Episode 4: Give Me a Sign

V for resources. If you're in crisis right now, you can call one hundred to seven three talk that's eight, or text Hello to one to talk to someone right away. Thanks for listening. Picture you're on a roller coaster. You sit down, strap yourself in. It's the moment of decision. There's no going back. The ride begins. First, there's a small drop, just enough to give the car the momentum it needs before the real start, the big climb. The car hooks into the chain with a jolt, and the

chain begins pulling you up. You rise slowly, so slow, it's torturous. Maybe you squeeze your eyes shut, overcome with delicious anticipation and just listen to the clanking and clicking as you ascend. Or maybe you survey your surroundings, seeing farther and farther out. The higher you go either way, it begins to feel like the climb will never end, But eventually it does. You reach the top, you know

what comes next. First, though, the car sits at the apex, it's as if the whole world has come to a standstill, like you're so high up the laws of time no longer apply. A moment feels like ours. Everything is absolutely motionless. Maybe you hear some distant screaming far off, some people on another ride across the part, but up here it's like you're suspended and amber a moment of perfect, terrifying stillness. I think that's kind of where we are with this show.

For the last three episodes, we've been working up the coaster together. It's rickety beams starting to prove they can hold weight. But now we're here. It's the point where I'm supposed to do the big reveal, the big drop. But before I do, before I finally tell you how, Yes I did connect with Alice, and yes she did indeed sound just like Britney spears, and yes, our conversation filled in a missing peace i'd felt since getting alex Is Goodbye email. I want to sit here with you

for a second at the top the pinnacle. I want to look out at the world we've got in front of us and tell you the truth of how I'm feeling at this stage in our story. The truth is that I'm terrified. Yeah, I'm the guy who walks at the front of my friend group at every hunted house, but I'm also the person who has a hard time putting my faith in anything, and right now I'm scared to take the leap. See. When I was just looking for Alice, it was like I was playing a game,

submitting to one of Alex's fantasies. But now it's real. Alice is within reach. She's a real person, and I'm afraid she might slip between my fingers, just like Alex didn't. Until now, I've been telling this neat story about trying to find the unfindable playing investigator in one of Alex's fantastical games. But here we are. I found what I was looking for, and it feels like it could all fall apart at any moment. I'm Chris Stedmond and this

is unread episode four. Give me a sign open still say. When I first find Alice, the steaks don't feel nearly so high. That's because I assume I'm just reaching out to a copycat, someone who took her Twitter user name after she disappeared. I'm looking for someone named Alice, I write, someone who sounds like Britney spears and used to appear in voice chat rooms with Britney fans many years ago. A friend of mine used to text with her, I say, and he died, so I'm trying to track her down.

I'm assuming your name was just inspired by her, but I'm wondering if you know anything about her or where I might find her. But to my surprise, she says that it could have been her. She also says there was another person with a similar user name, though, and people would mix them up. She asks who my friend was, and I tell her his name was Alex. There are only two Alex's in my phone, she says, and I'm still in touch with both. But then she realizes she

has a third Alex in her phone. I'm actually talking to show she when it happens, hold on, Oh my god, I'm sorry she did. What did she say? She said, I have and more Alex in my contacts, and he went by Alex Germanada, like Lady Gaga's last name. Could that be him? You think question mark, Yeah, that's possible. He always used celebrity names as a pseudonym show. She suggests, I give Alice the area code for Alex's phone number to see if it's a match. A little over nine

hours later, Alice responds again, saying it's not. My heart sinks he must have been talking with someone else, maybe the other person Alice mentioned, the one people sometimes confuse her with. But then a couple of minutes later she sends another message, wait, and then, oh my god. Could he have gone by ambient Ambient short for Ambient Hollow, The same name Show, she tells me, was one of Alex's first email addresses, the same name he used on

the Brittany forum when he met Dua. So I asked Alice again about the area code, this time for Ambient. She responds, and it's a match. Just to be sure, I asked her to give me the next three numbers of his phone number. Again a match there she was. Just over a year after Alex's death. I found her. Finding Alice feels like sitting at the top of one of Alex's beloved coasters, the same mix of euphoria and dread. You get right before that drop At first time overjoyed,

