“You’ve got to be joking.”
“Nope.” I sit down at my desk.
“For how long?”
“Twelve months.”
Elliot screws up his face. “Fuck off. There is no way in hell you would do that. You nearly had me there. What do you really want?”
“I’m deadly serious.”
“You won’t last one hour backpacking, let alone twelve months.” Tristan huffs. “You’re more precious than the rest of us put together.”
Determination fills me. “I’m not useless, you know?”
“If this is about us teasing you last week, we were only joking.”
“This isn’t about you. It’s about me.”
“Being on a death wish?” Jameson replies dryly.
“What you said got me to thinking, if I don’t change the way I am . . .” I cut myself off, unwilling to say it out loud.
“What?”
“I’ve had this idea in the back of my mind for years. I know that if I don’t go now, I’m going to be too old.”
“You’re already too fucking old,” Jameson snaps. “I never saw a thirty-one-year-old backpacker.”
“Because you know so many.” I widen my eyes.
“Why would you want to do this?”
“Because I need to. I need to get my shit together. I’ve always said I was going to do it, and I think now is the right time.”
Elliot is pacing. “I mean, I guess . . . I could rearrange the staff . . . you could work in our offices abroad.”
“No, no contacts. I want to find my own way and earn my keep. I’m only taking two thousand dollars. I estimate that will last me a month if I’m roughing it?”
Jameson bursts out laughing. “You . . . with no money?”
“You kill me.” Tristan laughs. “You spend more money than that in a day.”
“What job are you going to do?” Elliot stammers. His eyes are wide as he waits for my answer. I can almost see his anxiety rising.
“Well.” I shrug casually as if this isn’t the scariest thing I have ever done. “I don’t know yet. Something will turn up. I’ll work it out as I go.”
“No,” Elliot snaps. “No way in hell. You need a plan. Mileses don’t work it out as we go. You’ll turn up dead somewhere. I’m not having you out there alone in the world. There are some bad fuckers out there.”
“You don’t have a choice.”
“This is stupid,” Jameson warns. “And not to mention dangerous.”
“I’ve thought long and hard about this all week, and I know that it’s something that I have to do. If I back out now, I know I’m going to regret it.” I shrug. “I mean . . . how bad can it be?”
“Bad,” Elliot snaps. “Real bad. Coming-home-in-a-body-bag bad.”
I roll my eyes. “Why are you so fucking dramatic?”
“This is dramatic,” Tristan snaps. “Can’t you just get a fucking girlfriend like a normal person?”
“Don’t tell Mom and Dad,” I add.
“What?” Tristan snaps. “How the fuck do you think they won’t notice you missing for a year?”
“I’m going to tell them that I’m doing a course in France. I’ll call them all the time, and I’ll go back to Paris from Spain to meet them for a few days if they decide to visit.”
“Spain?”
“I’m starting in Spain.”
“Why Spain?”
“I don’t know.” I shrug. “I like paella, I guess.”
“Oh, fuck me dead.” Jameson pinches the bridge of his nose. “You don’t go backpacking for fucking paella, Christopher. There’s a kick-ass Spanish restaurant here in London somewhere, I’m sure of it.”
“I’ll call you all every day if you want?” I put my hands onto my hips. “But I am going. You can’t stop me.”
They stay silent.
“And I’ll let you know wherever I’m going in case shit goes south,” I add.
“You’re taking a guard,” Jameson snaps.
“I am not taking a fucking security guard.”
“Why not?”
“Because it defeats the purpose.”
“Is the purpose to get yourself killed?” Elliot gasps.
“Look.” I try to calm him. I know that he’s the one who will have the hardest time with this. “It’s fine. This week you can help me, and we’ll get ready so that I’m prepared for everything.”
He stares at me, and I can almost hear his brain misfiring as it freaks out.
“When do you leave?” Jameson asks.
“Next Saturday.”
“That soon?”
They all fall silent as they process.
“Well . . .” Tristan slaps me on the back. “It was nice knowing you, brother.”
Finger Lakes district, Orange County
Harrington Angus Cattle Station
HAYDEN
I drive the tractor over the paddock. The large wheels bump as I go over the creek between the two paddocks and back toward the house.
I smile into the late-afternoon sun and reach over to pat Nev’s head. He’s one of our trusty cattle dogs and my personal favorite. He sits proudly up on the ledge beside me as we do a final round of the farm.
As usual, the day has been crazy. Three heifers are in calf, and we’ve all been running in circles. As the only child of a farming family, I work hard, helping to run things around here, and there’s a lot to run. We have a three-thousand-acre farm with over five hundred Angus cattle. Thankfully we have staff, but the workload seems to never slow down.
