Destination Anywhere

by Sara Barnard

  “Peyton was being spontaneous,” Stefan says to Lars, glancing at me to grin. “It’s cool.”

  “It’s irresponsible,” Lars says, but not meanly. “You’re lucky we’re here to help. Okay, so, you’ll need gloves and a hat to start with…”

  We spend half an hour picking out what I need—including fifteen minutes of Stefan and me trying on different ear muffs and scarves, taking endless selfies, while Lars tries to keep up his Are you done? expression—before I go to the changing room to try on a few different tops and fleeces. When I’m in there, I let the worry that’s been tickling at the back of my mind take center stage.

  Because, wow, winter gear is expensive. Even with me picking out the cheapest options I could find, it’s all adding up. And it’s not like I have an endless supply of money. I’ve done a good job of putting these kinds of worries out of my head since I got here, but let’s be honest, it’s not going to last forever. Especially not if I have to spend over a hundred dollars on essential supplies I hadn’t even considered needing. At this rate, I’ll be pretty much broke by the time we get to Banff, and then what will I do? Maybe find some cash-in-hand work at one of the hostels and hope no one rats me out to the visa people?

  I want to carry on acting like this adventure can last forever, that I really will be able to make it all the way across the country and say to my parents and myself and everyone, Look, I made it. I am self-sufficient and independent, and I’m not going back to college, and I’m going to live the life I want. But how realistic is that, really?

  When I come out of the changing room, I carry my supplies to the counter to pay and push the thoughts away. Live in the moment—that’s the point, isn’t it?

  That evening, Beasey, Khalil, Lars, and Stefan make the most of the extra night in Vancouver to go out to a bar, but I don’t mind staying in with Seva and Maja, helping plan out the last few details. It’s good for me to know as much about the trip as possible, so when I email my parents I can send them the full itinerary, like Mum had asked when I first told her about the plan. Still, they’re unconvinced, and Mum asks me to call her to discuss it.

  “Perhaps I can speak to them?” Seva offers. “Will it help them to know we are here?” He gestures to Maja, then himself.

  I know what he means—that the two of them are actually adults, both in their mid-twenties, with experience, and therefore far more trustworthy than my reckless self—but all I can think about is how my dad would react if a Russian man phoned him to tell him he was taking his seventeen-year-old daughter across the Canadian wilderness in an RV.

  “Or I can speak to them,” Maja offers, either reading my mind or my face, and I’m relieved. “Will that help?”

  It helps a lot. When Maja returns the phone to me with a smile after speaking to my mother, I can tell from her voice that Mum, at least, is feeling better.

  “She sounds nice,” Mum says.

  “Yeah,” I say. “She’s great.” Maja smiles at me, then points to the door to indicate she’s going to leave to give me privacy. When she’s gone, I say, “Doesn’t it sound amazing, Mum?”

  “It does,” she says. “I’d still rather you came home.”

  “Really, though?” I say. “Miss out on this opportunity? Really?”

  She’s silent for a while. “Oh, Peyton,” she says with a defeated sigh. “Of course I don’t want you to miss out on opportunities. I want you to have the world. But I miss you, and I’m worried about you. Not just because you’re in a different country, but because of what’s happened to you. I feel like I don’t know you.”

  “I’m still the same person,” I say, which isn’t what I mean. I mean that I don’t really know myself, either, but that I’ve got a better chance of figuring that out here, with my friends—actual friends—in an RV on the Icefields Parkway, than I do back at home in suffocating Surrey with the friends who are not my friends. I’d explain that to her, if I could.

  “If I asked you to come home,” she says. “Would you?”

  “No,” I say.

  Another sigh. “I won’t ask, then.” She’s quiet for a moment. “I miss you.”

  “I miss you too,” I say.

  “Maybe I should have got on a plane and come with you,” she says. Her voice is almost distant, like she’s talking to herself rather than me. “We could have done this together.”

  I don’t know how to respond to this, what she wants or expects me to say. Finally, I say, “Next time.”

