Into the Jungle

by Erica Ferencik Narrated by Jayme Mattler

Overview

In this “hypnotic, violent, unsparing” (A.J. Banner, USA TODAY bestselling author) thriller from the author of the “haunting, twisting thrill ride” (Megan Miranda, New York Times bestselling author) The River at Night, a young woman leaves behind everything she knows to take on the Bolivian jungle, but her excursion abroad quickly turns into a fight for her life.

Lily Bushwold thought she'd found the antidote to endless foster care and group homes: a gig teaching English in Cochabamba, Bolivia. As soon as she could steal enough cash for the plane, she was on it.

But the program was a scam. And bonding with other broke, rudderless girls in the local youth hostel wasn't the answer. Falling crazy in love with Omar, a savvy, handsome local who'd left his life as a hunter in Ayachero-a remote jungle village-to try city life: this was the last thing Lily could have imagined.

When Omar learns that a jaguar had killed his four-year-old nephew in Ayachero, he gives Lily a choice: stay alone in the unforgiving city, or travel to the last in the ever-more-isolated string of river towns in the jungles of Bolivia. Thirty-foot anacondas? Puppy-sized spiders? Vengeful shamans with unspeakable powers? None of it matters to love-struck Lily. She follows Omar to a ruthless new world of lawless poachers, bullheaded missionaries, and desperate indigenous tribes driven to the brink of extinction. To survive, Lily must navigate the jungle-and all its residents-using only her wits and resilience.

“Gripping, breathtaking, and exquisitely told-Into the Jungle pulls you into another world, returning you forever transformed” (Wendy Walker, USA TODAY bestselling author).

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

★ 03/11/2019

When the teaching job that lures scrappy 19-year-old foster care survivor Lily Bushwold, the narrator of this ferocious fever dream of a thriller from Ferencik (The River at Night), from Boston to Cochabamba, Bolivia, falls through, she decides to stay on. In Cochabamba, Lily falls hard for handsome mechanic Omar, and then, through the stories he tells, for the remote Amazonian jungle where his clan has lived for seven generations. So when Omar’s brother Panchito arrives from Ayachero, the tiny village Omar left years earlier, to ask Omar to return to lead the hunt for the jaguar that has killed their four-year-old nephew, Lily begs to go with him—pythons, tarantulas, and menacing neighboring Tatinga tribe be damned. And that’s not the half of it, Lily discovers once in Ayachero. Despite Lily’s fluent Spanish, Omar’s family and friends are none too welcoming to a gringa lacking any discernible skills to help a struggling community squeezed between ruthless poachers and the Tatinga. Ferencik delivers an alternately terrifying and exhilarating tale. Agent: Erin Harris, Folio Literary Management. (May)

Karen Dionne

I read Erica Ferencik’s Into the Jungle in one breathless sitting and when I finished, I wanted to stand up and cheer. Not only for Lily Bushwold’s amazing resilience and courage in the face of unimaginable hardships and challenges, but most of all, for Ferencik’s astonishing storytelling ability. Rich, raw, and real, Into the Jungle is a rip-roaring adventure like nothing I’ve read, with a heroine readers won’t soon forget. Highly recommended!”

Bookreporter

"Author Erica Ferencik brings readers a love story that is anything but ordinary. The main characters are literally worlds apart, and a danger-filled jungle is not your usual backdrop for romance. Ferencik’s writing style is fast-paced and suspenseful, making readers impatient to turn the page and find out what happens next. She herself spent some time in the Peruvian jungle where she did research for this book, and these experiences lend great authenticity to her narrative."

Joanna Schaffhausen

"There is magic in these pages. Ferencik takes you on an intense journey deep into the Bolivian jungle in a thrilling saga full of vibrant, memorable characters and electrifies you with the nerve-jangling challenges they face. You will smell the creeping moss and feel the eyes of the jungle upon you. Transformative and vivid."

New York Times bestselling author Jennifer McMahon

"A twisting, turning thrill ride of a novel, The River at Night will sweep you along, pull you under and not let you come up for air until you’ve turned the last page. Erica Ferencik expertly captures the wild, untouched Maine landscape and the ferocity of both nature and humankind.

Andy Mozina

"Under the spell of Ferencik’s stunning powers of description, you’ll find yourself outfitting your reading nook with mosquito netting and a machete. This portrait of female strength and guile in the face of the unfamiliar, the exhilarating, and the dangerous is utterly convincing. Like all great adventure stories, it’s about making a home in a beautiful, bewildering, and sometimes hostile world. A thrilling novel."