caught up in giddy shock. On some level, I never thought i'd actually find her, certainly not as soon as I did. But then very quickly the dread rushes in. I've just broken the news that someone she knew had died. I had been living with the reality of Alex's death for a year, but for her it was brand new information. Her next messages are devastating. They had been good friends. She says, she can't believe he's gone. I offer what little I can, my sympathy and a willingness to answer

any questions she has. We keep chatting late into the night and early morning. At one point I pose the question, would she be willing to do an interview so that I could ask her about Alex, their relationship, and who she is. She replies, yeah, okay, I'll do it for him. I'm overcome. We set a time to talk in a few days. We message on and off the next day, talking about Alex and our grief over his death. The day after that, though, I opened my d M s

to see a new message, my heart sinks again. She's pulling out she wants to help, but she doesn't want to do an interview. I understand, I say, emphasizing that I don't want her to do anything she's uncomfortable with. But I tell her I hope we can still chat so I can learn more about her connection with Alex. I send my response and stuffed my phone back into my pocket, terrified that the next time I pull it out to look at my d MS, she'll be gone. As I wait to hear back from Alice, I'm drowning

an uncertainty. It feels a little bit like the day after I got Alex's goodbye email, when I waited to hear if my friend who was prone to disappearing had disappeared for the last time. I had no clue what to do with myself. The day after getting his email, after lying awake in bed most of the night, I got up early and just wandered Minneapolis with my dog, trudging without direction in a days. Eventually, while wandering, my

mind drifted to Alex's visit to Minnesota. How the one thing he wanted to do was ride those indoor coasters at the Mall of America. I wanted to feel close to him, so I decided to go ride the ones he loved. His favorite was the rock Bottom Plunge. The name is funny, but that's not why Alex loved it. It's probably the most intense ride the mall has to offer. It begins with a steep climb basically ninety degrees straight up to a peak just below the theme park's glass ceiling.

That peak is followed by a sheer drop, one so steep and fast it gives you the momentum you need to make it through the loop that follows. It was a week day and the mall was pretty empty. There was no line, and I basically had the coaster to myself. As the ride slowly climbed, I felt all my anxiety over the unknowns of Alex's death grow. But eventually I reached the top. It was perfectly quiet and then the drop.

For just a moment, as we plummeted straight down to the ground, I felt all my uncertainties leave, like we were going fast enough to outrun them. As the coaster carried me around the loop, turning the world on its access, I swore I could hear Alex's laugh so infectious I couldn't help but join in After the ride, I went to one of the food courts, where I got confirmation that they found his body. I stayed there for a while,

my food got cold. Eventually I walked back to the theme park in the mall's center, not to ride this time, just to watch the coaster loop again and again. Alex had two coaster tattoos, and I'd later commemorate this moment by getting one of them while face timing with shows Do, I got the other. In the months that followed, both Beth and show She would visit Minnesota and ride the

same ster with me. It became iconography for our shared grief, a totem to the joy Alex brought into our lives, to how he could always make us laugh, even in the moments when everything felt upside down. While I wait for Alice's next message, I go digging back into all the material Alex left behind. He left a lot, all organized for us. Here's show she the keeper of his files. Everything was very purposeful. He had all of his important

paperwork all labeled. It was very specific. I've never heard honestly, and I'm sure it exists, but I've never heard of anyone who did so much sort of purposeful planning. It's not common. I'm part of so many suicide grief groups, and I mean, I haven't even heard of one other

story that's like his. Alex not only ordered all of his documents, belongings, and digital files, he also put together a bunch of stuff for us, playlists of his favorite songs on Spotify, a collection of YouTube videos that made him laugh or helped him relax, and a Google folder, all of which he directed us to, and his goodbye emails. The Google folder has a lot of photos from his life, but there are also a ton of pictures of Brittany

