Page 9 of Every Step She Takes

FIVE LONDON, ENGLAND

Sadie

I need food. Emotionally. Cognitively. Gastronomically.

I need it to soak up the red wine still lingering in my gut. I need it to put an end to the headache that developed as soon as I smelled the eighty different perfumes sold in Heathrow’s C Terminal.

If I’m ever going to locate my connecting flight to Porto, I need brain fuel, especially since I slept through the breakfast they served on the plane.

I wander through the overstimulating airport, trying to find something edible that doesn’t cost twenty pounds, because my wine-soaked brain can’t handle exchange rates. I eventually stumble upon a cafeteria that looks promising, but as soon as I grab a tray, I spot Window Seat at a nearby table.

Mal. My bad-luck charm.

She’s wearing her giant headphones, and she’s talking animatedly between gulps of coffee. She doesn’t see me, but my stomach drops anyway at the sight of those expressive eyebrows, that bowed mouth, those star tattoos behind her ear.

And it hits me like a solid oak armoire falling down a flight of stairs: I came out to this woman.

That wasn’t a Xanax-induced hallucination.

After years of dismissing every suspicion, ignoring every impulse, and repressing every damn feeling, I told the first ostensibly queer woman I saw that I’m a lesbian because three glasses of wine and a Xanax convinced me I was dying.

Probably. I’m probably a lesbian.

Or… maybe a lesbian?

Maybe I’m queer, or maybe I’m just having a nervous breakdown.

Except what did Mal say? In my experience, not many straight people feel the need to come out in the midst of a near-death experience.

Another flush of embarrassment sweeps over me.

I told a beautifully handsome, effortlessly confident stranger that I’ve never had sex. She must’ve thought I was ridiculous.

The funny thing is, Mal didn’t make me feel ridiculous at all. She treated every misguided word that came flying out of my mouth, no matter how absurd, like it was important.

Across the cafeteria, Mal glances up from her coffee, and I instinctively duck behind the partition to avoid being seen. Like a child.

When I stand up again, I catch a glimpse of her hazel eyes.

The V of her lips is curled into an easy, amused smile as she talks to the person on her phone.

Mal isn’t merely Beautiful/Handsome; she has the air of someone who is completely at home in her own body.

She moves her lean frame and her slender limbs with purpose, with intention.

I bet she’s never apologized for taking up space in the world.

I can’t believe I told her I’m a lesbian.

And based on my picture-perfect memory of her mouth, I can’t believe I didn’t suspect I might be a lesbian a long-ass time ago.

As soon as I take my phone out of airplane mode, I’m flooded with messages from Vi. I find a bathroom with weirdly podlike stalls and rummage through my pack for my toiletries. In front of the mirror, I assess the severe damage.

I look as disoriented as I feel. Heathrow is a timeless vortex, and I don’t know if it’s morning or evening, if I’m hungry or just hungover. If I even exist at all. I do know that my skin looks both dry and greasy somehow, that my eyes are puffy and red, and that I’m sticky everywhere.

I’ve never been this brand of tired before, not even after a twelve-hour day on my feet at the store. I force myself to brush my teeth, freshen my makeup, and redo my hair. Then I find the one place in the terminal that has natural light and take a selfie.

HAPPY NOW? I text Vi once the introductory post is uploaded.

ARE YOU HAPPY? She texts back. YOU LOOK LIKE SOMEONE JUST PUT A GLASS ON YOUR GEORGIAN COFFEE TABLE WITHOUT A COASTER.

IT’S CALLED A BUTLER’S TABLE AND IT’S MAHOGANY, YOU PLEBE.

It’s a three-hour flight from London to Porto, and by the time we land, I’ve been reduced to a hungover, jet-lagged, food-deprived zombie who can barely function.

The utter hell of the customs line doesn’t even register until I’m at the counter and a buff Portuguese man looks up from my passport and asks, “Business or pleasure?”

He’s speaking English, but I blink at him uncomprehendingly. “Are you here for work or leisure travel?” he rephrases.

“Pleasure. Uh, I mean, leisure,” I manage, and he firmly stamps my passport.

I’m back on autopilot, sleepwalking to baggage claim, getting swept up in the crowds of people moving toward the exit.

I somehow put one foot in front of the other until I can see windows, sunshine, and the outside world.

The Porto Airport is nothing like Heathrow.

There’s not a Coach store next to a Burberry, there’s no overwhelming perfume smell, and no one runs into me without apologizing.

The central atrium is compact and relatively empty when I come through the final security doors.

