Page 70 of Every Step She Takes

Mal laughs into my short hair, my exposed neck. “You don’t say, Freckles?”

SIXTEENA GUARDA, SPAINSunday, May 18, 2025

Sadie

A horrible banging echoes through my head when I wake up the next morning, and it takes me a minute to realize it’s not merely the throbbing effects of my sangria hangover. Someone is banging violently on our hostel door.

“Sadie! Mal! Wake up!” It’s Inez’s voice shouting at us from out in the hall. “You were supposed to be downstairs ten minutes ago!”

Shit. I fumble for my phone on the bedside table, and the screen plainly tells me it’s ten after eight. I slept through my alarm.

Wait, no. I was so drunk, I forgot tosetmy alarm.

I jerk up in bed, and the motion sends the entire room spinning.

Sangria? Never again.

In the opposite twin bed, Mal attempts to get up, but gets caught in a tangle of sheet and duvet and ends up hopping halfway across the room before she falls into a pile of blankets and bare limbs.

“Fuck!” she grumbles.

Fuck indeed. I need to get up, get packing, get downstairs, but I’m afraid if I move, I will have to see that octopus again on the other end. My only comfort is that Mal looks as shitty as I feel as she stumbles into her hiking pants, forgetting to take offher sleep shorts first. Her mullet is plastered to the side of her face, her skin is unnaturally pale, and she keeps hissing words in Portuguese. I don’t have to speak the language to know she’s cursing.

“Are you up now?” Inez shouts through the door.

“Uh-huh.” Mal grunts. “Up! We’re up!”

“You have five minutes to get downstairs.”

Five minutes. Fiveminutes to make everything stop spinning. Five minutes to get over the worst hangover of my life and be ready towalk all day.

At the very least, I need to start by walking to the bathroom to brush my teeth so I can get the taste of sweaty toe socks out of my mouth. I carefully shift my legs over the side of the bed and ready myself to stand, a process that takes an embarrassingly long time. Then it’s an agonizing shuffle to the bathroom, where Mal is standing over the sink, splashing water onto her face. “Can I… teeth?” I barely manage to ask.

“Good idea.”

Mal slides over so we can both brush our teeth in the tight bathroom. Our tired eyes meet in the mirror above the sink, and I’m pleasantly reminded that not only did I get regrettably plastered in the middle of a two-hundred-mile trek, but I also regrettably kissed the roommate I’m still sharing a small space with for the next nine days.

I kissed Mal. Experienced, confident, beautifully handsomeMal. I kissed her like a fumbling teenager withnoexperience and very little understanding of human anatomy. I kissed her like a horny, eight-handed octopus monster.

Shame whirlpools in my stomach at the memory of the eager way I clung to her on the beach, the way she had to guide my hands, my tongue. The way she had to coach me through something as juvenile as a kiss.

I wanted to make a mistake, and I sure as hell didn’t half-ass it.

Mal’s toothbrush dangles from her mouth as she stares at my reflection. She looks like she might say something, her mouth slightly ajar, her eyes fixed on the reflection of mine.

I feel likeIshould say something, but I have no idea what.

I’m sorry I bullied you into kissing me last night?

I’m sorry I enjoyed it so damn much?

It was a huge mistake, and we never have to talk about it again, and please don’t hate me forever?

Bravely, I opt to say nothing at all as we continue brushing our teeth in silence. When she finally spits into the sink, she wipes her mouth on the back of her hand, and states the obvious. “So, this is kind of weird, isn’t it?”

I spit out my toothpaste too. “Very weird.”

“But it doesn’t have to be weird.”