  “Next time,” she says.

  BEFORE

  New Year’s Eve

  aka

  The mistakes are always easier to spot in hindsight

  aka

  There’s a reason it’s illegal, Peyton: Part One

  When I look back on the many, many mistakes and red flags that dot my year in college with color, trying to spot where it really went wrong, when I could have changed things, my mind always snags on New Year. In hindsight, the night is one huge, glaring red flag, but at the time, I would have sworn blind it was a great night. Everything I’d dreamed about, I would have said. Me, my boyfriend, and my friends on New Year’s Eve. What more could any teenage girl want?

  We went to Eric’s house instead of Flick’s as normal because his brother was having a party. (Eric sold it to us as a party they were having “together,” but, when we got there, it became pretty clear that the party was Tyler’s and we were simply allowed to be there.) Everything felt different between all of us when there were so many other people around. We stuck together, our need for each other more obvious than it had ever been or would be again, and I loved that. It was the first time, with all of them, that I really felt like I belonged.

  There was an inexplicable bouncy castle in the back garden, and we sat together in it for what might have been hours, smoking and drinking and playing cards, the sounds of the party muted by the brief distance. Eric had his arm around Flick’s shoulder, her hair tucked behind her ear, and he was whispering something that was making her smile wide. Casey was wearing the ridiculous tiara Callum had given her for Christmas (we’d done Secret Santa; I’d had Nico), and she kept hanging the joint out of her mouth and taking “ironic” selfies, fingers in the peace V sign. Nico and I were on our fifteenth game of Speed, way too into it, laughing together more than we ever had (he’d loved my Secret Santa present, a Linkachu T-shirt that made him snort-laugh, and he’d been friendlier to me ever since), while Travis—whose lap I was in—refereed, his fingers stroking my arm.

  When it got closer to midnight, we got kicked out of the bouncy castle by a couple of Tyler’s friends and went inside, squeezing into a corner of the living room together. The music was so loud we could barely hear each other, but we’d all drunk enough by then that it didn’t really matter. Eric disappeared with Flick, and when they returned their eyes were wide, pupils dilated, and they were talking too fast, laughing too loud. Travis leaned over, said something to Eric, and then there were pills in his hand. He took one, held the other out to me. Did I even think about it? I like to think that I did. (That pill could have been literally anything. Anything.) But I know the reality, which is that I just followed Travis’s lead, like I did all the time, and swallowed it down, smiling. I think I even said thank you, like a child accepting sweets.

  Everything is a series of flashes after that rather than actual memories. Kissing Flick on the cheek, hugging her so tight she squeaked, telling her I loved her. Her flicking my forehead, grinning. Dancing. Laughing. Being lifted up by Tyler and spun around. The quiet cold of the bathroom, Travis and his tongue and his hands, the sound of the countdown muffled through the closed door. His fingers inside me, my hand in his jeans, his mouth against my ear, telling me he loved me, I was perfect, this was perfect. Happy New Year!

  My next memory is waking up on the bouncy castle when the world was light again. Somehow all seven of us had made our way back there, even Flick and Eric. “God,” Flick groaned. “I feel like shit.” I jumped up and ran, finding my way be
hind the bouncy castle before I threw up. It was my first real comedown, and it was horrible, so much worse than the hangovers I’d learned to deal with over the last few months. I was shaky and cold, huddling against Travis, who gave me chewing gum and shook his head like I’d embarrassed him. What did I take? I wanted to ask him, but I didn’t. It seemed better not to know.

  When I got home—I had waited long enough for the worst of it to pass—Mum smiled and hugged me close, asked me how my first New Year with friends had gone. I told her it was amazing, just perfect, everything I’d ever wanted.

  And because I was still fine, and nothing had gone wrong, I believed it, too. Or convinced myself that I did. That it was totally okay that I had somehow become the kind of person who took a random pill at a house party without even stopping to find out what it was, who couldn’t even muster the nerve to ask her literal boyfriend afterward, in the cold light of day, what it had been, and tell him that she felt weird about the whole thing, and maybe it would be better if they just stuck with weed?