I turn the corner toward the house to see my mom waving me over. I pull the tractor alongside her. “Hey.”
She taps her watch. “What are you doing?”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
“We have so much to do. Remember we’re going shopping?”
I exhale as I jump down from the tractor. “Mom . . .”
“Seriously, Hayden, you leave in two days. Stop worrying about the damn farm.”
“You know, I’ve been thinking. I don’t really need to go anymore.”
“Hayden.” She grabs my shoulders and turns me toward the house. “You booked this trip two years ago.” She gives me a gentle push. “You are going.”
“Yeah, but I was newly brokenhearted when I booked it. I’m not now. I’m going to call the travel agent and try and get my money back. The timing’s not right now.”
“You’re just nervous,” she says. “Stop talking yourself out of it.”
I’ve been sick to the stomach for days. Traveling to the other side of the world alone when I’ve hardly left the house in two years seems utterly ridiculous.
Nervous doesn’t come close.
I’m terrified.
“I don’t want to leave you and Dad in the lurch. I’m needed here. What if something happens when I’m gone?”
“Honey.” Mom smiles up at me. “What Dad and I need is for you to be happy.”
“I am happy.”
“Driving tractors? Birthing cows?” Her eyes search mine. “Most of your friends have left town and got married.”
“So? I don’t care.”
“You don’t even go out anymore.”
I get a lump in my throat because I know she’s right.
It doesn’t make it any easier.
“Hayden.” She smiles. “There are exciting things just waiting for you out there.”
I nod.
“And you are going to be brave and go out into the big wide world and make new friends and laugh and live and not worry about damn cows.”
My eyes well with tears, and I shrug. “I’m just . . .”
“I know, baby, you’re scared.” She gives me a soft smile. “But I’m more scared for you if you stay here through your youth without knowing what’s out there.” She pulls me into a hug. “This farm will always be here waiting for you, Hayden. But . . . he’s waiting for you too.”
“Who is?” I frown.
“Your sweetheart. He’s out there somewhere. I just know it.”
I roll my eyes. “Mom, I’m not going to meet the love of my life in a backpackers’ hostel, I can assure you that.”
“You never know. There’s lots of good wholesome farm boys out there.”
“I guess.” I smirk. “We do need a vet.”
“That’s the spirit.” She links her arm through mine, and we begin to walk to the house. “Or a diesel mechanic would come in handy. Those damn tractors are high maintenance.”
I giggle. “True.”
“A fencer would be great,” she adds.
I laugh. I imagine bringing some poor unsuspecting man home and my father making him build fences for days.
“Let’s go buy you some date dresses.”
“What’s wrong with my clothes?” I act offended.
We both look down at my tight jeans, checked shirt, and steel-capped boots covered in cow doo. “I’m the epitome of high fashion, Mom.” I put my hands on my hips and do a little sashay.
She widens her eyes. “Not really Spanish, though, are they?”
CHRISTOPHER
“And this is it, the BlackWolf Nomad.” The salesman smiles proudly. “The bees’ knees of backpacks.”
I stare at the huge oversize backpack.
“Thank you, we’ll let you know if we need any help with it,” Elliot replies.
The salesman walks off, and I unzip the pack. “Zipper works well.”
“I don’t see how anyone could possibly walk around with that shit on their backs,” Elliot whispers. “What would it weigh when filled? Like, twenty kilograms?”
“Probably.”
“See if there’s one with wheels?”
“I don’t want to look like a wimp, wheeling my bag when everyone else is carrying theirs.”
“Everyone else is an idiot.”
“I don’t want to stand out.”
Elliot chuckles as he stares at the bag. “Trust me, a bag is the least of your stand-out issues.”
I go to another bag and pick it up. I start to go through all the little compartments. In the bottom there’s a little tray. I take it out and hold it up as I look at it. “What’s this for?”
“Hmm.” Elliot takes it from me and turns it over as he looks at it. “A dish?”
“Bit shallow for a dish. Wouldn’t be much of a breakfast, would it?”
The salesman walks back over. “That’s the toilet.”
I stare at him as my brain misfires. “The what?”
“That’s the pan.” He shrugs. “You know, for when you need to take a shit in the woods.”
Elliot throws the pan back onto the bag as if it burned his fingers. “He’s going backpacking, not feral.”
The salesman laughs. “You two haven’t been backpacking before, have you?”
Elliot and I glance at each other but remain silent.