Marjan Kamali

"At its heart this is a love story between Lily and Omar whose unlikely bond lasts through terrifying obstacles and life-threatening challenges in the blistering heat of the Bolivian jungle. The magic and menace of the Amazon is brought to life by Erica Ferencik’s lush prose as Lily fights gargantuan spiders, screeching howler monkeys, killer pigs, and her own past demons in an alien atmosphere. But this novel also skillfully reveals how the collision of poachers with the inhabitants of a complex ecosystem endangers the way of life and livelihoods of native communities. Gripping, riveting, and absolutely heart-racing, Into the Jungle demonstrates love’s endurance and its ability to build strength and astonishing resilience."

Entertainment Weekly

Author Erica Ferencik’s storytelling [is]...brutally effective...hurtling River’s harrowing narrative along in a visceral, white-knuckle rush.

Hank Phillippi Ryan

"Wild and ferocious and incredibly brave! The talented Erica Ferencik ventures into the deepest recesses of passion, fear, and primal survival. This tale of resilience and power will haunt and inspire you— and sometimes terrify you. A complete tour de force and rivetingly compelling, this dark adventure reveals the astonishing risks people take for love."

Holly FitzGerald

"A compelling read. The author pulls you into her narrator's gorgeous but ominous world. You can't stop reading until you have finished the last page long after everyone else's lights are out."

Dr. Paul Beaver

"Packed with excitement and adventure, this is a riveting tale of a true life adventure in the steaming jungles of the Amazon. You won't be able to turn the pages fast enough."

Chris Feliciano Arnold

Into the Jungle is a vivid, terrifying fever dream. Erica Ferencik has imagined the Amazon rain forest as a psychological, physical and moral testing ground for outcast Lily Bushwold—a survivor longing for love and purpose in Bolivia. This gripping thriller will awaken readers to the wonders and perils of the world’s most mysterious forest.

The Boston Globe

"A surging thriller . . . helmed by a tenacious, resourceful woman. The book teems with a heavy-aired fecundity, giving entry to a primordial state that moves deeper into the mind as it moves deeper into the jungle.

The New York Times Book Review

"Erica Ferencik paints a picture of a jungle ripe with the amorality of nature, where dropping one’s guard or losing focus means death from any number of sources... As the greenery flowers and bursts and rots from within so, too, does the prose.

Jamey Bradbury

"From page one, I was completely under the spell of Erica's prose. Her protagonist, Lily, is instantly compelling—tough, wounded, brave, terrified, lost, and—once she enters the jungle—found, to her surprise. Like the jungle of the title, the moment you step into Erica's novel, it closes around you and demands that you pay attention. I feel lucky to be among the very first readers of Into the Jungle, and I can't wait to sing its praises to anyone who will listen!"

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Vicki Pettersson

With a title like The River at Night, the plot had to be swift and twisting, yet what enraptured me completely was Wini's bigger triumph over the wilderness of the heart, a vivid journey amplified by a deeply textured depiction of both the devastating and glorious ways that true friendship can tear us down ... and build us back up again. Ferencik's writing pulses with a dangerous energy akin to the river she depicts.

New York Times bestselling author Heather Gudenkauf

"The River at Night is a dark, twisting, unrelenting thriller that kept me frantically turning the pages well into the night. Erica Ferencik skillfully combines jolting plot twists, lyrical prose, and a beautifully brutal setting, cementing The River at Night as my favorite debut novel of the year."

Scott Wallace

"Into the Jungle nails with great verve the rigors and joy of travel into the uncharted depths of South America's rainforest and the spiritual lives of its people. Erica Ferencik has written a gem of a book. I couldn't put it down."

New York Times bestselling author Ruth Ware

"Raw, relentless and heart-poundingly real, this book knocked me off my feet like a river in spate."

Bestselling author David Bell

"Erica Ferencik's The River at Night is a high-octane debut, a thriller that combines the watery adventure of Deliverance with the twisting psychological suspense of Lisa Unger. This is a taut, tense novel that rushes like the fastest rapids. Grab a hold now and enjoy the ride!"

New York Times bestselling author Lisa Unger

The River at Night is a white water thrill ride to be sure. But it’s more than than that. Erica Ferencik digs deep into friendship, midlife angst, and how we can surprise ourselves when the worst things happen. Wini is a character I can imagine myself knowing, sharing secrets over coffee. I pulled for her the whole way, through all the rapids, all the bends and twists of this terrific debut.

