The first night is a slow-moving thing.
The cold air is sharp against Ollie’s exposed nose and mouth, and back home he might have closed his bedroom window to trap the heat inside. But there is no inside here. There’s cold and there’s quiet and there’s nothing else. Without the coaches chattering about goals and patterns, without the mumbled sounds of Devin and Sheridan bickering, without the crinkling food wrappers, the sounds of the woods settle in. It’s endless, the stretch of it. Impossible to tell if the splintering of twigs and the shuffling of underbrush is miles or feet from Ollie’s head. He presses his eyes closed and listens for the others breathing, but he only hears the woods. He only sees night. Don’t be scared of the quiet. Don’t be scared of the dark.
He repeats those thoughts until, mercifully, sleep comes.
Morning arrives as slow as a tide climbing the shore. When Ollie moves his head, his neck pops. A loose bit of bark juts up from the earth squarely between his shoulder blades, reminding him of where he is. Not in his bed, pushed all the way up to the heater to keep his feet warm at night. Not tucked under a mound of blankets and clean clothes he hasn’t put away yet, inhaling the sharp scent of stale detergent, staring up at the posters on his bedroom walls plastered one over another.
When he opens his eyes, all he sees is blue tarp. All he smells is dirt and woodsmoke. All he feels is cold.
This wasn’t a nightmare.
The camp is quiet except for the crackling fire. Ollie pushes himself to his elbows and, just under the crumpled edge of his tarp ceiling, he spots the coaches sitting in silence. Liv holds a pan over the fire, tilting it each time steam begins to coil. Ethan sits across from her with a journal sprawled over his lap. If anyone else is awake yet, they aren’t at the fire.
“I think that went okay,” Ethan says.
“You think?” Liv asks, half-interested.
“They’re all alive,” Ethan says. “I think that earns some points.”
Ollie stays curled in his sleeping bag until Coach Ethan calls for everyone to get breakfast. Ollie climbs out of his tent first and takes a small pile of steaming hash browns. He tastes nothing but saltless mush. He watches the trees and waits to feel even a little less miserable. Aidan is up next, followed by Hannah. Devin wakes looking even more sour than she did last night. The last one up, as expected, is Sheridan. She doesn’t leave her tent, but her feet move a little in her sleeping bag. When most of the hash browns are gone, Ethan finally crouches at Sheridan’s tent.
“Hey, Sheridan,” he says. “Time to get some breakfast.”
“I’m okay,” she says.
Ollie looks at Devin. She stares pointedly into the fire, her hash browns untouched. If Sheridan holding them up bothers her, she’s doing her best not to show it.
“The others are already awake,” Ethan says. “How about you come join us?”
“I saw.” Sheridan sits up, pushing her tarp aside to look at Ethan. “I’d rather sleep. Thanks.”
“That’s not really an option right now.”
“I’m not allowed to sleep?”
“We’re forming good habits, remember?” Ethan says. He can’t hide the ire in his voice. “Good habit number one is waking up on time.”
“On time according to you.”
Sheridan looks at the rest of the group for support, but no one speaks. Ollie doesn’t care about her back-talking the coaches. He just wants to get moving so they’re closer to being done with this. All the delays make him sit in the misery longer.
“Hey,” Liv says to the rest of the group. “Why don’t the rest of you go ahead and pack up your tents? That’ll give us something to do.”
Ollie folds up his pathetic, dirt-speckled tarp, tucking it into his backpack. Ethan, apparently exhausted by Sheridan, stalks over to Liv and whispers something. She gives him a terse nod, dons a somewhat convincing smile, and puts her hands on her hips.
“Okay, change of plans,” Liv says. “We’ll hike the first part of the day in separate groups. All of you will come with me and we’ll head to the next campsite so we can get there before dark. Sound good?”
Devin stands in the center of the campsite, backpack already slung over her shoulder. She motions to Sheridan’s tent with a scowl. “What about her?”
