“I didn’t know.” What a damn fool.
Jensen’s hand moves to my shoulder, and his squeeze is so tender that it somehow makes everything worse. “It was an adventure,” he says, his voice low enough that it’s for my ears only.
Three days of blisters and sore muscles and freeze-dried meals and peeing in the woods, and for what? For just missing her?
“You said Kristen still has time on her reservation?” Jensen asks conversationally. “Any chance we could stay here for a night or two? Happy to pay you, but it would be a relief to get a break from sleeping on the ground.”
Rick looks between us, and I force myself to smile. My grip on composure has about thirty seconds left on the clock.
“We’d appreciate it,” I manage.
“Sure,” Rick says, his burly shoulders moving up and down. “It’s got two bedrooms and a bathroom with hot water. The mattresses are old as dirt, but it’s a step up from tent camping. I haven’t gotten to emptying out the fridge or cupboards,so help yourself to whatever. We’ve got another party coming in three days, but it’s yours until then.” He waves toward the trees. “I’m not far if you need anything.”
“Thanks,” Jensen says. “It’ll feel like five-star luxury.”
Rick smiles, then studies me for a moment. “You look like you could use some comfort,” he says. “I think you’ll find it here, although I’m sorry you missed your friend.”
She’s not my friend. She doesn’t know I exist. She’s a woman I’ve been pouring admiration into like water into a well with no bottom. Convincing myself that the act of loving someone’s work from a distance means we have a legit connection. I don’t haveanything except a parasocial attachment to a stranger that I dressed up as a bucket-list quest so I wouldn’t have to face the truth. I wanted an excuse to run from the barren emptiness of my actual life toward someone who might have the map out.
Because that’s what Kristen Quinn is, if I’m being honest. A proxy for the version of myself I haven’t managed to reclaim. The one who feels things deeply and isn’t so goddamn afraid of wanting more that she settles for nothing.
Rick waves as he turns away, disappearing up the narrow trail.
“We’re going to figure this out.” Jensen’s hand on my shoulder feels like the only thing holding me upright. “You did something big, Sloane. Don’t lose sight of that.”
“I could have rented a fucking ATV and made it here in hours instead of days.” I hate the way my voice cracks. I hate the burning behind my eyes and the lump in my throat. Most of all, I hate that Jensen is witnessing every graceless, falling-apart second. “Before she left. God, I’m so stupid.”
“You’re not.” He says it like a fact, then steps past me and opens the door. “Let’s take a breather and regroup.”
I don’t want to regroup. I want a time machine, different instincts, and to be the kind of person who Googles basic logistics before launching a multi-day wilderness expedition. I want to undo every choice that led me to this moment—the place where I finally proved to myself that I could be brave and spontaneous and alive again. Instead, it’s just another mistake.
I learned my lesson about impulsivity when I followed my ex-boyfriend to Colorado with nothing but a duffel bag and the deranged conviction that love was enough. Then he dumped me on the side of the road like a wad of trash. After that, I’d sworn off spontaneity in order to build a life where nothing could catch me off guard. I never left the house without a plan until cancer changed mine. I thought being sick was the reason I’d lost my spark. But maybe it’s just me.
Jensen holds the door open, and I appreciate that he isn’ttrying to fix this moment with words or jokes or that devastating smile of his. And in the silence, perhaps without knowing it, he’s making space for me to fall apart and not trying to catch me before I’m ready to be caught. I need that more than I can say.
I walk past him into the cabin without making eye contact. Under any other circumstances, I would love the rustic space that smells like pine and decades of guests. A stack of paperbacks sits on the end table, and the blanket draped over the back of the worn couch looks like it was crocheted by someone’s grandmother.
It’s perfect and awful at the same time. Awful because this isn’t how any of it was supposed to go. Yet, here we are.
“I’m just going to—” I gesture vaguely toward the narrow hallway. “I need a minute.”
“Take all the time you need,” he says behind me.
I shuffle to the first bedroom, dropping my pack with a thud as I close the door and press my back against it. I slide down and draw my knees up to my chest. The tears that wrack my body are the ugly kind that make your ribs ache and nose run, and I don’t try to stop them.
I’m sure Jensen can hear me, but I have a feeling he knows that right now, the kindest thing he can do is to let me fall apart alone.
16
JENSEN
I hearthe bedroom door open and then the bathroom door shut. I’ve been sitting on the couch reading the same damn page ofWaldenover and over again for the past three hours, appreciating not one bit of Henry David Thoreau’s wisdom about the merits of simple living while I listened for any sound to reassure me that the woman on the other side of the wall is okay.
I’ve done plenty of waiting. In hospital lounges during my mother’s treatment. Backstage while roadies set up the stage for the night. In a booth in a Nashville dive bar hoping a woman named Sutton would show up for night three. But I’m not sure I’ve ever felt so alone knowing Sloane’s heart has been broken and I can’t do a damn thing to mend it.
While she was in the bedroom, I showered and changed into clean clothes, then checked out the bookshelf lining the far wall. The cabin has a decent collection of reading material, from field guides to classic fiction to a handful of bestsellers. One of them is a signed copy ofThe Year of Losing It, with a coffee-mug-worthy inspirational quote scrawled inside the cover in loopy handwriting.
I didn’t read beyond that, since I’m not convinced the woman who left it here has anything to offer beyond curatedplatitudes and aesthetically lit selfies. Even if Kristen Quinn is everything Sloane believes, she let Sloane down.