Sy Montgomery

"Riveting, real, and drenched in adventure and magic, Into the Jungle transports the reader to a wet, lush world of jaguars and anacondas, shamans and poachers, terror and wonder. The action is non-stop, the characters unforgettable, and Erica Ferencik's prose dazzles. I couldn't put it down!"

Susan Bernhard

"I was lured in, caught off guard, and ensnared by Lily and Omar, their love story, and their journey deep into the pulsing heart of Bolivia and the Amazon. The menacing pace and ripe, dripping prose made every brush with danger—the two-, four-, six-, and eight-legged variety; the whispering, biting, slithering kind—that much more enthralling. I spent hours balled up and tense, hunched over every word, deliciously creeped out, and finally out for blood. Stay alert: You won’t want to miss one thrilling detail of Into The Jungle."

Crystal King

"Absolutely intense! Into the Jungle plunges the reader deep into the heart of the Amazon in an adventure as lush and layered as the foliage itself. An extraordinary book with an unusual love story at its center, you'll be on the edge of your seat until the very last word."

Caroline Eriksson

”With its fascinating characters and its unique setting—a steaming, chattering, enchanted world of rich green where darkness lures beneath the surface—this is not just any story. It is a journey into the heart of the jungle and the brutal, life-altering wisdom that can be found there. I find this book as mesmerising as the gaze of an acaonda. ”

New York Times bestselling author Megan Miranda

"The River at Night is both a haunting, twisting thrill-ride through the Maine wilderness, and a story of friendship, humanity, and the will to survive. Terrifyingly real and impossible to put down."

Kathleen Barber

"Lush, arresting, and uniquely terrifying, Into the Jungle is an unforgettable story of love and survival set in a Bolivian jungle so vividly rendered that you can practically hear the howler monkeys."

Taylor Adams

"Take a deep breath—Into the Jungle is a vivid plunge into a wondrous and eerie world. Gorgeously written, richly atmospheric, and absolutely enthralling."

Wendy Walker

"Gripping, breathtaking, and exquisitely told—Into The Jungle pulls you into another world, returning you forever transformed."

Katrin Schumann

"Into the Jungle is a haunting and authoritative exploration of the power and limitations of love—not only between two people, but between individuals and communities, and the wild and unpredictable earth they inhabit. Compulsively readable, this book takes you deep into the fierce and fragile Amazon, and you'll be riveted till the very end.

Marie Claire

"This novel quickly becomes a dark, more-twisted-than-the-river tale of secrets as night falls in the wilderness."

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Mary Kubica

"Lost in the brutal Maine wilderness, four women struggle to survive, testing the boundaries of their friendship and the limitations of their own strength and mortality. Terrifying and wholly visceral, The River at Night will leave you gasping, your heart racing, eyes peering over your shoulder to see what follows from behind. Take a deep breath before you begin because it’s the last you’ll have until you’re through."

Kirkus Reviews

2019-03-04

A death-defying Bolivian adventure in the primordial forest...starring a homeless teenager from Boston who just might be a shaman.

Sleeping late isn't an option in the jungle. By the time the sun is up, it's "already ricocheting with the calls of monkeys, parrots, frogs, all going at it molto vivace, shrieking and squawking as if the world were waking up in pain, the jungle giving birth to itself each morning." The setting of Ferencik's (The River at Night, 2017) second female-driven adventure thriller is hair-raisingly vivid, replete with tarantulas, piranhas, jaguars, and electric eels. We experience them all through the eyes of Lily Bushwold, 19, "a half-starved, high strung wild child who lived out of a backpack, homeless since [she] was thirteen." Lily thought she had landed a dream job in South America but arrived to find herself the victim of a scam; she's living on shoplifted bananas in Cochabamba when she meets Omar, a handsome hunter from a remote jungle village who has come to try his luck in the big city. He and Lily have already fallen in love when he learns that his 4-year-old nephew back home has been eaten by a jaguar; when he returns to seek revenge, Lily goes with him. What does she have to lose, right? She finds out pretty quickly during the most terrifying plane flight in recent literary history. After a near crash and a water landing, it's welcome to Ayachero—Omar's jungle home, where everybody except one little cross-eyed boy immediately hates the gringa. "A burnt-meat smell, the reek of stale water, and a stray sweet whiff of pig dung merged with a humid, breathless heat." Among the unwelcoming locals are two missionaries named Harriet and a female shaman named Beya, an outcast from a rival tribe who lives in the woods nearby. When Beya is able to save Lily from death by coaching her telepathically through an electric eel encounter, her next question is, "Are you the only shaman in Boston?" Even with the telepathy, Lily's experience feels almost real—then, in the final chapters, takes a wild turn into superhero territory.

