Page 23 of Someone To Claim
Accordingto the built-in thermometer on my Garmin, it’s fifty-six degrees inside the tent and another ten degrees colder outside. The Rocky Mountains are all about the fuck around and find out vibes once the sun goes down. I tuck my gold notebook into the tent’s side pocket and burrow into the sleeping bag like I’m going to get anywhere close to comfortable tonight.
Dinner was a foil pouch of freeze-dried beef stroganoff that had the taste and consistency of oversalted sludge. It was filling in the technical sense, but satisfying only in that I managed to set up the packable stove and boil water all on my own. Buoyed by that success, I inhaled it like I was in a Michelin-star restaurant. By the time I cleaned up and changed into the thermal leggings and crewneck that will be my pajamas for the next week or so, it was nearly pitch black in the clearing where I set up camp.
In case you were wondering: pitch black and alone in the Montana backcountry is scary AF.
The forest didn’t get the memo about being quiet after dark. Creatures that I won’t attempt to name make rustling sounds in the dense brush around the campsite. It’s the wind, I tell myself, when a branch cracks somewhere above me. Or a bunch of fat squirrels partying like it’s 1999. Imagining feral squirrels getting their freak on is safer than thinking about lying in a thin nylon tent with something bigger heading my way.
I passed a few other groups after the lunch couple, and one solo guy with a beard so thick his mouth got lost in it, but I didn’t see anyone for the hour before I set up camp. I hiked longer than I’d planned for day one, trying to make up the time I lost thanks to my late start at the trailhead. Pretty sure my feet and back are going to want to throat punch me in the morning.
We’ll all have to suck it up, though, because I’m still behind, although not horribly. Two and a half days and I should reach the cabin and finally meet Kristen Quinn. Assuming she hasn’t packed up and relocated to some hot-air balloon over Argentina to do a new ten-part Instagram series on gratitude.
Even with my swirling thoughts and the sludge in my stomach, I’m proud of myself. One thing I learned fromThe Year of Losing Itis not to gloss over the little victories. I survived today, and I’ll do it all over again tomorrow. I might be a little lonely and scared, but those two emotions have become close companions this past year.
And I’m ready to have it out with them. I can fool my friends and my brother, but one part of my challenge is to stop lying to myself.
I’ve chosen not to think about how it’s going to go when I get to Kristen Quinn’s cabin. What if she’s awful? What if she opens the door and looks at me the way my mother used to: like I’m an inconvenient nuisance? Will this trip be a story I’ll eventually joke about with friends? A cautionary tale about what happens when a woman who’s desperate to say fuck cancer does it by choosing an insane and reckless adventure.
Nope. Not going there.
My friends succeeded at their bucket list challenges, even when the endings didn’t remotely resemble what they’d planned at the beginning. There’s no reason to think I’ll be any different.
Okay, I can think of about a dozen reasons. Not one of them is invited to hang out in my brain right now.
Except the other thing I can’t keep my mind from circling back to is Jensen.
He’s probably on his way back to Tennessee now after flying across the country to see me. I gave him five minutes, then I ran. Again.
Because I’m terrified.
It was still a fairly clear message, and the right one because it protects both of us, especially him.
So why won’t my heart believe it?
I shove foam earplugs into my ears to drown out the forest sounds, zip the sleeping bag higher under my chin, and try to fall asleep in a tent in the woods on the first night of living with my newly minted, just-this-moment christened motto: fuck cancerandfear.
9
SLOANE
I wakeup in a tent bathed in sunlight, accompanied by the faint patter of small woodland creatures who are far too bright and bushy-tailed for their own good. My watch reads just past seven, which is a solid three hours later than I expected to sleep on my first night in the backcountry. God bless industrial-strength earplugs.
I take a deep breath of clean mountain air and bask in the tiny accomplishment of having spent a night alone in the woods and lived to tell the tale.
Then I frown because, in addition to pine and dirt, the air carries the unmistakable scent of coffee. Which is odd, because when I set up camp last night, there wasn’t a single person anywhere near me. Or so I thought.
My reeling brain offers several unhelpful theories: I’m either still dreaming, bears have learned to operate a French press, or I’ve wandered into a Snow White fairy tale where I’m going to unzip my tent and find the aforementioned woodland creatures arguing about porridge temps.
Placing the earplugs into the pocket of my sleeping bag, I sit up, nerves sending goosebumps rippling along my arms. There’sbirdsong and the chattering squirrels overhead, but not a single human voice, offering zero clue as to where that coffee smell is coming from.
I have a knife stowed under my sleeping pad and bear spray wedged into the corner of the tent, neither of which I’m confident I could deploy against a real threat. The most aggressive thing I’ve ever done is slam a paperback shut on a spider, and I felt guilty for days after.
I grab them anyway and command my trembling fingers to get a grip as I unzip the tent one tooth at a time, poke my head through the flap, and?—
“Morning, Sunshine.”
My nervous system goes completely off the rails.
The voice is gravelly and soul-deep familiar. My body recognizes it before my brain can catch up, which is frankly rude, given that my brain is the one hoarding receipts.