“If you’re stuck in a crowded place and you can’t find a bathroom, go in this pan and empty it when you can. It’s easy as.”
I frown as I stare at this feral animal. “Nothing about that sounds easy as.”
“What? You think he’s going to put it back in his bag dirty?” Elliot snaps, horrified.
The salesman shrugs happily. “It’s an option.”
“That I won’t be taking,” I mutter dryly as I walk away from this animal.
For fuck’s sake, what is the world coming to?
I need to get out of here. I can feel my blood pressure rising by the second. “What is your most popular backpack?”
“This one.” The salesman holds it up. “Without a doubt.”
“I’ll take it.”
“Do you want the black or the red?”
Red.
I narrow my eyes. Is this guy for real? Nobody wants a fucking red backpack. “Black.”
“What else does he need?” Elliot asks.
“How long you going for?”
“Twelve months.”
The sales assistant whistles. “Hard core.”
Hard core . . . what the hell does that mean?
“If I wanted your opinion, I would ask for it,” I snap.
He points to Elliot with his thumb. “He just asked for it.”
I roll my eyes; this guy is getting on my nerves. “What are the essentials?”
“Comfortable shoes, good mini towels.”
“What’s a mini towel?”
He holds up a little pack the size of a deck of cards. “This has a towel in it.”
“Oh.” I nod. “Impressive.”
“What other mini things do you have?” Elliot asks him.
“Apart from the obvious,” I mutter under my breath.
“Stop,” Elliot whispers.
“Compass.” He marches over to retrieve a compass.
“Compass?” I call. “I’m going backpacking, not climbing Mount Everest.”
This guy is a total fuckwit.
Elliot widens his eyes in a shut-up-now sign.
The guy returns and passes me a compass, and I pass it straight to Elliot.
“We’ll take it,” Elliot replies way too fast.
“We have these great water bottles,” the salesman continues as he walks to the other side of the store.
“We are not taking the compass,” I whisper.
“What if you get lost.”
“I’ll look on Google Maps like a person from the twenty-first fucking century.” I roll my eyes.
“You’re taking it,” he whispers angrily.
“I am not taking it,” I whisper. I snatch it off him and stuff it onto a shelf.
The salesman returns with a huge-ass water bottle. “This one here is great. It will stay hot or cold for twenty-four hours, and this long cord allows you to wear it around your neck. And look, it’s camouflage.”
“If you think I’m wearing a camouflage water bottle around my neck, you need to go to the hospital.”
Elliot gets the giggles as he pinches the bridge of his nose. “Do you sell GoPros?”
“Why would I need a GoPro?” I frown.
“Because I want you to wear it strapped to your head at all times so we can watch this shit live as it goes down.”
I roll my eyes.
“This would make great reality television, actually.” He raises his eyebrows as if having an epiphany. “I should call someone; a network would defo want this.”
“Shut. The fuck. Up.” I widen my eyes. “You are not calling anyone.”
“Sleeping bag,” the assistant says as he marches over. “This is vital.”
“I’ll be sleeping in a bed.”
“But you need to have a sleeping bag. There will be times when you can’t get accommodation and have to rough it.”
We narrow our eyes as we stare at him. “Define roughing it,” Elliot replies.
“You know, have to sleep in the woods or in a train station or something.”
Train station . . . seriously?
“Do you sell mini mattresses, something that folds up like the towel?” I ask.
The salesman throws his head back and laughs out loud. “You’re hilarious, man.”
It wasn’t a joke.
“We’ll take a sleeping bag. This kind here.” Elliot taps the display.
“Yellow or black?”
“Are you color blind?” I stare at him deadpan. “The fuck is wrong with you? Nobody wants a yellow sleeping bag.”
The assistant begins to take our things to the cashier station. He piles all our purchases onto the counter. “Will that be all?”
“Yes.”
He begins to ring them up.
Elliot eyes the pile of things on the counter, and I can see something running through his mind.
“What?” I ask.
“How is all that going to fit into that pissant bag?”
Hmm, he does have a point.
“I mean, where do your clothes go?”
“That’s a very good question,” I mutter.
“You travel light,” the salesman says.
“How light?” I frown.
“Just the essentials, like one or two pairs of pants, two pairs of shorts, like three T-shirts, and one jumper. The shoes you are wearing.”
I stare at him as horror begins to fuck me up the ass . . . “I can’t . . .”
“You can,” he says.
My eyes meet Elliot, and he shrugs. “I don’t know?”
How the hell can you live in five things?
Five hours later
“What fucking bullshit is this?” I cry.