The closest thing to an actual hell ride you'll ever experience (one hopes). Thrilling, bloody, and ferocious.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171179397
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	05/28/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Into the Jungle
COCHABAMBA, BOLIVIA

– MARCH 2010 –

“What do you mean, you don’t know how to steal?” I asked my two new besties who sat next to me on the hard plastic seat of the ancient, shock-less bus.

For me, thieving was a life skill, like lying my way out of a jam, or taking off at the first sign of trouble. Most nineteen-year-olds bum around Europe a month or two, then scoot back home to college like good boys and girls. Well, fuck that. I was a half-starved, high-strung wild child who lived out of a backpack, homeless since I was thirteen, obsessed with Spanish-speaking countries, animals, and the jungle. I was also a desperately lonely, cocky-yet-petrified infant. In the space of a minute I could drown in self-pity for what I thought I’d missed—a real family—then toss that aside to satisfy a rabid curiosity for the world and everything in it. That second part may have been what saved me in the end.

On my right, seventeen-year-old Britta from Austria gazed out the open window, taciturn, dreamy, dark hair blowing back from her pale face. “I stole something once,” she said. “Mints. From a restaurant.”

Molly, a tall, talky American from Seattle, grinned and leaned in to her with a bony shoulder. “News flash: those are free.” A ghost of a pedicure clung to her dusty feet in beat-up sandals, just flecks of red polish on every other toenail.

Britta shrugged. “I took more than one.”

Molly and I howled with laughter. “Mint stealer! They’re gonna lock you up, girl.”

Below us, the narrow one-way street buzzed with lawless vitality and frenetic energy. Small European cars blew past stop signs with only a warning honk, pausing barely long enough for a withered Bolivian woman to yank a stubborn llama across the cobblestones. Young men on motorcycles cut between cars, even zoomed across sidewalks. These weren’t the downtown Boston streets I knew that zipped up at night with crusty Brahmin efficiency; this was raw, stinky chaos, life out loud with all its mess, sprawl, and noise, and I couldn’t get enough of it.

We three groaned each time we slammed into a pothole, tailbones bruised and aching. Laughing with fear and exhilaration, we clung to the windowsills, the seats in front of us, or each other as the cigar-chomping driver took every turn too hard and too fast. Pop music blared from the bus’s tinny speakers. Diesel gassed us through the open windows. Chickens squawked and scattered across the road as we blasted by.

We bulleted around one last corner, the bus practically coasting on its left side wheels as we turned onto a flagstone courtyard. I relished the feel of my switchblade cool against my thigh, nestled in the long pockets of my baggy shorts, my beloved backpack clutched under one bony arm. With a last belch of black smoke, the bus ground to a stop near a small farmacia tucked between rows of vegetable stands.

“This is it,” I said, jumping to my feet. “Let’s go.”

“Okay, chiquita,” Molly said, tumbling out her side of the seat. “We’re going, we’re going.”

We squinted into the afternoon sun’s last rays as they sliced across the plaza, the towers of a looming seventeenth-century church casting cold black shadows across us. We wove our way past shopkeepers hawking jewelry, clothing, blankets, and cheap knickknacks, their stores squeezed into impossibly thin corridors between crumbling stone buildings. The usual stew of fear, pride, and excitement that preceded a heist—big or small—churned in my stomach. Everywhere the sweetish whiff of rotting vegetables mixed with a low note of sizzling meat, a smell that—those days—only ratcheted up the pain in my gut.

Britta pulled up short at a stall where a young girl was flipping fried corn cakes filled with melting cheese. She scouted around in her bag for some change.

“Come on, Brit,” I said. “Later.” Never rob a store on a full stomach: seriously, did I really need to explain this?

“But I’m starving.”

“Not now.”

“Oh, for God’s sake. Just because you never eat.”

I tugged the straps of my backpack tighter across my shoulders. Pitiful as the contents were, I always had food, whether stolen or bought. Ziplock bags of dusty peanuts, half-melted candy bars, sad old apples, stale M&M’s, anything I could get my hands on. The truth was, I was always hungry; it was just a matter of degree. Growing up with seven other foster kids had me well acquainted with a chronic emptiness in my gut.

