Page 111 of Every Step She Takes

Then Ari reaches for a napkin to honk her nose. Cool, Portland-Hipster Ari.

And then Sadie starts crying, and she makes no attempt to pretend like she’s not.

“I honestly came on this tour because I wanted to escape myself,” Ro continues as the entire table weeps. “I-I never thought… I never thought it would change my life like this. Every one of you has had a huge impact on me.”

Stefano is actively blowing his nose into his sweat band while still positioned in Warrior Two.

“Even if we didn’t talk much, you helped me more than you could know,” Ro says. “So, thank you, Inez, for this tour. And thank you, Rebecca, for never shutting the hell up.”

Rebecca laughs through her tears. “Anytime, dear.”

Inez dabs her eyes with a napkin. “Thank you so much for sharing, Ro.”

“Fuck you for sharing,” Ari sobs. “What is this? Degrassi High?”

Stefano babbles in Italian, reverses his Warrior, and never translates his comments. I catch the wordslove, loss, andmy beautiful friends.

I fix my gaze on the crumbling monastery again. I’m still trying to keep it all in.

“Mal.” I hear Inez say my name, but I don’t turn toward her. “Do you have anything you want to share?”

She’s once again opening a door for me, giving me the chance to finally be honest and vulnerable like everyone else.

“Do you have anything you want to leave behind?” she prods.

I wish I could leave behind my grief, all the complicated memories of my father, all the things we never said to each other. I want to leave behind that childhood trauma, move past it. I want to leave my father’s rejection behind in a neat pile on my hotel bed in Padrón with a note that says “donate.”

I would leave behind my fear of the silence, my fear of vulnerability, and my need to repress, my need to distract myself.

I would stop hopscotching across the world and between women. I would fall in love with Tuesdays and February and the middle of things. I would tell Sadie that none of it was practice, and I would learn to be comfortable in the stillness.

I wish I could leave behind my loneliness, but I don’t know how.

“I want to leave behind these fucking blisters,” I finally say, and I watch the disappointment paint itself across Inez’s face.

In the midmorning sun, we walk along the Rio Vargas and through lush forests, but none of the beauty does anything to dull my misery.

A little before noon, we stop again, at Cafetería Bocateria, a café and market that’s swarming with pilgrims. There’s a tour of at least fifty Spanish people in matching red polka-dot neckerchiefs, another tour in yellow neon T-shirts, and while everyone else braves the crowds for drinks or snacks, I find myself a random cinder block out of the way and sit down.

Sadie makes it in and out of the market quickly, and when she comes to sit on a neighboring cinder block, she’s holding a Bueno bar. She opens the package and passes me half. The simple gesture of this Bueno bar nearly rips me wide open. The bar tastes like lonely summers and kissing Sadie in my childhood bedroom. Ending things with her last night was definitely the wrong thing.

I want to tell Sadie that I started falling for her when we shared that pair of headphones on the flight here; I want to tell her that when I kissed her on that beach, it wasn’t for science; I want to tell her that the sex was never for practice. That I spent two weeks trying so hard not to fall in love with her, and fell in love with her all the same.

“I talked to Inez,” Sadie says, licking melted chocolate off her fingers. “And she said we can switch roommates for tonight. If it’s okay with you, I’m going to room with Ari and Vera, and Stefano is going to stay with you.”

“What? Why?”

“I thought it would make things easier,” she says with her eyes on my Hokas.

And I want to tell her that I don’t wanteasier. That I wanther.

But that’s what I always do, and I’m trying to do better.

“That sounds good,” I say, even though it sounds completely intolerable.

When we get to Padrón, Sadie follows Ari and Vera up to the third floor, and Inez hands the final key to Stefano and me. As soon as the door to our room closes, Stefano pulls out two bottles of cheap Vinho Verde. “I got wines. We will drink wine, and you will tell me how you messed this all up, okay?”

C’est La Vi with Me