“I have an emergency GPS locator,” Alexei said, a bit defensively. “It has texting options, so I can let Alina know if something happens. I’m not completely irresponsible.”
The emergency GPS locator had been expensive. But more necessary, in Alexei’s mind, than a phone. Alexei was good at numbers, at cost analyses. It made no sense to carry, and keep paying for, a device that would have spotty service at best, when there was no one he truly needed to be in contact with. Except for Alina. And he’d given her the information for his GPS locator. The only other people he might like to contact every now and then were his online D&D group, and well, they’d be on a totally different campaign by the time he got back anyway.
It had made sense in his head.
“No, Lex. I wouldn’t take you as irresponsible.” Ben gave him a small, inscrutable smile.
And then Alexei realized.
How truly, utterly pathetic it was to have no one he needed to be in contact with.
His blush burned his ears.
“I know it’s probably weird. To not have a phone. It’s just—”
“No, no.” Ben waved him off. “Not weird. It’s…hardcore. You’re like,actuallyoff the grid. You’re a badass, Lex.”
Sure.
They could call it that.
Alexei managed a small nod before he bolted into the bushes.
***
An hour later, back in his tent and splayed out on his stomach, Alexei stared at a different journal. He chewed absently on the top of his pen.
This journal was slightly smaller than the other. It had a weatherproof orange cover.
On the first page, only one heading was written. He’d written it back in Portland, before he left.
Good Things
He could do this. He felt good enough today, and alone enough to focus. He knew Ben wouldn’t mind if Alexei stayed in this tent all day.
He had researched what you should do. How to best cope with the loss of loved ones. That was how he was choosing to frame it. His parents were lost to him, and grief was natural after loss.
Accept your feelings as valid.
Talk about the deaths of your loved ones.
Remember and celebrate their lives.
Alexei considered pen and paper talking. Words were involved. It counted.
The thing was, Alexei’s life had been a good one. He didn’t want to be this tragic figure now, someone to feel sorry for. He wanted to document the memories that made him happy. Theremembering and celebratingpart. He hoped remembering the happy stuff would let him accept the past as the past, and eventually, put it all behind him.
And then he’d be fully ready. For Alexei 2.0.
His pen hovered over the paper. His stomach made a loud gurgling noise.
It was just…where did one start, in trying to document a life?
Whenever Alexei tried to think about his dad, all he could see was his lanky frame leaning against the doorway of Alexei’s childhood home. The home where he and Alina had run through the yard and the neighboring woods their entire childhoods, the home where he’d celebrated every Easter and Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year’s. The home with the attic that scared him, that Alina always dared him to enter; the one with the creaky third stair, the family pictures framed above it, marching up the wall. The one where his old bedroom was tucked into the back corner of the second floor, looking out onto the trees, where cross-country medals and math department awards hung above his desk. The home where Alina had stuffed cake down the back of his pants on his eleventh birthday when he’d spilled milk on one of her paintings and she hadn’t believed him when he’d said it had been an accident.
Alexei should have been able to write about all these things. But it was all still overshadowed in his head, frustratingly, by his dad that day in the doorway, hands in his pockets, head down. Unable to make eye contact with his only son. One of the buttons on his cardigan sweater had been unbuttoned.
Whenever Alexei tried to think about his mom, all he could see was her standing next to his father in that doorway. But she was leaning forward, a hand stretching out. Before she stopped, her fingers curling in on themselves.
