“I’m bored.”
Despite himself, Alexei smiled.
He opened the flap of his tent. Ben’s was set up only a few yards away. He had scrambled himself partly out of it, his head propped outside its blue nylon walls. His bundled-up navy sweatshirt served as a makeshift pillow between his dark hair and the ground.
Alexei wrangled himself into a similar position, angling his body so his head and shoulders stuck out of his humble abode to better see Ben. Who was squinting over at him, a funny look on his face.
And maybe it was because Alexei’s mind had just been stuck in the past, but suddenly, he felt a little proud of himself again. For allowing himself to admire the back of Ben’s neck, his legs, his elbows when Alexei hiked behind him. For daydreaming about crawling into Ben’s lap when he wore that sweatshirt, looking so comfortable and inviting. For cataloging the endless expressions that daily painted Ben’s face. For allowing himself to look at that face now, and admit how much it pleased him.
For so much of his life, Alexei had never let himself think, look, notice such things. So much had been squashed, hidden inside places he pretended weren’t there.
Alexei had spent so much of his life holding himself back from wanting.
And while he knew this particular wanting was temporary and useless, he felt good, in some small way, that he was letting himself feel it.
“We still have over half the day left,” he noted, entertained at Ben’sboredstatus. They spent hours every day doing nothing but walking and breathing. Hiking was entirely monotonous. If anything, having time to simply sit in your tent and do whatever you wanted was downright exciting.
“I know.” Ben stuck out his lower lip while he huffed a breath, sending the locks hanging around his forehead flying. “What are you up to?”
Alexei looked down at the book in his hands.
“Reading.”
Ben turned on his side, propping an elbow on the ground, resting his cheek on his palm.
“Ah. You did strike me as the bookworm type.”
Alexei hesitated, debating how much to explain himself to Ben. “We weren’t allowed to watch TV when we were kids. So I spent a lot of time reading. Like, a lot.”
“No TV at all?”
“Didn’t even own one.”
“Holy shit.” Ben’s eyes went wide. “I was practically raised by TV.”
“Yeah.” Alexei looked at the cover of his book, the sandy ground beneath him.
“So were you like…Jehovah’s Witnesses? Or Amish or something?”
Alexei flipped through the yellowed pages with his thumb.
“No. Although my church probably has similar principles. I went to public school; we weren’t completely cut off from society. We were just supposed to keep our minds pure for God.”
“The same God who supposedly approves of your parents disowning you for being gay?”
Alexei sucked in a breath.
“Sorry, man.” Ben sighed. “I’ll try to keep my mouth shut.”
Alexei studied his book a moment more. And then he spoke aloud, for the first time, the one thought that had kept him going these last six months.
“No,” he said quietly. “I don’t think God approves of that, either.”
In a way, Alexei’s faith had been shifting since the day he left home for college. There was a branch of his church outside Seattle he could have gone to, that his parents believed he attended. But most Sundays, he had found himself in the University of Washington’s nondenominational chapel. He increasingly felt safe there. Fewer strictures, fewer punishments. More of the things that made his heart feel open and loved.
When he’d returned to the Portland-Vancouver area after graduation, and resumed going to weekly services with his family, things chafed at him that hadn’t before.
No longer attending church these last six months had left Alexei feeling a confusing mix of horribly empty and deeply relieved.
