Page 1 of Wild Daddy

One

Marley

Two glasses of champagne is my limit.

Should have been, at least.

But three gave me enough courage to sit at the head table with a sea of eyes on me.

Four is why I'm currently clutching a bouquet of white roses while the wedding reception spins around me like a glittering kaleidoscope.

"You okay, honey?" My best friend Sarah's aunt touches my elbow, her voice cutting through the blur of laughter and clinking glasses as I rub the painful spot on my forehead where the base of the bouquet made its landing. "You look a little unsteady."

I force a smile and hold up the bouquet that nearly concussed me. "Just surprised I caught this thing. Sarah's got quite an arm."

The older woman chuckles and moves on, everyone watching having a good laugh at the meme-worthy sight of me receivingthe bouquet between the eyes only to have it fall like a baby into my outstretched hands.

The champagne, lack of nutrition because I can’t stand eating in front of anyone let alone a room full of strangers, combined with a floral blow to the head have left me swaying beside the towering wedding cake with its ombre icing and personalized cake topper with the bride and groom imagined as their D & D characters.

This entire wedding and reception here at Wildfire Mountain Lodge has been a full-on Pinterest board.

Fairy lights hang from everything that will stand still, flowers that look rustic yet elegant are on every surface, guests dancing to a live bluegrass band, and enough champagne flowing to float a tugboat. I've driven six hours from Ann Arbor talking myself out of a panic attack the entire way, , my little Honda packed with bridesmaid duties and thesis stress.

When Sarah sprung the whole wedding plan on me three months ago, my throat closed up as she laid out all the duties and time involved in being a bridesmaid. As well as all the interacting with people I didn’t know I would need to do.

Then, a month ago when my advisor told me I needed a last immersive experience to complete my final thesis paper, I saw the silver lining in this trip to the Wildfire Lodge in Upper Michigan.

After doing a full investigation of the area, turns out wilderness survival outings around here are a thing. So tomorrow morning, instead of suffering through the bridesmaid’s breakfast, I’m heading over to Boone's Outdoor Gear, where I’ll be getting my first taste of what it would be like to live after the apocalypse.

It all worked out, so I should be happy. Iamhappy. Insofar as I feel happiness. Being a spectrum girl, I’m aware my emotional receptors are not calibrated like the majority ofhumans. Being touched makes me grit my teeth. Hugs are not calming or comforting. More like straining to open a pickle jar. Friends have never been a priority for me. Being at the top of my class since my parents had me reading and writing at the age of three has been the pinpoint focus of my life.

Still, Sarah, who answered my parents’ ad for a roommate for me freshman year, turned out to be the sister and friend I never saw coming. Being sixteen when I started at U of M, I couldn’t stay in the dorm. So, Mom and Dad advertised for someone to sort of babysit me in exchange for a zero-rent opportunity at the loft apartment they rented just off campus. Sarah answered the ad, and turned out she had a neurodivergent younger brother, so instead of seeing me as a socially inept and annoying adolescent prodigy, she took me under her wing as a pseudo-sister.

I’d do anything for her. Including wear this ridiculous pink nightmare of lace and ruffles that makes my butt itch and has large dark circles growing on the chiffon under my arms.

Being the youngest person at most of my peer group’s social gatherings is nothing new. I've been catching up socially my entire life. But watching Sarah's other friends dance and laugh, all of them seeming so naturally confident in ways I've never quite mastered, makes the champagne feel like a necessary social lubricant rather than a celebration.

As the band does a blues version of the Chicken Dance, my focus is on being alone in the Michigan wilderness with some gruff outdoorsman who probably thinks journalism majors are as useful as chocolate tampons. Something to push my limits my advisor said. A chance to write about survival from the inside out. Feels like more of a nightmare to a girl that only goes outside to get from one class to another and thinks grass is itchy and roughing it is sleeping on less than 100% Egyptian cotton sheets, but here I am, committed to the madness because it’s thelast check mark I need on my degree, and there’s no way I’m not acing this thesis.

"Another glass, miss?" A smiling blond male server close to my age appears with a tray of golden bubbles. He would be considered good looking I’m sure, but I don’t have those kinds of feelings. I’ve never had a crush or swooned over a rock star or taken the time to figure out if my body is compatible with sexual pleasure.

It all seems like a time-wasting distraction and whether that’s from how I was raised or how my brain is wired, it doesn’t change the fact that my focus remains on my studies and soon, the first of what will more than likely be several advanced degrees.

I stare at the champagne flutes, the ascending bubbles catching the fairy lights as couples on the dancefloor embrace and a flicker of unusual sadness settles on my shoulders. . Another glass would not be smart. Nineteen years of playing it safe, following the rules, taking twice as many classes as everyone else, never taking summers off and being exactly what everyone expects is who I am.

I might be quirky, but I’m a reliable kind of quirky.

"You know what?" I pluck a glass from the tray tipping it in his direction, my decision crystallizing with alcohol-fueled clarity. "I've spent my entire life being sensible. Tonight, I'm drunk enough to be stupid."

The server looks puzzled, but I'm already moving, champagne in one hand, bouquet in the other, weaving through the dancing couples toward the lodge's back corridor. I don’t know where I’m going, but the noise and people are making me twitchy not to mention the constant looping thoughts about the inevitable humiliation I am about to endure on an adventure outing that will surely have my paid guide ready to throw me off Wildfire Mountain by the end of day one.

The hallway is blissfully quiet, the music fading to a distant hum. I find the ladies' room at the end of the corridor and stumble inside, grateful for the silence. Setting my glass and bouquet on the marble countertop, I stare at my reflection in the mirror.

My dark hair has escaped its careful updo, wisps framing my flushed face. The champagne has made my eyelids droop a bit. I’m smiling back at myself with an air of confidence I don’t remember having before. I look I look like someone who might actually survive in the mountains instead of becoming bear food on day one.

"Okay, Marley," I tell my reflection, straightening my shoulders, tugging at the dress where the size zipper irritates my skin. "You've got this. It's just camping. With a professional. How hard can it be?"

I retrieve the glass of champagne, hold it up toasting the new Marley I see in the mirror, press the cool glass to my lips and…the bathroom door swings open, the sounds of the wedding echoing off the gleaming tile walls as I spin on my toe, preparing for an awkward interaction with a fellow female inside the small space of the bathroom.

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