Elliot scratches his head, completely perplexed. “We shouldn’t have taken it out of the case.”
“Oh. Great idea, Einstein,” I bark. “Because finding this out in a crowded hostel would be so much fucking better.”
“I just don’t get it.” Elliot spins the directions around as he reads them. “It doesn’t say anything here about this. Is there a button or something you push?”
I search and search. “There is no button, and there is definitely no way this is happening.”
“Jameson went camping. He will know.” Elliot calls the boys while I struggle some more.
“Hey.” I hear Jameson’s voice.
“Hi there,” says Tristan.
“We’re in all sorts here,” Elliot replies as he sets his phone up so they can see us. “I think the guy in the store pranked us.”
“What’s happening?” Jameson asks.
“How is this”—I hold up the giant, huge-ass sleeping bag—“supposed to fit into this”—I hold up the tiny sleeping bag cover. I begin to try to stuff it in again.
Jameson laughs out loud.
“You idiot. You roll it up.”
“It’s impossible,” I cry. “It’s like an elephant trying to fuck a cockroach.” I struggle some more. “There is no way this is fitting into that.”
“Have you heard of lube?” Tristan laughs.
“Obviously not,” Jameson replies. “Have you seen the women he likes?”
“Fuck off. I’m not in the mood for your shit,” I yell in frustration. “This is a complete disaster. I’m supposed to be on a vacation. I don’t have a spare nine hours every day to fight with a disobedient sleeping bag.”
“Lay it out flat.”
“What?”
“Lay it out flat,” Jameson snaps.
I lay it out flat.
“Now fold it in half and then in half again, and then roll.”
“Roll?” Elliot frowns.
“Roll . . . you idiot.”
“Why didn’t that half-wit tell us this in the shop?” I grunt.
Elliot and I get on our hands and knees and try to follow the instructions. We huff and we puff and moan and use all our strength, and to the sounds of Jameson and Tristan laughing out loud in the background, after twenty minutes we finally get it in.
“Now, fuck off.” I pick up the sleeping bag in its cover and kick it up the hall as hard as I can. “You’re not coming with me after pulling that bullshit. I never want to see you again.”
“You have to take it,” Elliot snaps.
“No way. It’s a four-man job, and I’m not a magician. I’ll happily freeze.”
Four days later
The plane touches down on the runway, and I blow out a long hard breath.
This is it.
In a moment, I will leave my comfortable first-class seat to find an Uber and travel out into the unknown with no money.
I don’t know what to expect other than the knowledge that my accommodation costs eighteen euros a night, I have nowhere near enough clothes, and I hate my sleeping bag with a passion.
Forty minutes later I walk out to the taxi stand feeling very pleased with myself.
Collected my luggage without a hiccup, and all is good in the world.
“Hello,” I say to the driver.
“Hello.” He smiles.
“Can you take me here, please?” I show him the address on my phone.
“Sí.”
“Great.”
He pops the trunk, and I put my backpack in, and I hop into the back seat.
He gets in and starts the car. I smile happily out the window.
Everything is running so smoothly. This is a walk in the park.
He puts the pedal to the metal, and we go zero to one hundred miles per hour in five seconds flat. He pulls out in front of a car, and they get on the horn.
“Ah.” I grab hold of the seat in front of me. “What are you doing?”
He changes lanes, and the tires screech; my eyes widen in fear. “Slow down,” I bark.
He goes across five lanes of traffic at high speed. “Relax.” He laughs as he waves his arms around. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
“Nothing about your driving is okay!”
He speeds through a red light, and I scrunch my eyes shut as I grip the seat in front of me for grim death.
“Slow down,” I demand.
He goes over a bump in the road so fast that I bounce high and hit my head on the roof.
“Ahh,” I cry. I peer out the front window at the oncoming cars.
Get off the road. We’re all going to die!
He takes a corner so fast that it feels like the car is going to roll over, and I contemplate jumping from the car.
Finally, after the most terrifying twenty minutes of my life, he pulls to a stop.
“Here you go.”
I get out and slam the door. “Never pick me up again.”
“Okay.” He smiles.
Dickhead.
I take my backpack and walk up the stairs of the hostel. It’s big and looks like a cheap and nasty hotel.
I walk in through the front doors and hear chanting.
“Drink, drink, drink.”
I look through the double doors into what looks like an outdoor courtyard bar.
A large group of people are gathered around a giant beer bong.
A guy is lying on his back, just about drowning as everyone screams and laughs.
The smell of bad body odor roils my stomach, and my eyes widen in horror.
What fresh hell is this?
