“It’s not fair,” he said eventually. He yanked the elastic out of his hair, aggravated, and ran a hand through it. “You had just—” He stopped. “You hadjust—we were just—”
“Ben.”
“Andthatfucking happens? On thePCT? What thefuck.”
Ben’s chest heaved. He stared at the desert like he wanted to set it on fire.
“Ben,” Alexei said. “I’m okay.”
“Well, I’m fucking not,” Ben snapped. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath. “I just…I haven’t had anyone call me afagsince high school. I mean, I live in Tennessee; being out isn’t always a walk in the park, but it’s not…”Ben shook his head and turned to look at Alexei. “Alexei, I need you to know that wasn’t normal, what happened back there. It’s not normal at all.”
Alexei studied Ben’s face.
He understood every emotion he saw there. Even when Alexei had been talking with Leslie, even when he had somehow beenlaughing, he had still been shaking inside. Muscles tensed, blood pressure raised, mouth dry.
Leslie’s kindness and courage didn’t make what had happened un-happen.
He felt a bit afraid, too, of what would happen if they ran into those guys again. Those guys had mentioned the PCT, they’d had packs, so they probably weren’t only day hikers. There was a very real possibility he and Ben would run into them again. It made this long, legendary, single track trail feel a bit suffocating.
But Alexei didn’t know if he agreed with Ben’s assessment.
That what had happened wasn’t normal.
Because everything about Alexei’s upbringing had prepared him for this moment, really.
Of course Alexei would be called a fag.
Alexeiwasa fag.
This felt like an expected part of his reckoning. The only part Alexei hadn’t expected, in that whole scene, was Leslie.
Ben, though…Alexei thought about how angry Ben was about Alexei’s parents. How he had said, when he talked about being out to the Idyllwild bros,not everyone’s an asshole.
Ben lived in a world where not everyone was an asshole.
So when assholes did show up, it took him by surprise.
Alexei reached for Ben’s hand. Intertwined their fingers. Squeezed.
“Were people mean to you in high school?” Alexei asked, wanting to know. Maybe Ben lived with a more optimistic worldview, but he had also lived in this world longer. This world that called himfagbut which Ben chose to love anyway.
Maybe what just happened brought up trauma for Ben that Alexei had never been brave enough to live through. Their trauma was different, but they likely each had trauma just the same. It hurt Alexei to realize it, to know this was not the first time Ben had been wounded. The idea of anyone looking at Ben and seeing anything but goodness and light seemed completely illogical to Alexei.
Ben sighed and looked off to the side.
“Yeah, sometimes. It wasn’t horrible. People called me names sometimes, like that back there. Or just…you know when people are talking about you or looking at you weird? Laughing at you? Even if it isn’tsuper obvious.”
Alexei nodded. This he did know.
“But even if it occasionally sucked, I always had Julie and Tiago and Khalil and my people, so it really wasn’t that bad.”
Alexei rubbed Ben’s thumb. Alexei had never had a Julie or a Tiago or a Khalil. Or a Ma.
And while it didn’t erase what had happened, it still felt good to him now. To have a Leslie.
“It sucked sometimes, though,” Alexei pushed. Because it also didn’t surprise him, that Ben kept reiterating that whatever he’d gone through in high schoolreally wasn’t that bad. That he chose to see the sunny side, even when there wasn’t one. Alexei wanted Ben to know he could be honest with him.
“Yeah.”
