“I can’t believe you just let him go!”
“He seemed pretty determined, Jules. He needs time alone to sort his head out, I think. And—”
“Wait, I’m sorry, he looks at you like he’s looking at you in those Instagram pictures and fucking serenades you and then he just leaves?”
“Julie.”
“No, I get it, he needs to be alone and sad for a while, but—” A heavy sigh. “Goddammit, Ben. I just…want this to stop happening to you.”
A hole opened up in Ben’s chest.
“I know,” he whispered, trying and failing at not sounding pathetic. “Me too, Julie. That was how I fucked up, too. I shouldn’t have ever hiked with him in the first place. I liked him from the moment I saw him. I had already been telling myself, before last night, that I needed to step away. I just—” He squeezed his eyes shut. “What if I can never grow up?”
“Hold up. What do you mean?”
“I spent the last decade of my life making bad decisions, and I came out here tostopmaking them, and what is literally thefirstthing I do?”
Okay. Maybe that wasn’t technically accurate. He had hiked 150 miles before he met Alexei. Maybe he could still be proud of those 150 miles he somehow got through without throwing himself at a boy.
“Ben.” Julie took a deep breath. “Okay. Can I be honest with you right now?”
Ben snorted. “You’re always honest with everyone, Julie.”
A pause that ran a little too long.
“Not always,” Julie said softly.
“Okay.” Ben felt his chest puffing up in defense before he could stop it. “Go for it, then.”
“I worry about you, Ben,” she said. “I’ve been worried about you for a long time.” Before Ben could say anything, she added, “Especially since Robbie.”
Ben sucked in a breath between his teeth. God. You dateonepossessive prick who isolates you from your closest loved ones for a year, and your best friend never lets you forget it.
“But it’s notjustRobbie,” Julie went on. “You’ve always been too hard on yourself, Ben. Always thinking you’re making these…‘bad decisions.’” Her voice turned angry, the air quotes clear over the line. “You never believe in yourself as much as you should. I don’t know why, because you’re fucking amazing, so honestly, it pisses me off most of the time.”
She did sound pissed off, and Ben welcomed it. Would much rather Julie yell at him than speak in that gentle, pitying voice that didn’t fit Julie at all.
“Like, you put yourself through nursing school after taking care of your aunt Birdie, and now you’re doing this incredible thing only point-two percent of the human population probably even thinks about doing, and you’re worried about not being grown up enough? What the fuck.”
Ben curled himself into a tiny ball. As he often wanted to, whenever the wordRobbieentered a conversation.
“And Ben, actually, now that I said all that, it makes me think…Birdie started getting sick right after you left Robbie, didn’t she?” Julie’s voice got soft again. “Ben, I don’t think you’ve even given yourself a chance to breathe since Robbie.”
“I’m breathing just fine,” Ben responded. “That’s all there is to do on the PCT. Walk and breathe.”
“Yeah. Yeah, no, that’s good.” Julie took another big breath. “Anyway, I think what’s happened is you surrounded yourself for a long time with shitty people who reinforced that you weren’t enough. But the thing is—”
Another frustrated huff.
“You haven’t made bad decisions, Ben. You open your heart to everyone, which, sure, isn’t always awisedecision, but it’s not necessarily something to be ashamed of. It’s the people who haven’t treated that heart with respect who have been the bad decision makers. Do you get it?”
Ben stared out the window, eyes hot. Hewantedto get it. He knew Julie was trying to be nice. But he still felt so deeply embarrassed about all of it. That he’d stayed with Robbie so long, that Julie had to talk to him in gentle tones about his life when he was nearing thirty and should’ve been able to figure out his shit himself.
Plus, even if noteverythingabout the past decade was his fault, a pattern was still a pattern. He did have some responsibility for his mistakes here.
“They weren’tallshitty people,” he managed after a long pause. “Hugh was nice.”
It was weak, and beside the point, he knew, but he felt exhausted suddenlyand didn’t know what else to say.
