17Alex spent the remainder of the night and a good portion of the next day writing letters.
To her parents, she informed them she had decided that she was going to take her independent journey beyond Boston and attempt a backpacking trip through Europe or perhaps beyond, depending on her motivation, but would be without cell phone or internet so instant communication would be near-impossible. But she promised to write when she could and left it at that.
To Crystal, she wrote something similar, needing to keep the story copasetic should her parents make the attempt to corroborate with her once her letter was received. In both, however, she insisted that she loved them all, and continued to think of them, and would miss them on her journey.
It wasn’t a lie.
To her employer, however, she