“Coach Ethan and Sheridan will join us later.” Liv smiles. “They’re going to spend some time working one-on-one.”
Devin seems skeptical of this, but says nothing else. Ollie eyes Sheridan and his stomach sinks. This is only their first morning in the woods, and according to the coaches, things will only get harder from here. If she’s too tired to walk today, there’s no way she’ll last the full fifty days.
And if she’s just too stubborn, there’s no way the rest of them will.
The hike is easier today than it was yesterday. Devin is pleasantly surprised at how quickly her body adjusts. The lack of interruptions make the hike almost peaceful. With Sheridan still miles behind them, presumably driving Ethan to an early grave, the rest of the group hikes in silence. Hannah is livelier than she was the day before, looking up from her feet to soak in the sun-dappled trees and winding cords of gravel that stretch up the mountains like ivy. Aidan shuffles along in Coach Liv’s shadow like he thinks he can sneak into her backpack. And Ollie hikes with his gaze split two ways. Half the time, he trains his eyes on the back of Hannah’s head. The rest of the time, he stares at Devin.
She has half a mind to tell him he’s barking up the wrong tree. Devin hasn’t been interested in boys since elementary school, and even then, they were the kinds of boys that wore spandex and capes in cartoons. She’s certainly not into boys like Ollie, all bones and no meat, scraggly like they’ve been run through the wash. Whatever he wants from her, she’s certain she’s not interested.
After a few hours of hiking, Coach Liv stops.
“Why are we stopping?” Devin asks.
Coach Liv flashes a smile at her. “I have a little activity for us. How would you guys like some dessert tonight?”
Devin raises a brow. The others seem more enthusiastic, though, Aidan throwing his hand in the air like he’s waiting for a teacher to call on him. Devin surveys the area and sees no dessert. Gravel and dirt ease down a long embankment to their right, and a sheer wall of moss and trees rises to their left. This deep in the woods, the sun is tucked away above the green canopy, leaving the air at the forest floor chilly.
“I’m not much of a counselor type,” Coach Liv admits. “But I know the woods pretty well. So how about, while we wait for Coach Ethan and Sheridan to catch up, we do some berry picking?”
Coach Liv walks them down the embankment, pointing out the tendrils of shrub and bush where they can find clusters of blackberries. The size of the berries here is astounding. They hang longer than the ones along highways back in Portland, layered and dark and plump with juice.
“We’ll wash what you pick for dinner tonight. You’re free to team up or go solo, just stay where I can see you.”
Devin wanders away from the rest of the group, digging her heels into the earth until she’s made it to the very bottom of the embankment. A creek splits the small valley in two, crowded and tangled with berry bushes. Like she’s on autopilot, Devin picks berries, ignoring the sting of thorns catching under her skin.
It’s been years since she went berry picking. It was another foster home, long before the Pattons, farther from the city and nestled on more land than anywhere she’d lived before. It was a lonelier house. Gray siding, curtains drawn, long hallways leading into one another. She was the only kid in that house. The quiet used to claw at her.
Beyond the sea of pale, dead grass that surrounded Mr. Atwood’s house, there was a flush of blackberry bushes just before the trees. Devin remembers it now like she’s standing in that field all over, inching farther from the house every day, piling blackberries into the bottom of her T-shirt until they began to stain. It used to suffocate her, the inescapable stretch of it. She wondered back then if she had what it took to keep walking and never turn back. The fear used to sit so heavy it convinced her that lying still in her misery was better than running into the unknown. But that was wrong.
“You okay?”
Devin sucks in a sharp breath and comes hurtling back to earth. The blackberries she managed to pick are crushed in her fists. She faces the creek and the trees beyond it, eyes hot with tears. She unclenches her fists and lets the smashed berries fall at her feet.
“Sorry,” Ollie says, moving in front of her. “Bad time?”
“No, you’re fine,” Devin says.
