Lone
JAC JEMC
Adrienne woke feeling rested, a surprise after a night camping by herself. She had survived unharmed, with nothing between her and the wilderness but a thin sheet of nylon.
She committed herself to making it work. She had lost so much since breaking up with Sam and refused to add camping to the list of casualties.
The couples they’d camped with before were hesitant to commit to a three-person weekend getaway with her. Even the ones who sided more with her seemed to be perennially booked. She asked individual friends to come along, but they all had reasons to say no. Jaclyn insisted she hated roughing it despite Adrienne’s attempts to convince her she had all the gear to make it luxurious—a huge tent, air mattresses, a propane stove to make coffee in the morning easy, and a veritable tank of bourbon. Parra had read a book that didn’t end well about women camping alone together. Mal kept committing and then backing out. Adrienne finally broke down and decided to go solo.
She’d already booked her site at Summit Lake. She reviewed her Tupperware tote of supplies and added a roll of paper towels and a new bottle of bug spray. She went to the grocery store the day before and chopped vegetables and kneaded hamburger patties and packed everything into the cooler.
To others, she wanted to appear strong, hiding any clues of vulnerability to encourage them to accompany her, but she was incensed that she did have nerves about camping alone. How dare she be deprived of this? How dare she be kept from a night closer to nature, hearing all those sounds and smelling those smells and feeling just slightly more like an animal who existed in a real, live world. It rejuvenated her. It powered her back up for work and the other mundanities required of her.
Only one thing sparked the fear: men. Bears or raccoons or spiders did not intimidate her. In fact, Adrienne often thought, she’d be happiest if her death came in the form of an animal attack: a survival of the fittest that she couldn’t disagree with. She could not stand, however, the idea of a man harming her in the woods. She took issue with the way it would so inaccurately reflect the balance of power, the level of need and security of the parties involved.
She had given so much to Sam just to get him to go, just to be sure he would be okay without her, and still she felt people’s pity when she shared the news of the breakup, as though she were the victim, when, in fact, she had been in charge. He was the one who untagged her from all his photos on social media, unable to deal with the painful memories. He was the one who had unfriended her after she asked him to leave. She flared at the thought.
When she saw the pair of old hiking boots Sam had left behind in the basement, her first thought was to throw them away. Her second thought was to call him and tell him she’d left them on the front porch for him to pick up, eliminating any need for interaction. But that gave her an idea. She thought of how, after her grandfather died, her grandmother left all the bills in his name, so that if people looked at her mail, they wouldn’t know she lived alone. If Adrienne took the boots with her, and placed them outside the tent, anyone passing by would assume a man slept inside. If a human predator were looking for innocent prey, they’d think twice.
The night before, she’d set up her tent first and built her fire second. She loved getting the fire going, had always made it her task, even when Sam pretended mastery in the company of friends. She poured herself a bourbon in a tin cup, set out her food on the grate and tended it with care. The sun had set by the time the meat had cooked through. She added logs to the heap and set marshmallows on fire. She took a selfie lit by the flames. She videoed the ooze of a s’more. She took a photo of the sky, disappointed at the dimness of the stars as they appeared on her phone’s screen. She had no service out here, but she would show off her solo camping skills on Sunday when she returned to civilization.
Her site was near the latrine, and she watched as other campers made their final trips before settling in for the night. By the pairs of people and conversations overheard, she determined the campground to be occupied by couples and families.
She wondered if she was being paranoid, but, in the end, when the fire had withered, she set the boots outside the tent and zipped herself in. She read a magazine by lantern light on her air mattress with a final finger of liquor, popped a ZzzQuil, and fell asleep.
In the morning, she made coffee. She loved the dewy chill, how her nose felt both runny and clear. She tugged her hat down over her ears and cradled her mug close as she watched people pass on their morning trips to the latrine. A man waved at her, and Adrienne failed to decipher something in his expression. His smile held some sort of secret. She waited for him to walk back past her, but she didn’t see him again. Maybe he’d gone out for a hike, or he’d walked back to his site a different way. She thought about what she wanted to do that day, but couldn’t get the man’s smile out of her head.
She’d booked the site for two nights, but she packed the tent up. She threw the tub of supplies and the cooler back into the car. She decided to leave the boots right where they were. Sam would buy a new pair, and Adrienne wouldn’t need them again. Something had changed and, despite the peaceful
