sorry I’m here. Maybe I initially signed up out of spite to prove to Caden I’m stronger than he thinks—but if I’m honest, I think I needed to prove it to myself, too.
I couldn’t care less about impressing Caden now. I have zero interest in being compatible with a hypocrite like him.
I feel a strange sense of peace settle over me. Clarity, contentment—
Closure.
Italy will still be there, waiting, at the end of all this.
As for today, I’m exactly where I need to be. And now I can move on.
15THORN
“Everything okay in there?” I ask Sadie, who’s been inside her tent for more than twenty minutes now.
We’re supposed to meet the others for kayaking in five, but at this rate, maybe I should go on down without her. She was going through something up on the cliff earlier—but I knew better than to ask about it, or to even look like I noticed.
I noticed. It was impossible not to.
“Just a second,” she calls out. “Sorry!”
When Sadie finally emerges from her tent, I do a double take.
She’s wearing a white string bikini and some sort of sheer, sand-colored skirt that covers absolutelynothingup even though it goes all the way to her ankles. Between all that and the gold palm leaf earrings and her floppy sun hat, she’s clearly mistakenday at the lakeforday at the pool.
