Alexei forced a smile. He waved as they left.
And then he sat in their place, in the shadow of the alder tree.
He rested his chin on his knees and stared down the trail.
He pretended he was not willing Ben’s lanky form to appear. That he did not secretly hope Ben would magically walk up out of the dust, any second now, and hold out his phone, saying, “Lex. Did you evenseethis bug?”
***
Alexei called it a day shortly after Deep Creek Bridge, past the turnoff for the trailhead. Where he might have been able to contact Ben, if he had had a phone, if he wasn’t a lonely weirdo.
The afternoon had passed by in a similar fashion to the morning: a fantastic section of trail Alexei felt unable to truly comprehend.
As Alexei set up his tent, he simply wished he could know for sure if he’d ever see Ben again. Running into both Ruby and Faraj and company over the last twenty-four hours had sparked hope. That maybe it would happen. And Alexei could apologize. For how he’d left that morning. For asking to kiss Ben in the first place.
It was fine, of course, if they didn’t see each other again. He knew it would take time to stop missing Ben, but Alexei was already starting to settle back into it, being solitary on the trail. He could feel himself quieting. It was a feeling that was familiar, but in a bittersweet way—like trying on an old T-shirt that felt the same and smelled the same, but your body had changed, and it no longer fell in the exact right way.
It was the golden hour by the time Alexei’s camp for the night was set up, the sun preparing for its grand good-bye, painting the desert landscape in saturated, arresting hues. Like God was grabbing you by the shoulders, making you pay attention.
Alexei always loved setting up camp during the golden hour. No matter how hard the day had been, it always felt like a blessing. To be able to stand still when the air smelled the sweetest.
He didn’t eat dinner. He stood outside his tent in his sandals, soaking in the light on the rocks around him, thinking.
Eventually, he picked up one of his trekking poles. He walked back to the trail. It was sandy here; any message would likely get covered up by the footfalls of other hikers or blown away by the wind. He knew it was probably pointless to start with, and silly, to boot. If Ben had taken the zero day back in Big Bear City, which Alexei really hoped he had, he would still be a full day behind him.
But Alexei stuck his pole into the sand anyway and spelled it out, in big letters covering the width of the trail:
B E N
And an arrow, pointing toward his tent.
It was unsatisfying.
Back at his tent, Alexei rooted through his pack for something more tangible, something that might actually catch Ben’s eye, make him pause.
He carried the beat-up copy ofAlanna: The First Adventureto Ben’s name in the sand. He found a decent-sized rock, placed it on top of the cover at the edge of the trail, by the upper curved edge of theB.
He stared at it for a while. Tried to let the magic of the light wash over the scene. Felt increasingly silly, but hoped the magic could infuse it, somehow, anyway.
And then Alexei got into his tent. He curled over onto his side, pulled his sleeping bag up over his ears. He tried to make his mind blank.
Sleep came easier that day. He gave himself up to it, deep and dreamless and alone.
Until, several hours later, Alexei’s eyelashes fluttered open when he heard the crash.
Chapter Fourteen
If you die doing this, Ben said to himself,Ma will never forgive you.
He stumbled over a rock and almost screamed. He’d been hiking in the darkness for almost three hours now, and his nerves were past shot.
Ben had practiced night hiking with Julie months ago, at a favorite park back in Nashville. She had screeched about it the whole time, but he had had a rather lovely time back then. In a forest he knew well. With his best friend.
It was apparently a bit of a different experience in a rocky desert thousands of miles away from home, when he was completely and utterly alone.
The thing was, he’d done some calculations during that zero day in Big Bear City, and realized he was behind on miles, too. Maybe Faraj’s annoying pushes for big mileage days weren’t that annoying after all. Because if you didn’t walk fast enough, early season snows in the high mountain ranges of Oregon and Washington could make the trail impassable by the fall. And maybe Ben wouldn’t make it that far. But he did have plans to see his family halfway through this journey, and he had resolved in Big Bear City to at least make it that far, even if it killed him.
There was a reason, Ben mused with every footfall, why only .2 percent of the population contemplated doing this, or whatever Julie had said.
