After dinner, I go to a flat rock near the stream to tend to my blisters. The evening air cools, the sky darkening toward night, stars appearing above. I remove my boots and socks, wincing as the fabric pulls from tender skin. The original blisters have improved thanks to Finn’s treatment, but new ones have formed. I search my small first aid kit for something useful, finding only basic bandages that won’t help much.
“Use this.” Finn’s voice startles me. He stands nearby, holding a small tin container.
“What is it?” I ask as he sits beside me on the rock.
“Wilderness salve. My mother’s recipe. Works on blisters, cuts, burns, insect bites. Most things that happen out here.” He opens the tin, revealing a greenish ointment that smells of herbs. The scent triggers another memory—my grandmother’s porch, her aged hands, the precise way she measured dried plants into her mortar.
“What’s in it?” I ask, steadying my voice.
“Plantain leaf, yarrow, comfrey, calendula. Other things.”
Calendulafor healing. I take the tin, keeping my expression neutral despite the turmoil inside. “Thanks.”
He watches as I apply the salve to each blister, then helps me wrap them with clean gauze from his first aid kit. We work in silence, the stream gurgling nearby.
“Why’d you come here?” he says after a while, his voice low enough that the others can’t hear.
“For my career. I told you that.”
“There are easier ways to rehabilitate an image than hiking through the Alaskan wilderness.”
I focus on wrapping my foot, avoiding his eyes. “I never agreed to hike. My agent said I’d stay at the lodge and take glamour shots with mountains in the background. Perhaps pose with a fishing rod near a stream. All staged.”
“And you always do what your agent suggests?”
The question pricked at something raw. I lift my head, ready to snap at him, but the curiosity in his expression stops me. He isn’t challenging me—just trying to understand.
“This time I did,” I say. “I didn’t have many options after the Martinez incident.”
“What happened there? Rumors reached even here, but never the full story.”
I pause. The official version is rehearsed—a momentary lapse in judgment, stress from a demanding role, sincere regrets. But here, miles from Hollywood, that version feels as useless as designer boots on a mountain trail.
“I lost my temper,” I say. “The director, Martinez, kept pushing for more revealing shots, more skin, more sexuality in every scene. I’d spent years trying to break away from being the sexy vampire girl, and here was this acclaimed ‘artistic’ director doing the same thing, with fancier lighting.” Finn listens, his face unreadable in the approaching darkness. “When Iobjected, he said I should be grateful—that my appearance was the only reason I had a career. That I wasn’t talented enough to make it any other way.” I lower my head, staring at the mess wrapped around my feet.
“I threw my drink at him. It was in a crystal champagne flute, and it hit his face. Required twelve stitches.”
“He deserved it,” Finn says.
A surprised laugh escapes me. “That’s not the usual reaction.”
“What’s the usual reaction?”
“That I’m unstable. Difficult. A liability.”
He shrugs. “Standing up for yourself isn’t being difficult. Though next time use plastic cups.”
My laugh is real. “I’ll remember that.”
We fall silent. I should feel lighter, having said it out loud. But all it does is dredge up more—things I’ve buried for years. After Martinez, it wasn’t only work that dried up. The decent guys stopped calling. The rest treated me like a walking headline. Eventually, I stopped hoping for anything real. So, when that bouquet came flying at Timber and Kane’s wedding, I flinched like it was a grenade. Because catching it would’ve meant I still believed in something. And I’m not sure I do.
In the distance, the crew retreats to their tents, exhaustion claiming even the most energetic. The stars fill the sky, bright against the darkness.
“I should sleep,” I say, handing back his first aid supplies. “Early start tomorrow, right?”
Finn nods. “Dawn. Another big day ahead.”
I stand carefully, testing my bandaged feet. The salve has numbed the worst pain. “This stuff works.”