Ollie follows her gaze to the trees. She wonders if he sees what she does. They go on for miles, but they can’t go on forever. There’s a town beyond them somewhere and, in that town, someone that can get her out of here. She wonders how far she could make it if she left now. Coach Liv stands at the top of the embankment with her hands on her hips. She’d never make it down fast enough to stop them.
“You had a chance to get us out,” Devin says coolly. “I saw you. At the gas station.”
“Yeah,” Ollie says. “I chickened out.”
“Clearly.”
“I kept thinking about that slip the guy had. Then I was thinking about how, if we got help, they’d probably just send us back home. And I … don’t wanna go home.”
“Well, I wish you did it, anyway.”
“Me, too,” Ollie says. “The food here sucks.”
Devin laughs at that. Up the slope, she watches Hannah approach Aidan and wonders why Ollie isn’t with them. They’re more pleasant and probably a thousand times more talkative.
“What’s your deal?” Devin asks. “You’ve been staring at me all day.”
“We weren’t allowed to talk on the drive,” Ollie says. “You’re from Portland, too. I guess I’m just … it’d be nice to stick together.”
Devin shrugs. “Honestly, I’m just waiting until I get a chance to—”
“—run away?” Ollie finishes. He shakes his head. “Yeah, I could tell. Everyone can. I’m hoping I can talk you out of it.”
At that, Devin raises a brow. She moves to another bush to start making up for the berries she crushed. Ollie follows her, not even pretending to collect berries of his own.
“You’ll die out there,” Ollie says. “I don’t know what forest we’re in, but I’m pretty sure this whole state is mountains and trees. And wild animals. We’ve gotta be miles from civilization.”
“You’re going along with this?” Devin asks.
“I guess.”
“We could run now and the coaches wouldn’t have time to stop us,” Devin says. “You don’t even want to try?”
“Do I want to live in the woods for an unknown amount of time, looking for civilization, when I could be in a program guaranteed to end after fifty days?” Ollie asks. “Not particularly.”
Devin scowls, grabbing a fistful of blackberry bush, even though it stings. He’s right, and it makes her angrier than it should. The truth is, she probably can’t last in the woods alone. She’s never roughed it in her life, always stuck in the labyrinth of a city. She might have the will to survive, but the actual skills? She wants to run more than she wants air. She doesn’t want to follow the rules of this stupid program.
“What do we do?” Devin asks. Her voice is smaller than she wants it to be.
“We stick together, I think,” Ollie says. “Even though it sucks. We keep our heads down, get through fifty days.”
Before Devin can reply, voices trickle down the embankment. Coach Ethan arrives, saying something to Coach Liv. Behind him, Sheridan staggers into view. She doesn’t just look tired, she looks unwell. The moment they stop, she eases herself to the ground, throwing her backpack at her feet.
“What’s her deal?” Ollie asks. “You talked to her last night, right?”
Devin scoffs. “Her deal is that she’s evil.”
Coach Liv shouts down the hill, motioning them back to the group. Ollie clears his throat. “I guess that’s the downside of sticking it out. Fifty days of her.”
“Don’t remind me,” Devin says. She eyes Ollie’s empty hands and rolls her eyes. The coaches won’t like that he spent the entire break talking instead of gathering. Against her better judgment, she says, “Give me your hand.”
Ollie extends his hand and Devin dumps half her berries into his palm.
“There.”
“Oh.” Ollie inspects the berries. “Thanks.”
“If we’re sticking together, you better come through for me, too,” Devin says. “Deal?”
Ollie smiles. “Deal.”
The rest of their hike is rockier, all boiling down to one person. The moment Sheridan rejoins them, she’s a pebble lodged in their boots. She asks for constant breaks, complaining that it’s too hot and then too cold. She begs water off the others when hers runs out, and halfway through the hike, she tries sneaking granola bars from Aidan’s backpack while he isn’t watching. As they pass ridge after ridge, Devin considers how easy it would be to shove Sheridan off just for some stress relief.