memes and screenshots of his online antics. It's where I found Alex's prying pregnancy Facebook post, and there are also grabs of his many suspended Twitter accounts. My favorite was the one he made pretending to be customer service for six Flags. He began as a parody, but then he started actually helping people. Most of the screenshots and memes are snapshots of his online play but three of them feel very different from the rest. The first of these

is a meme. It's a close up photo of a person whispering into someone's ear, followed by another photo of arm hairs standing on end, a common meme for Matt. The accompanying text, I won't abandon you when your mental illness acts up. This was something Alex talked to me about several times, how some people only wanted to be

around him when he was at his most functioning. James remembers the time they were getting ready to hang out after an extended time apart, and how shortly before he left, Alex texted him to give him a heads up that he wasn't feeling like he would be the life of

the party that day. He was apologetic and said he understood if James didn't want to meet up to hear him mentioned that he was self conscious about hanging out with me because he wasn't going to be like you know on in Big Air quotes um, that he wasn't going to be as fun to be around. It broke my heart to hear him say that. To feel that you have to be able to perform just to be around people, and that's the only like valid reason to see they see to be around you is um, that's tough.

There are two more things that jump out at me and Alex's Google folder. One is a quote from the Ascent of Humanity, a book by Charles Eisenstein that will come back to in a second. The other is a news clipping about a British man who took his life after he was denied government assistance despite his physical disabilities and mental illness. Because this man was denied assistance, the clipping said, he couldn't afford to eat or pay rent, and shortly before he was set to be evicted from

his home, ended up taking his life. While he was alive, Alex regularly tried to seek out care, often at our urging, but ultimately felt like he couldn't get the assistance he needed in the health care system as it exists right now.

He also died with a great deal of debt. Leaving this news clipping among his photos and memes felt like a clear message about how the world treats people who struggle about how it sometimes isn't enough to have a support system of friends, like Alex did after finding it. I tell Shoshi about the news clipping that Eisenstein quote

comes up to. I think that was one thing that maybe a lot of people didn't really know about him, was how deeply he really felt about society and about the way society treated a lot of people, especially those who were destitute or ill, whether physically or mentally. He felt very strongly about that. It actually reminds me. There was one other thing in UM the Google folder. It's this quote from a book, and it says, we find in our culture a loneliness and hunger for authenticity that

may well be unsurpassed in history. We try to build community, not realizing that mere intention is not enough. When separation is built into the very social and physical infrastructure of our society, to the extent that this infrastructure is intact in our lives, we will never experience community. Wow, it just made me think about between that and then this

um this screenshot of this news story. I think that it was not not a factor in Alex's decision, that his life was difficult and the world was not set up for someone like him to thrive. I one think that that was a factor. And I look at these things in the Google folder and I see little like breadcrumbs in a way of being like, this is part of why I made this decision, you know. Yeah, I think that he left those things specifically for that reason.

I mean, he didn't just leave some random news article or you know, page of a book with all of these pictures. What he chose to leave was very specific, which does bring back the al you know, I mean, he was very specific. UM. I do really think that one of the reasons that he did do what he did was he had a series a tech it for society. There are a lot of reasons to hate the world as it exists right now, especially when you struggle with

mental health. There are just so many obstacles. After Alex died, I couldn't stop thinking about Alice. But I also couldn't stop thinking about all the challenges he faced, about how there are so many barriers for people who struggle in the ways Alex did. And while waiting to hear from Alice makes me feel uncertain thinking about Alex's obstacles fills me with rage. Whether or not I can talk to Alice.

