Something about the fact that she remembered his name—
He collapsed next to her, pack crashing at his feet.
“You’re alone this time,” she noted, going back to her drawing.
“Yeah.” Alexei sucked in a shaky breath. He pressed his palms to his eye sockets, staring at the indistinct swirls of white against the black of his eyelids. His headache was starting to fade, but his stomach felt worse. He felt light-headed, off balance.
Ben had been right, of course. Alexei’s body was tired. He needed the zero day. And hereallywished he could have done laundry.
“Want to talk about it?” Ruby asked, never pausing the smooth motions of her drawing hand.
“Yes,” Alexei answered, dropping his hands. “But I don’t know how. So…no.”
A moment of silence.
“That’s a big mood, my dude,” Ruby finally said.
“Yeah,” Alexei agreed. “Yeah, it is.”
And then he hung his head between his knees and began to cry.
So. Maybe Ben was gay. Or bisexual. Or something.
It was just—when Alexei woke up next to Ben and remembered it all—
His first thought had been, maybe he wasn’t.
Because there had been so many opportunities for Ben to tell him that he liked men. So many. And Alexei knew straight people experimented sometimes. Like being gay until graduation. Alexei had spent most of his college days at the University of Washington alone in his dorm room, or the library, or the college chapel—making new friends in college had, unfortunately, been exactly as difficult as Alexei had worried it would be—so he didn’t have much personal experience with the practice. But anyway, he’d heard of it. Maybe some dudes on the PCT got gay until Canada.
Even though that made no sense to Alexei. But a lot of things about the world didn’t make sense to Alexei.
Or maybe Ben just felt bad for him. Poor disowned gay boy. Maybe Ben thought he was being nice. And maybe he was.
Alexei just felt sodumb. He wished he were different. That he could’ve shoved Ben’s shoulder this morning, that they could have joked about it, that they still could have taken the zero day together.
Or—okay, in retrospect, he wished he could have been calm enough to at least talk it through with Ben. Let Ben clarify things.
But in the moment, all Alexei had known was that he wouldn’t be able to handle it. Hearing Ben say last night had beenfun.
Because it hadn’t just been fun for Alexei. It had been everything.
Alexei was going to think about last night for a long, long time.
In the end, he’d gotten what he wanted. The good-bye had been far more abrupt and awkward than he’d planned, but here he was. Alone again.
Eventually, Alexei’s tears dried. He lifted his head. Dug in his pack for tissues.
“Sorry about that,” he said to Ruby once he’d composed himself.
She shrugged, picking up a different pencil from her side.
“No problem,” she said. “Shit’s hard sometimes.”
“Yeah,” Alexei exhaled. “That’s true.” He turned toward her. “What are you drawing?”
Ruby lifted the sketch pad. “Prickly pear.”
“Ah. Could’ve guessed that.” He should have looked before he’d asked, seen the magenta pads she was starting to fill in on the distinctive, famously edible cactus.
