Page 107 of Every Step She Takes

But I have no idea what the right thingis.

TWENTY-SIXCALDAS DE REIS, SPAINSaturday, May 24, 2025

Sadie

“Three more days and forty more miles,” Inez says at morning tea, a few miles into our thirteen-mile day to Caldas de Reis. “You’ve all come so far, pushed yourselvesso far. I am proud of each and every one of you.”

She smiles at each of us in turn, and when she gets to me, I’m busy staring at Mal, trying to decipher the clench in her jaw. When I woke up in the middle of the night, she wasn’t in bed with me, and it was hard to go back to sleep next to nothing but cool sheets. All morning, she’s seemed distant, disconnected from the rest of us. Even now, she doesn’t seem fullyhere.She’s staring down at a red crystal clutched in her hands, rubbing her thumb in circles across the smooth surface.

“As we draw closer to the end, I want you to consider what you’ll take away from your time on the Camino.”

“Self-confidence,” Rebecca blurts, like she has during every sharing circle for the past two weeks. “I did something I never thought I could do, and I will hold that close to my heart as I face the challenges I got waiting for me back home.”

“The friendships,” Vera says, and Ari drops her head onto Vera’s shoulder with anawww.

“I want to take this newfound love for my body,” Ro says, and Ari shouts, “Yes!” and snaps her fingers.

“Slowing down,” Stefano shouts from his low squat.

“Gratitude,” Rebecca adds.

“Time for self-reflection.”

“Stillness.”

“Pasteis de nata!”

Their voices all weave together with the banter of people who know each other too well, and when the chorus dies down, Inez fixes her gaze on me, like she’s done at the end of every sharing circle for the past two weeks. “What about you, Sadie?”

All of it. Everything everyone else has already said and so much more. I want to gather up the entire Camino and put it in my backpack, keep the version of myself I was here forever.

But for right now, I want to give Inez the level of vulnerability she’s always given us. “I want to keep the part of me that’s learned to be okay with the unknown,” I answer, and everyone turns to face me. “Thanks to this trip, to all of you,” I gesture aimlessly around the circle, even though what I really mean is, thanks toMal.“I finally let myself question my sexuality. I was so convinced that I had to have the right label, that if I didn’t, my identity would be less valid somehow. But it was by living in the ambiguity that I was able to start uncovering who I really am and what I really want.”

And I know Idon’twant to go back to the way things were. I don’t want to keep holding everyone in my life at arm’s length. I don’t want a small life of never leaving that store. I want to go places, see things, have adventures. I want to keep doing things that surprise me. As much as I loved my Nan, I don’t want to keep living someone else’s dream.

I want to stop caring so much about what other people think of me. I want to be kinder to myself. I want to behonestwith myself and with the people who matter to me.

I want all the things I’ve convinced myself I don’t need. A partner. A family, someday. A thousand kisses with the same woman.

And there’s a part of my vacation brain that wants that person to be Mal.

“Mal? It’s your turn,” Inez cajoles. “What do you want to take from the Camino?”

Her thumb keeps tracing the smooth stone. “I-I thought we didn’t have to share?”

Nothing feels more uncertain than what happens with Mal when we get to Santiago.

“Trouble in the love bubble?”

I pull my eyes away from the Galician countryside to see Ari has fallen into step beside me. She gestures behind us, where Mal is drifting along the path behind even Vera. “There is no love bubble,” I tell her.

“Dude.” Ari makes a show of dramatically rolling her eyes at me. “We all know that’s not true.”

I want to look over my shoulder again, but I already know what I’ll see. I force my gaze to remain on the trail in front of me. “Whatever you think you know about me and Mal, it’s not…”

It’s notwhat? I don’t even know what Mal and I are, or where we stand. Yesterday, she let me comfort her through a panic attack, let me see her in all her rawness, all her realness. But today, it feels like she’s closing up again. “Mal and I… we’re just… practice,” I stammer.

“I’m sorry, you’rewhat?”