I wanted to talk to someone who can help me understand how we might better support people in Alex's position. Um I v staclo um I use he him pronouns. I work as hotline program director at trans Lifeline, which is a nationwide US trans lad nonprofit that does director of US work. I reached out to trans Lifeline for

a few reasons. Though what first caught my attention about them is that they appear to be the only crisis line that has a no non consensual intervention policy, meaning they will not call the cops on someone who doesn't want them to. I V and I discussed why people in Alex's situation so often fall through the cracks. We talked for a long time, and I'm going to play just a little of our conversation without interruption because I

found what I V shared so helpful. So a big part of the reason I think why suicidality is viewed and presented the way that it is here in particular, is because realistically speaking, right, let's say, like let's take us as trans people, it is a very rational response to not want to be alive in a society that doesn't want you to be alive. Right, That's a very

normal thing. But the way that it's portrayed is that you're having this crazy, irrational moment that will just pass with the right amount of intervention and like the right amount of like keeping you from doing whatever you feel you need to do. And so I think that in order to address suicidality and address mental health crisis, especially like from you know, what's called minority stress, right, Like from the experiences that marginalized people have in the society

day in and day out. It would require society to recognize that it is profoundly unjust. Right, It would require society to recognize that suicidality and crisis are normal and rational responses to the way that people are being treated. And that I think is the root of actually addressing crisis. Is people need to have social rights, people need to have economic rights. Yeah, this is a really reductive way of putting it, but it's like making mental health care

proactive instead of just reactive. Right, And then if you have that fundamental understanding, right, I think it's a lot easier to build systems that are actually based on empathy and based on actual understanding. Um. You know, if you look at mental health responses that exist in other countries, they don't involve police at all. You know, there's profound flaws with every system, there's profound flaws with every type

of checking in on a person. But I think that you know, one of the best things we can do, and this is truly you know, it's a band aid on a huge, huge, gaping wound of injustice in this country. Just be there for each other. What's been your experience with this? You know, like, have you had conversations about other friends that your friend left behind? Obviously, you know, one of the things many people experience after someone ends their life is feelings of regret or guilt. Is there

something I could have done differently? I've gone through all of that um and and I don't want to sort of just dismiss those feelings either. I want to take them seriously and say, Okay, what would I learn? What would I take from this and apply to my relationships

moving forward? Are there moments when I, you know, I wish I would have asked more questions or you know, responded in another way, And so, you know, I just find myself thinking, like, on an individual level, how do I want my behavior to be towards the people I love moving forward? But also on a systemic level, what about this society failed alex? And what would I like to see transformed? I guess, yeah, I think those are

all really good questions. And I think, you know, it's very easy, right in retrospect to find ways that something could have been in your power right to to adjust or to change um. And it's useful to think going forward, like how can I be more intentional about like listening to or being there for my friends and loved ones?

You know, what are things that I could be paying attention to in terms of just being a better source of support, not necessarily with like the lens towards my friends might die if I don't do this, but just in general, right because we're all going through absolutely horrific times right now. We're all struggling right now, you know, in different ways. In terms of how to have better conversations about this. I think it's just a matter of

putting the blame where it belongs. It's very, very very easy for us when we're talking to a person we care about in crisis, to blame the person in crisis or to take the onus on yourself right and say, oh, there's maybe maybe there's something I can do, because it helps you feel in control, It helps you feel like there must be something that this person can do to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and not feel this way. But I think that acknowledging that we exist under very

unjust and deeply traumatizing circumstances especially for marginalized people. UM helps us to have more candid, more honest, and in the end, more fruitful conversations about how to survive it. A big part of why I'm so scared Alice might disappear is that we've connected online, a space that can be immensely freeing, as it was for Alex, but that also makes it easy to disappear. I asked Ivy about why people seek support in spaces where they can be anonymous,

like the Internet. If you know that there is a possibility that if you say the wrong thing, somebody's going to come and either interact with you against your consent, or take you away somewhere, bring law enforcement to your door, you're just simply less likely to trust that resource, and you're less likely to be honest with somebody who's supposed to be supporting you. So truly, that's really the foundational

element of that trust. Ultimately, I think that's why Alex went online in search of anonymous spaces where he could share what he was struggling with in ways he didn't even always share with those of us who knew him offline. He could trust them to keep his secrets. It's also why I want to talk to Alice, not to ask for his secrets, but to find out if that's true, if they shared that kind of trust. But I completely

