“You too.” She smiles. “Enjoy your trip.”
I push out into the afternoon sun and realize I didn’t ask what kind of vehicle Frank drives, but my money’s on the dusty white van parked at the far end of the lot. I’m surprised it doesn’t have a “free puppies inside” sign plastered across it.
I head toward the van and rap my knuckles against the driver’s window.
“Hi, are you Frank?” I ask when he rolls down the window. “The woman inside said you might be able to give me a ride to Red Lodge. I’ve got a room booked at the Edgewater Inn.”
His eyes narrow before his gaze shifts back to a phone propped on the steering wheel with cards fanned across the screen.
“That’s a long drive from here, kiddo,” he tells me.
Ah, mansplaining. My favorite.
“Yep.” Red Lodge is about seventy miles from Billings, but it’s the closest town to the trailhead, and I want to get an early start tomorrow. “If it’s too far, I can try?—”
“No worries. I’ve got you. Things are slow around here during the week, and my luck with the cards is complete crap today.” He hits a button, and the backseat slider door opens. “Need help with your backpack?”
“No, thank you.” I hoist it in myself, my shoulder muscles already feeling the weight. That doesn’t bode well for the next four days, but here we go.
The highway unspools through a landscape that gives themajesty of the mountains I love in Colorado a run for its money. The jagged peaks feel as massive as the Montana sky, and I press my forehead against the window, enjoying the feeling of smallness that has nothing to do with being sick or scared.
Frank doesn’t talk much, which I appreciate as I listen to him hum along to something on the radio. An hour passes, and he takes the exit toward Red Lodge, which is tucked against the base of the Beartooths like the mountains are its best friend. It’s small but bustling, and we drive through downtown to get to my motel. I already miss Skylark—my chosen home—but don’t for a second regret what I’m doing here.
He pulls up in front of the motel’s office, and I tip him extra because he got me here safely and without a word of judgment. Not that a taxi driver should care about my choices, but I’m so used to everyone being up in my business that I savor the anonymity.
The desk clerk, a lanky dude a few years younger than me with a septum piercing, also doesn’t give me a second glance as he takes my information and slides a vintage keychain across the counter.
After spending most of the past year looking, feeling, and being treated like the sick girl, having a couple of random strangers see me as a regular twentysomething woman who may or may not be able to handle herself on the trail is like its own sort of freedom.
Inside the motel room, which appears to have been updated around the time Pacey and Joey were babies, I drop my pack at the foot of the bed and flop down onto the floral comforter. Then I turn my phone off airplane mode, which I should have done when I landed, but…oops.
It lights up almost immediately, and doesn’t stop buzzing with texts to the group chat. Three from Taylor. Six from Piper. Two from Sadie, who’s always shown the most restraint of all of us. Plus a voice memo from Avah that’s four minutes long. I don’t listen but would bet it’s mostly her yelling at me while she stress-bakes. Molly sent a photo of a vase of pink hydrangeas. I also have twomissed calls from Iris—no messages, but it’s still alarming. Iris’s go-to communication preference is tersely worded emails.
They mean well, and I know they love me. But the hovering is what I’m trying to leave behind. I can’t take the hovering anymore, no matter how well-intentioned it is.
Me: I’m good. Everything’s good.
I follow the text with a bright yellow thumbs-up, even though Taylor claims that particular emoji reads as passive-aggressive in anyone under forty. If Jensen were here, I could ask him except…nope.
The replies come so fast their thumbs are going to start cramping.
Taylor: How do you feel?
Molly: How’s Montana?
Sadie: You really don’t have to do this alone.
Iris: I can be there tomorrow.
Avah: Tonight. Iris can use Jeremy’s plane.
Piper: You’ve got the bear spray, right?
This is how they’ve been since I announced my diagnosis at the end of last spring. Ready and willing to drop everything to help.
For my entire life, Jeremy’s filled in when our parents couldn’t be bothered to show up. I’m grateful for my friends, my brother, my bookstore, and the life I’ve built inside the walls of Cover to Cover. But I also lost some of myself this past year.
I made a conscious decision to be positive when I chose to stay in Colorado instead of finding my way back home so that my parents could judge me some more. To be the sunny Sloane my friends know and love and not to let a boringly dysfunctionalchildhood or my textbook rebellious stage define me. I’m sure as hell not going to let being a cancer survivor define me either.
