People used to debate McCandless’s story a lot at Primal Instinct, because clients liked to boast that they’d never make the same mistakes he did. Mara had to bite her tongue. The clients wanted her to be experienced, but in a way that validated their knowledge rather than challenged it, a way that built them up rather than contradicting them. She had learned with reluctance to follow along. Now that she wasn’t at work, she could speak freely.

“He didn’t get poisoned, though,” Mara said. “Someone proved that theory wrong. They think he starved.”

“No,” said Kyle. “He didn’t starve. He was poisoned. It wasn’t his fault.”

“That just makes a better story, the poison. But really he wasted away.” Mara launched into a whole speech about the misunderstanding: how the poison theory offered closure, but really McCandless just went out into the wilderness and got stuck, and couldn’t find enough food to survive. It made sense, if you cared about a story, if you cared about a person, to want a dramatic conclusion. But that didn’t make the conclusion true. It was still just a fantasy about a guy who died.

Kyle didn’t respond.

Immediately Mara regretted her speech. She was talking about an idea, and Kyle was talking about his hero. It wasn’t fair to argue for the sake of arguing when he had stakes in the game and she didn’t. She felt pretty bad after that.

She thought about telling Kyle that she’d misremembered, that McCandless must have died from poison after all, but they would both know she was lying. And lying from pity, too, which was worse. An apology wouldn’t work, because Kyle would just point out that Mara hadn’t done anything wrong. Kyle was logical like that sometimes. It was part of why he annoyed her.

Still, Mara wanted to make it up to him. She couldn’t have two teammates mad at her, and this problem seemed easier to solve. She tried to think if there was anything Kyle might really want, something she could give him, but since they shared all their belongings anyway, except for the tubes of cookies, that wouldn’t make sense. And frankly, Mara wanted to keep her cookies. So she thought she might make something for him instead.

There were a few things she was good at making, because she dicked around with twigs and plants while waiting for clients at Primal Instinct, and they used to have contests among the staff there. There was one summer when they all made sun hats, and another when they wove sandals out of cattails and got into a competition about who could wear theirs the longest before they fell apart. Mara’s lasted the second longest out of all the instructors, which was two weeks. She was pretty sure the winner cheated and used glue. But Kyle didn’t need a hat, and sandals would draw attention to the fact that he wasn’t walking. That by the look of it, he might not be walking for some time.