  You never know, as it’s happening, when you’re becoming someone you won’t recognize. With hindsight, I see myself swallowing that pill over and over, with everything that would happen ahead of me, half the choices that would lead me there already made. I don’t really know if I want to hug or slap myself.

  Probably both.

  NOW

  VANCOUVER—WHISTLER

  Seva goes to collect sthe RV early in the morning and returns to pick us up with a broad smile on his face. It’s bigger than I’d expected, but it still doesn’t look big enough for all seven of us to live and sleep in for the next two or three weeks. I glance at Beasey, throwing him a surreptitious questioning look. He grins back, shrugging.

  “It’s made for seven, right?” he says. “Plenty of room.”

  “Sure,” Khalil says. “But when it says it fits seven it means, like, adults and kids. Not seven full-grown adults.”

  I feel the smile drop away from my face. “What?”

  “It’ll be a squeeze,” he says. “But it’ll be fine. It’s worth it for all the money we’ll save.”

  He’s obviously right, and I’m not about to start complaining about any of this, especially when I don’t have to drive. But still.

  “How many beds are there?” Stefan asks.

  “Four,” Maja says. “We’ve already planned this. One person gets a bed of their own.”

  “Who gets the special treatment?” Khalil asks.

  “Peyton,” Seva says.

  “Why?” I ask, alarmed. I definitely don’t deserve a bed to myself.

  “You’re the youngest,” Stefan says.

  “So? I don’t mind bunking with Maja,” I say, glancing at her. To my relief, she nods, like she’d expected this too. “Seva, you can have the bed to yourself,” I say. “You’re doing most of the driving.” I’m about to add that he’s also the biggest, but stop myself in time, worried he’ll be offended.

  We eventually agree that Maja and I will take the two beds in the back, one on top of the other like the bunk beds in the hostel dorm. As the only couple, Lars and Stefan get dibs on the double bed in the back room. Everyone else gets beds that transform at night: Seva in the kitchen; Khalil and Beasey on a sofa bed in the living area. I’ve never seen such a good use of space as the way the RV is put together. I take a load of pictures of it and send them to my brother, because he’s the most likely to appreciate them.

  It takes him hours to reply, because of the time difference, which even after all this time I keep forgetting is a thing.

  Dillon:

  Remember when we stayed in that caravan in Norfolk? You hated it?

  Me:

  This is different.

  Dillon:

  …Why?

  Me:

  IT JUST IS SHUT UP.

  Dillon:

  Dillon:

  Have a great time. Try not to freeze.

  As well as a working toilet, the RV also has a separate shower, which is great, though I’m already wondering just how we’re going to coordinate the use of it. In the kitchen area there’s a fridge, freezer, microwave, and gas cooker, and it’s fully equipped with all the cookware we could need. To be honest, I’d expected the RV to just be like a bus with bigger seats, but it’s not, at all. It really is like the caravan I stayed in with my family, except with a driver’s seat. It even has towels and bedsheets for everyone.

  It is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. I don’t even care that it’s cramped and we’ll probably drive each other mad within a day.

  We stop off at a grocery store on the way to the highway to stock up on food and supplies for the journey. It’s a mission, trying to negotiate what everyone wants compared to what we all actually need, but we get there in the end. Sort of. We’ve still somehow ended up with an ungodly number of marshmallows.

  “Look at this beast,” Lars says, grinning, when we get back to the RV. “It’s amazing.”

  “We should give it a name,” Seva says.

  “Justin,” Beasey, Stefan, and I all say at the same time. We look at each other and laugh.

  “Trudeau?” Beasey asks us both.

  “Bieber,” Stefan and I say in unison, then laugh again.

  “We’re not traveling in an RV called Justin,” Khalil says.

  “Too late,” Beasey says.

  “Everyone in,” Seva says, smacking his hand happily against the side.