I glanced around nervously. “We’ll get something after, okay?” As used to copping things as I was, it had only just occurred to me that the punishment here might be a lot less lenient than in the States. Would it be actual jail time? Hard labor? And how in fuck would I get myself out with barely a boliviano to my name?

Grumbling, Britta zipped her sweatshirt to her chin with a shiver and joined Molly and me as we huddled outside the pharmacy. “So, Molly, you’ve stolen things before?” she asked.

Molly gave me a sly look. “Of course.”

“What’s the biggest thing you’ve ever stolen?”

“A boyfriend.”

“Good to know.” Britta laughed, then turned to me. “Lily? Biggest thing?”

“As in size? Or worth?”

“Size.”

“A turkey. For Thanksgiving.”

“Did you get caught?”

“Nope.”

Molly whistled, impressed, but back on task as she glanced apprehensively at the drugstore. “So, how is this going to go—”

“We go in,” I said. “We’re super friendly. Smile and say hola. You know that much Spanish, right?” I pulled out a beat-up map from my backpack and handed it to Molly. “Just do what we talked about. We’ll be fine.”

Molly’s head knocked into a little cowbell that hung over the door, announcing our entrance more than I would have liked. She giggled as she approached a solemn-faced woman who slouched behind a cash register staring out a narrow lead-paned window. Molly and Britta stood near her to block her view of me. I cased the aisles quickly: the place was dirty, everything looked old and beat. Pawed-over packets of Band-Aids, dusty bottles of American shampoo, toothpaste, deodorant. We honestly could have used all of it, but I had to concentrate on what we came for. Even before they had unfolded the map and began to ask the proprietor in stumbling Spanish the best way to get to La Paz by bus, I had lifted a roll of rubbers, three boxes of tampons, three small bags of rough-cut tobacco, and rolling papers.

“Hey, Molly,” I called out. This was the signal that I was done, and they could step apart. The woman peered down at me as I picked through some dry goods. “You wanted cornmeal, right, Molls?” The absolute cheapest thing in the store, at twenty-five centavos a half kilo.

“Sure, yeah.”

I grabbed a small package and took it to the counter. A glass bowl of wrapped mints sat near the old-fashioned crank register. I took three and laid them next to the cornmeal. “How much?” I asked in Spanish, counting out a few coins.

“The mints?” she said with a gap-toothed smile. “Those are free.”

Molly burst out laughing and couldn’t stop. Britta fought to contain herself and was unsuccessful, turning crimson as she folded the map. The woman’s smile soured as she watched us, folding her arms across her sparrow chest. She looked me dead in the eye and said, “Show me what is in your backpack.”

“Why?”

Her face grew stone-hard. “My son is outside. He’s a big man. He’ll open it for me.”

Feigning offense, I counted out twenty-five centavos and stuffed the cornmeal in my bag. “Buenos días, señora.”

I took a big stride toward the door, but she cut me off and ran past us into the square, shouting, “Diego! Diego! They robbed me, Diego!” We sprinted past her toward the bus that had just fired up its engine, leaping aboard as it lurched into motion. In seconds, the square receded behind us and we were climbing the steep hills back to the city center.

Screaming and laughing, high from our theft, we burst into the Hostel Versailles Cochabamba—a hilariously named fleabag where we all worked for room and board—and raced down to the basement, our roach-infested “staff apartment,” which was just a moldy bunk room the size of a jail cell, complete with cold, always-damp cement walls. I dumped the contents of my backpack onto a broken-down couch squeezed between the cots.

All the stolen goodies tumbled out, along with a beat-up copy of a book I’d lifted from my last group home in Boston. Reddening, I reached for it, but Molly grabbed the book and turned it over, while Britta nabbed a pouch of tobacco and rolling papers and bolted up the stairs.

“Charlotte’s Web?” Molly said, examining me. “I remember this book from when I was a kid. Can’t remember reading much since, if you want to know the truth.”

At the time, I had no explanation for why this little pig’s life saved by the efforts of the spider who really loved him tore my guts out. I only knew that the story had gotten to me, made me cry, but also gave me hope that I could—someday—overcome my wordless sorrow.

“I keep some old photos in it.”

As Molly flipped the pages, one fell out, all dog-eared and scratched. “Is this your foster mom?”

I took the photo from her. “Yeah, that’s Tia.” As I gazed at the picture, I was struck by the resemblance between the proprietor of the store I’d just robbed and Tia, my Bolivian foster mom who had died of cancer when I was twelve. Same age, same tight expression of defensiveness against great odds. Ashamed tears backed up behind my eyes, but I held them off.