They begin their nightly chores differently this time. Coach Liv reads them a list of meals, asking each of them which one they’d like. They range from vaguely appetizing beef ravioli to horrifying “rib-shaped patty meat.” Devin opts for the same chicken stew as the night before. She heats her meal in peace, shakes up a baggie of fruit punch, and plucks packs of hot sauce from the bottom of her backpack for flavor. Ollie sits next to her as she eats in silence, their eyes trained on the trees.
“What’d you get?”
Ollie looks down at the remains of his dinner. “Sloppy joes? That’s what I asked for. Not what it tasted like.”
“Horrifying.”
Coach Liv rejoins them at the campsite as dark descends, a small pouch cupped in her hands. She stands in front of Ollie and hands him a couple of blackberries. She hands more to Devin, Aidan, and Hannah. When she settles in front of Sheridan, though, something in Devin snaps. Sheridan is the reason they got to camp late. She’s the reason everyone is exhausted. She held them up every chance she got all day.
“Why would she get some?” Devin asks before Coach Liv can lay any berries in Sheridan’s palm. “She didn’t help.”
Liv pauses.
“Sheridan is part of our group. We’re eating dessert together. As a group.”
“Except she wasn’t really part of the group,” Devin says. She feels Ollie tense next to her. Aidan and Hannah stare, but one look at their faces tells her they don’t disagree. She can’t see Sheridan’s face behind Liv, but she hopes she’s listening. “She was with Ethan. She wasn’t with us.”
“Devin,” Ethan says, a warning. “I understand you’re frustrated with Sheridan. I think there’s a more productive way you can voice those frustrations.”
Finally, Sheridan leans over, her face visible at Liv’s side. She takes the handful of berries from Liv, popping one slowly into her mouth. “Yeah. Please. Voice your frustrations.”
“Okay,” Ethan says, gaze cutting across the clearing to Sheridan. “Let’s calm down.”
Devin laughs.
“Don’t pretend you didn’t spend all day trying to make us as miserable as possible. We were all there.”
She waits for someone else around the fire to back her up, but Hannah, Ollie, and Aidan are silent. She always has to be the one to do the right thing when everyone else stays quiet. This one seems like common sense.
“What did I do?” Sheridan asks.
“Maybe,” Ethan cuts in, “you two should discuss this with me privately?”
“Everyone else agrees with me,” Devin says, motioning to the group. “They’re just pretending not to.”
Next to her, Ollie sighs.
“You were kind of … making things hard for us,” he says meekly.
Devin knew he was nonconfrontational, but his voice is so timid it makes Sheridan laugh. Not the reaction Devin hoped for. Sheridan eats another berry, looking at them both like they’re a comedy act.
“Okay, well, anyone who has an issue with me eating a few berries,” Sheridan says, “can come take them.”
Then, gracefully, she pops the rest of the berries into her mouth. She looks at the two coaches and pulls her unruly hair into a ponytail. Hannah and Aidan look at the ground again. Ollie looks down, too, but not out of discomfort, Devin thinks. Out of embarrassment. They look down and eat their berries in silence like cowards.
But Devin isn’t embarrassed about calling things like they are. She stands.
“I’m going to bed.”
“Devin—” Coach Ethan starts.
“Am I not allowed to sleep when I’m tired?” Devin asks, indignant. “I’ve been hiking all day, and I’ve actually been following directions. So I’m going to bed.”
She climbs under her tarp, shoves her legs into her sleeping bag, and rolls over so that the flickering light of the campfire can’t reach her. She doesn’t think about the coaches and their double standards, she doesn’t think about Aidan and Hannah being useless. And she pointedly does not think about Sheridan and her evil smirk, half-lit by the fire. She hugs her sleeping bag tight and she thinks of home.
No, not home. She doesn’t have one of those.
She thinks of tomorrow. That’s what she’s got.