Alexei laughed, something around his heart easing, just a tiny bit.
“I’m not ready to go back to Woodside yet,” Ruby said a minute later, “but man, I would kill for some pancit molo. Or kare-kare.”
Alexei looked over, raising an eyebrow.
“Filipino food,” she supplied. “Pinoy shit.” She sighed. “I’m so sick of my trail food, I could die.”
Alexei smiled at that. “Yeah.” He pulled up his knees, wrapped his arms around his shins while his ramen cooked. “The only thing I ever really want to eat are gummy bears.”
He laughed at himself, how childish this had sounded.
And like a stitch in his side, he suddenly missed Alina so much, it hurt. Her sweet tooth was almost worse than his. Growing up, along with caffeine and alcohol, they weren’t supposed to consume refined sugars. But Alina was the best at sneaking home treats she pilfered from kids at school. She had a special box in the corner of her closet where she kept her stash.
She’d moved into a new apartment recently in Portland, finally leaving Vancouver after getting her paralegal job. He hadn’t seen it yet, the new apartment, and it was in a different neighborhood than his, up in North Portland. The one safe topic they’d talked about, though, the few times they’d talked over the last few months, was her plans for decorating it. He wondered what her kitchen cupboards looked like now. If they were full of Oreos and Little Debbies.
“You’re real cute, Alexei,” Ruby said. She didn’t say it in a flirty way. Alexei couldn’t imagine Ruby saying anything in a flirty way. But it made Alexei’s ears burn anyway. He dug into the dirt with the toe of his shoe.
“Thanks,” he said. He ate his ramen. Thought about how far away New York felt. How far away it all felt, Portland and Vancouver and Boston and anything that wasn’t this desert.
He asked, “Why are you here, Ruby? On the PCT.”
She was quiet for a long time. But eventually, she answered.
“Needed to be alone for a while.”
Alexei nodded. Rested his chin on his knees.
He figured that was all Ruby would give him. But a minute later, she spoke again.
“And…”She scratched at her neck, “I came here to listen to my body.” A small pause. “And to draw.”
Those all seemed like pretty good reasons to him.
“Thank you again,” he said after another long silence. “For letting me walk with you for a while.”
Ruby shrugged.
“Sometimes you need to be alone. And sometimes you shouldn’t be. Seemed like you were the second one today.”
Alexei breathed in deep, felt the desert air fill his lungs. “Yeah,” he agreed.
Shortly afterward, Ruby packed up her pencils. Alexei said his nightly prayers.
It took him a long time to fall asleep.
***
In the morning, Alexei accidentally slept in. When he finally emerged from his tent, the sun was higher in the sky than he liked it to be at the start of his hiking days, and a bit of anxiety tugged at him. Ruby was sitting on the ground, her pencils surrounding her once more.
He was glad to see her.
But he missed the smell of Ben’s instant coffee.
“Morning,” she said.
Alexei rubbed his face, trying to force himself into waking up. “Sorry if you were waiting for me,” he said.
“Nah. I’m not going anywhere today.”
