“I’m not telling,” she said, bouncing on her toes, her grin stretching from ear to ear.
Wait.
What—
But before he could protest further, she gave him one last hug, quick and light this time, yelling “I love you!” over her shoulder before she ran through the parking lot, leaving Alexei alone at the picnic table, confusion on his face, chocolate-vanilla soft serve roiling in his stomach.
***
It took Alexei a long time to leave the picnic table.
His sister had been here—and then she was gone. It took Alexei time to process it, to assure himself it had been real.
He had been feeling so at peace these last few hundred miles. Proud of what he’d accomplished, how far he’d come. Looking forward, tentatively, to the future.
But seeing Alina again—knowing, definitively, that she was still here, still his sister, his friend—
He released a quiet sob. Oh, God. He had been ready to face his future alone. But it felt so good. Knowing he didn’t have to.
Alexei sat a bit longer. Processed it all a bit more.
And then he kept sitting.
In his defense, his knees really did hurt.
But eventually, he peeled himself away from the table. Took a deep breath. Shook out his arms.
Picked up his pack.
Alina had told him to cross the bridge. Alina had a secret. Alexei only had one guess about what that secret could be.
Even if it seemed completely implausible.
It almost hurt even to think it.
But he supposed he’d have to walk a bit more either way, to find out.
Alexei’s breath grew tighter in his chest with each step he took across the Bridge of the Gods. The Columbia River flowed beneath his feet, blue-green and majestic in the September sun. The cars crawled carefully around him.
Alexei had been here before; knew exactly what the other side looked like. The green-and-white “Welcome to Washington” sign, the acorn-shaped PCT marker, the arrows pointing right to Stevenson, left to Vancouver.
Except this time—
Oh.Oh good God.
There he was. Leaning against a black rental car, parked in the dirt right off the entrance to the bridge.
Alexei stopped short, rested his hands on his knees. He hadn’t talked to a soul in, like, 300 miles, and then Alina, and now—
He was going to faint. Except this bridge was ridiculously high, so he would definitely die if he fell off it, and if he swayed the other way, he’d only get hit by a car, and Ben Caravalho already saw too much death.
At least, Alexei assumed Ben hadn’t come all this way to watch him die.
For a long time, Alexei hadn’t been sure if Ben hated him or not. That one letter he’d sent had been so short and indecipherable, hardly a letter at all. He hadn’t sent anything after that, which had been fair. There likely wouldn’t have been any easy way for Ben to know where Alexei was at any given time anyway, even if he had wanted to write.
Even though he apparently knew, like Alina, where Alexei would be today.
Because Ben and Alina must have been in cahoots.