“She has a kind face.”

“She did the best she could with eight of us running around,” I said, eyes downcast as I stuffed the book back in my bag, embarrassed to be seen reading anything other than the Jack Kerouac or Charles Bukowski from the ragtag hostel library, not that Molly or Britta would have been impressed by that sort of thing. Of course, I looked nothing like Tia; I don’t look like anyone. Well, I guess I did look like a miniature version of my real mom, who I’d never known. Same curly red hair, blue eyes, but I lacked her glamorous length of bone; she stood six feet in flats, while I was just five one. Small and small boned. A social worker once told me my mom—who overdosed when I was a baby—had been a poet; in my fantasies she was a brilliant one, too brilliant to live, like Sylvia Plath.

Molly sorted the condoms from the pile and stashed them in her pants pocket. “Thanks for doing this. Mark’ll be here in a few days. He never has anything.”

“No problem,” I said, slinging my bag over my shoulder. “But I’ve got to go.” Thirty-four beds needed a change of sheets.

“Me too. Britta’s alone at check-in. Bad idea.” We grinned at each other. Britta rarely stopped flirting long enough to write down reservations and keep the beds from being double-booked. A nightmare when dozens of exhausted international travelers flooded in nightly, all of them desperate for food and sleep, none with the cash for a real hotel.

Halfway up the stairs, I turned back to look at Molly, to find her gazing after me. “A turkey, really?” she said.

“Yeah. I wore a big coat. Pretended I was pregnant. Worked like a dream.”

None of us ever had enough cash. Evenings off, we made spare change washing dishes alongside laughing toothless grandmothers in local cantinas. On the best days, we nailed the occasional gig teaching English to the sons and daughters of rich families in parts of the city with dreamy names like Cala Cala or El Mirador. We were picked up in big, noiseless town cars to spend an hour or two with their precious babies in vast rooms with balconies featuring jaw-dropping views of the city and mountains beyond, then taken back to the Versailles, to our damp room with floors that glittered with silverfish. Otherwise, we worked constantly at the hostel—booking rooms, cleaning floors, washing linens, and cutting onions and potatoes for enormous pots of stew till our fingers bled.

All of us were running away from something. I’d been suckered down that January to teach English at a school that didn’t exist. Stole the money—over time at a shit job in an appliance store—for plane fare, got here, no one met my plane or answered my calls. I had maybe five dollars on me, which got me a cab to the Versailles. I begged my way in, then stayed, too broke to go home.

Molly had dough, even though she swore she didn’t. How could you travel the world to get over a guy, à la Eat Pray Love, sans cash? Still, there was something else wrong that kept her from going home, I could feel it. Britta had been traveling nonstop for a year with no idea what to do next. Anything but Vienna, she’d quip between deep inhales of her hash pipe—anything but that. Something about her father. She didn’t elaborate, but that was fine. I never did either. It didn’t matter.

I loved these girls with all the passionate intensity and conviction and delusion of my not-yet-twenty-year-old self. The damage in me honored the damage in them, and as far as I was concerned, that was the sum total of truth in the world. Ignoring the fact that we didn’t have much in common, that Britta had a mean side and Molly lied probably more than me—which was saying something—I told myself we’d be friends forever.

But my gut knew that we were all lost children pretending we were A-OK with our clove cigarettes and our fuck-everything, we’re-never-going-home attitudes. None of us had any idea what we were doing; all of us were devastated inside. There were reasons we’d ended up there, trying to sleep in noisy bunk rooms with doors that didn’t lock, a new boss every other week who leered and leched at each of us. But it was as if we were stuck there, like food caught in a drain. If anyone had asked us, What makes you tick? Where are you going? Why are you here? Why can’t you get through the day without crying? What do you want from your life? We would have been stumped for any answers at all.

As I whipped the thin sheets off rows of narrow cots, grimacing at the occasional period stain or worse, I tried to feel happy for Molly, but the truth was, this new fragile family of lost girls was falling apart, bit by bit. Did it matter who would be the first to leave? For all of us, it was just a matter of time. Soon, I would have to face life after the Versailles, a fate I dreaded—exhaustion, filth, and roaches be damned.

Nine years later, I wish I could wrap my arms around my younger, stupider self and tell her to hold on tight, because flying to Bolivia on a scam was the least of a series of bad decisions I was about to make.

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