“Ms. Wells!”

My brain doesn’t register my own name until it’s said three times at increasing volumes. “Ms. Sadie Wells!” A hand on my shoulder. “Hello, Ms. Wells!”

Some foggy instinct tells me that I’m supposed to turn toward the voice, and I spot a woman wearing a tie-dyed Beatrix Tours T-shirt and high-waisted linen pants.

“Wow! You look exactly like your sister! I recognized you immediately!” She throws her arms into the air like she’s either praising Jesus or celebrating a tequila shot. “Welcome to Portugal!”

“Hi,” I say, half-dazed, stretching a hand toward this woman. “I’m Sadie.”

“Inez Oliveira!” She brushes aside my hand and opts to take me by both shoulders, planting a kiss on each of my cheeks.

She smells floral and sweet, and her skin is soft, and her lips are on my face, and I’m definitely blushing as she kisses my cheeks.

“I’m your guide to the Camino and your own spiritual awakening for the next two weeks! ”

My brain scrambles through the two frantic Duolingo lessons I attempted on the way to the airport. “Bom dia!”

Inez keeps smiling at me. “Bom d ia,” she corrects, emphasizing the hard d sound.

I pronounced it bom gia , the way the green bird taught me.

“Bom g ia is the Brazilian pronunciation,” she explains.

“I’m from Brazil originally, but here, people say bom dia .

And technically, it’s almost three in the afternoon, so we say boa tar d e. ”

I learned the wrong version of Portuguese. Damn green bird. “Desculpe,” I apologize. At least I know that one.

“It’s nothing!” she says, reaching out for my shoulders again to give them a friendly squeeze.

Inez has the energy of an eighties Jazzercize instructor, the voice of a televangelist, and the face of a Brazilian supermodel.

She wears her hair in a long Afro that frames her face like a halo, her dark-brown skin shimmers with some kind of glittery makeup, and her wrists jangle with chakra beads and crystal bracelets.

“We are waiting for one other pilgrim—” She cuts off mid-sentence, and her already glowing face somehow lights up even more. “Maelys!” she shouts at someone behind me. It sounds like she’s saying Mileys , like there are two Miley Cyruses coming toward us.

But no. There are no Miley Cyruses.

I hear a raspy voice say, “Inez! Did I keep you waiting?”

And I recognize that voice.

She comes fully into view. Blue mullet and tattoos, her pack slung over one shoulder and her giant water bottle swinging like a bell. We must have been on the same connecting flight.

“Sadie!” Inez trills. “This is Maelys Goncalves Costa. She’ll be walking the Camino with us!”

Maelys. Mal. As in a maelstrom. My face is positively on fire.

I didn’t just come out to a random stranger on a plane; I came out to someone on my Camino tour.

Someone I will be stuck with for the next two weeks.

Mal

“Freckles!”

The word flies out of my mouth before I can stop it. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Inez’s confusion, but my gaze is focused on the deep red blush spreading down Sadie’s neck.

The coincidence of it is almost too much. She’s standing there with her stiff trekking pack, looking at Inez for an explanation, because she’s on the tour .

Michelle is truly always right.

Even jet-lagged, hungover, and exhausted, in the unflattering lighting of the Porto Airport, with a look of utter panic on her face at the sight of me, Sadie is the dangerous kind of pretty.

The kind of pretty that makes me want to fly her to Greece so I can watch her watch the sunset on Santorini.

The kind of pretty that makes me want to get a dog or a Costco membership or a RAV4.

The kind of pretty I fall for every damn time.

If I’m going to focus on myself this trip, I need to be far away from Sadie and her freckles.

“Hello again,” I finally say. Very neutral, very detached, very not-Romeo-like.

Inez bobs her head between us. “Oh. Do you already know each other?” she asks in that thick Brazilian accent that reminds me of summer, good espresso, and the first time we met.

I was eighteen, heartbroken and angry as hell at the whole damn world. I had a pair of Vans and my old JanSport backpack, and I set out alone on the Camino Frances from St. Jean Pied de Port. Inez was twenty-two and trekking solo after finishing university in Barcelona.

At first, we just walked together casually, finding each other on the trail each day, sticking together when it was convenient and parting ways when it wasn’t.

Then, one night, we ended up at the same albergue that turned out to have a horrific case of bedbugs that scarred us both emotionally.

So the next night, we splurged and split the cost of a real hotel room, with no bugs and a bathtub where we could soak our aching bodies.

We were inseparable after that, walking the rest of the way to Santiago side by side, staying in the same albergue or shared private room each night.