“To find yourself, probably,” KT says. “The real you, underneath all that expectation.”
“Or to find a way to get out from under the expectations,” Chloe suggests. “To find love for yourself as you are. The unconditional love your parents haven’t provided. What about your dream?”
“Oh, well…” I have lots of goals. I do the whole one-, three-, five-, and ten-year projections on January first, giving me pages and pages of goals. But I’m definitely questioning all of it now, and I realize I’m really not sure what my dreams are. “Maybe to have something of my own one day. A business of some kind. Maybe in hospitality. Maybe my own line of hotels.”
“That rocks,” KT says, echoed by Chloe. I realize I’ve never shared my biggest dreams with anyone, not even my parents. I’m warmed by the reception of ideas that seem well out of my reach.
The roof of the cabin rattles, and we all look up and shrink until the gust passes. “One thing’s for sure. I never expected to spend my twenty-third birthday like this.”
“Today’s your birthday?” they ask in unison, then look at each other and say, “It’s yours too?”
The spontaneous choreography of the moment makes me laugh. But then I sober, and a tingle raises the hair on my arms. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-three,” they say in unison again.
KT looks at me and Chloe in turn. “Are you guys shitting me?”
Chloe and I shake our heads, and while KT and I continue to find this unbelievable, Chloe beams. “This is proof of divine intervention. This is how the universe or spirit or God—it doesn’t matter what you call it—shows us our path. There is no way all of us ended up trapped in this room together by accident or coincidence.”
Her conviction is infectious.
“I know you’re both skeptical,” she says. “Most people are. It’s difficult to accept that there is an unseen force at work for our greater good. One that yearns for us to be the best version of ourselves, but I hope you’ll continue searching once this retreat is over, because the more you look, the more you see.”
Chloe finishes closing the wounds on KT as best she can and grins at both of us. “For now, I think we should just rest and get to know each other.”
We take turns in the bathroom, finishing the cleanup process, and rummage through the available clothes to find dry T-shirts, tank tops, and shorts to wear. When I find out whose belongings we’ve scrounged, I’m going to buy her a new freaking wardrobe.
There is a lump the size of an extra-large, Grade A egg on my left temple, but the ibuprofen has taken the edge off my pain, and learning about these amazing women has soothed my ragged nerves.
In a round-robin, sprawled out on the box springs, or curled in a chair, we discuss everything from politics to religion, friends to family, hobbies to pet peeves. And while we may seem drastically different on the surface—nomadic spirit guru, cruise ship mechanic, and hotel chain management—we are also comfortingly similar. I don’t know if it’s the harrowing situation we’re in together or our age or our identical birth signs or just the luck of the draw, but the three of us mesh like we’ve been friends for years. Our comradery brings me a depth of relief and contentment I’ve only ever found when I was very young, spending summers at my grandfather’s house on Wildfire Lake in California.
When the conversation makes its way to significant others, we discover none of us are currently involved, and while Chloe and KT have had what sounds like a relatively easy time making connections with men, albeit superficial by their own preference, I haven’t had the same, superficial or otherwise.
Except for Levi.
“Your turn,” KT tells me, popping the last bite of a granola bar into her mouth as the lightning round begins. “Seeing anyone?”
“No.”
“Last hookup?” KT asks.
“Six months ago.”
“Memorable?”
“Hardly.”
“Last boyfriend?” Chloe asks.
“Real boyfriend, like only seeing each other, would have been seventeen, Levi.”
“First kiss,” from Chloe.
“Sixteen, Levi.”
“Aw,” Chloe says, warming to whatever vibe she got from his name. “Levi.”
“First sex,” KT says.
“Seventeen, Levi.”
“My heart loves Levi,” Chloe says. “He’s a good soul.”
“He is—or was. I don’t know about now, but I’m guessing that didn’t change.” Thoughts of Levi can still make my soul ache, even six years after I last saw or spoke to him.
“First orgasm.” KT is all business, matter-of-fact, while Chloe is sentimental and mushy. The contrast is humorous. The way they both openly accept their different personalities warms me and cements the knowledge that these are good women.
I sigh. “Seventeen—”
“Levi,” we all say in unison and laugh.
“And only, to be honest,” I find myself admitting for the first time to anyone.
“Only orgasm?” KT asks in obvious shocked disbelief.
“Only man I’ve been able to orgasm with.” I crunch up my nose. “I haven’t had much luck with men.”
“How old was he?” KT wanted to know.
“Two years older.”
“Why didn’t you stay with him?” Chloe asks.
“Because he lived in Wildfire and was a townie. His family was there, his life was there, he wanted to stay there.”
“And you didn’t?” KT asks.
“My parents didn’t.” My mind drifts backward, to the wrenching heartache of leaving him that final time, knowing our summers together and our friendship of eight years was over. “I was so programmed to deliver on my parents’ wishes, it’s hard to know what I wanted. They found me an internship with Le Meurice in Paris, and I went.”
“Sounds fancy,” Chloe says.
I smile and nod. “A thousand dollars a night. I discovered rich people can be incredibly difficult to deal with.”
“What’s Levi doing now?” KT asks.
“I don’t know. We didn’t stay in touch.”
“Hello,” KT says. “Social media?”
I shake my head. “I tried looking for him a couple of times, but didn’t find anything, which I think is for the best, to be honest.”
“Regrets?” KT asks.
I take a deep breath and release it slowly. “Maybe that I wasn’t strong enough to defy my parents. That even today, I’m heavily swayed by their opinions and their vision for my life. And, yeah, not staying in touch with him. He was my best friend for a long time, and I still miss that. But we all grow up and move on. We can’t stay kids forever.”
KT lifts her water glass in a toast. “To facing life in the future as the strong women we’ve proven ourselves to be.”
Our plastic glasses meet in a tap.
“And we should pinky swear,” Chloe adds, “that we won’t ever lose touch with each other after this is all over.”
We all smile and join pinkies much the way we locked elbows just hours ago in the storm, using our combined strength to lead ourselves to safety.