  Our first overnight stop is going to be Whistler, which is a town and ski resort a couple of hours’ drive from Vancouver, including stops, along the Sea to Sky Highway. I sit myself in the passenger seat next to Seva, who grins at me, and look at the physical map he’s got folded up by the dashboard in case there’s a problem with the satnav.

  “Excited?” he asks me.

  I just beam back, so wide I don’t need to say anything, and he laughs. “Whistler is a good first destination,” he says. “It won’t be a long trip, this first leg.”

  “Ease us into RV living,” I say.

  He grins. “Exactly.”

  “You’ve driven an RV before, right?” I ask. When he nods, I say, “When?”

  He tells me about a road trip he’d taken a few years ago with an old girlfriend across the United States. The motor home was smaller, he says, perfect for two. I ask if it was better than Canada and he laughs. “Different. Just as beautiful, in places.”

  It occurs to me as we talk that I barely have to think when I’m with Seva; it’s almost like being with Dillon. I never worry about how I’m coming across, whether I’m going to say the wrong thing or embarrass myself. Maybe because I trust that, even if I did, it wouldn’t matter. As we talk, I nuzzle happily in against the uncomfortable seat, watching the road in front of us, British Columbia unfolding itself as we leave the urban bustle of Vancouver behind. The Sea to Sky Highway begins by winding along the coastline at sea level, with the mountains on one side of us and the sea on the other. It’s like we’ve stepped inside a postcard and started driving in it. Later, we’ll move farther inland and higher, through the old growth rain forests until we reach Whistler, over two thousand feet above sea level, our first official destination.

  On the way there, we make our first stop at Porteau Cove, on the shores of the Howe Sound, to take pictures and stretch our legs. I sit on some driftwood on the small beach and watch as Lars and Stefan take pictures of each other attempting handstands. I mean to sketch, but I end up just sitting, taking it all in, until Beasey sits himself down beside me, handing over his phone.

  “Look, I got a great one of you,” he says happily.

  In the photo, I’m in profile, staring out across the water toward the mountains ahead, unsmiling but steady with concentration. My hair is a bit all over the place and my hoodie sleeves are bunched up, but I look so calm; peaceful, even. I don’t know what to say, so I jump up, holding my phone.

  “Let me get one of you,” I say. “Look like you don’t know I’m here.”

  Obedientl
y, he stares out across the Howe Sound with a ponderous expression on his face. I allow myself a second to take him in through my phone screen, how much I like his face, how just looking at him makes me feel calmer. The kind of things you can’t say out loud, or even to yourself, without sounding cheesy.

  In the second I take the picture, he turns to grin at me, and that’s the shot I get. His laughing face, the sand, the sea.

  * * *

  It takes us another hour to get to the RV park and campground near Whistler where we’re staying, which I imagined to be something like a caravan site in the UK but, happily, isn’t. For one thing, the view is classic Western Canada dialed up to ten; we’re high enough to be able to look out over a sweeping vista of trees while the white-peaked mountains tower over us. And for another, it’s a pretty hands-off site. No entertainment hub with karaoke nights and a restaurant here. It’s just a handful of RVs, the bare essentials of washrooms and a camp store, and the wilderness.

  Seva, the only one of us who’s driven an RV before, takes care of the hookups, showing the rest of us how to connect the electricity and water as we nod attentively. Beasey and Khalil are keen to be involved, asking Seva to show them over and over, while Lars and Stefan disappear off exploring, and Maja scopes out the campground facilities.

  “Watch out for the bears!” Khalil calls after them.

  “Bears?!” I repeat, alarmed.

  “You’ll be fine,” Khalil says. “Bears don’t have much of a taste for English runaways. Too highly strung.”

  I can’t help laughing. “Thanks.”

  “Make sure you are always with one of us,” Seva says, so seriously I balk and Khalil’s cheerful grin falters. “It is best if none of us is ever alone, especially you.”

  “Can’t argue with that,” Beasey says. “Good life advice in general, not being alone.” He smiles at me. “Right?”

  I could say, Sometimes you don’t have a choice. I could say, Depends on the people.