understand that she has no reason to trust me. I tell the Thor Daniels group that Alice says she's pulling out of our interview. Hoping to put her at ease, do I records a video appealing to her directly for me to pass along. It opens with him holding a banana to his ear like a phone. Oh hey, banana, Alice A long time not see? This is actually not a prop, but I do commedy well. I'm here to give you pros and cons of being on Where's Alice

episode on the podcast. First of all, it has your name in it, so your nickname, so I think the star should always show up. That's like coming sense. Second of all, a minute I just did in my part with Chris and it was like a chill vibe. So um, I was in shed on tying each other when you were with Alex And let me tell you, like, the only thing I would really like for us to collaborate on the show is to bring the memories back. You know, people can take everything away from you, but they but

they can never take memories away. And now that Alex is gone, it's kind of like something that we all just have his memories and well our members of him. It would be weird if we have his memories, cause, like del I don't know what I'm saying, but what I'm trying to say is that it was such a fantasy that you perform in that tiny chot because we thought for a minute it was real, Like is it

really Brittany? You know about people? Maybe it will give people like moment about they listen to it and like, don't you love that moment? I do. Later that day while I wait for her to respond, James mentions he's found something interesting in one of the last text Alex sent him about a year before he ended his life. As it turns out, it's a photo of Alex next to a taxidermy bear in a pink wig. We hop

on video chat to talk about it. He said to selfie, I said, you look great, but can we also please talk about the bear in the pink wig behind you? What's her name? Um? And he said Alice? He said what he said, Alice? What the hell? The skeptic in me wants to be like, Alice is a common name, but the other part of me is like, even if it's just subconscious, the fact that this name Alice is like what springs to mind for him when you're like, what's the name of this bear in the Brittany wig? Well,

that's the thing. Like, immediately after he said the bear's name is Alice, he sent me a photo of a closer shot of the bear in the pink wig, and then photo shopped really poorly. Right next to it is Britney Spears in the pink wig. Like it's not a coincidence. It might seem trivial, but to me, it feels like confirmation that Alice really was still on Alex's mind. In the end, I want to tell her about it, but as far as I know, she's still not planning on talking.

Midway into our chat, James and I take a bathroom break. When I get back to my computer, I have a new notification. Are you there? Hey, I'm back if you are, I just sat down. First of all, Okay, I have to share this because it literally has just happened right now as we're talking. But I just heard back from Alice. She's watched to do his video. She said, Oh, sweetheart, thank him so much for trying to help me gain the strength to participate in this. I appreciate it more

than y'll know. I'm just extremely anxious when it comes to this stuff. That's why I never came back, like never came back online. She was gone for years and she only just came back, like right when I was looking for her. Oh gosh, I'm just I've had a stomach ache for the last three days straight. I can't I can't imagine. I'm not going to respond her immediately because I feel like this is such an online thing.

I feel like I'm responding to her too quickly. It's like I'm texting with somebody who I just met on an app or something. I'm like feeling like I'm responding too quickly. I don't want to be. I'm trying to play it cool, you know, like you're texting Alex on Instagram, like afraid he's just going to disappear good. I don't end up waiting all that long because I'm afraid she'll

slip between my fingers. We're still technically scheduled to talk the next morning, but as we chat, she's cag about whether she'll show just two hours before the time we originally said. She says she'll be there. I decided to go for a walk to calm down. It's January and the ground is coated in ice from a melt and refreeze. I'm nervous, I'm cold, I'm holding a piping hot coffee, and I wipe out hard. My left knee is bruised

and blood blisters are forming on the hand. I used to try and catch myself, but I'm able to get up and hobble home. There's no way I'm missing this call. I sit down at my computer and stare at the screen with zoom open. I'm hesitant to do anything else while I wait in case. Alice only flits on the screen for a second and I miss her. A few minutes after our agreed upon meeting time, another user appears

in the room. Like me, they've got their video turned off, but unlike my blank zoom avatar, there's an image the photo of Brittany in that Alice in Wonderland Halloween costume. You have to forgive me, but I know that you were expressing how nervous you were. I don't know if it helps any but I'm nervous to talk to you too. It's really sweet that you too, work so hard to

find me, you know, and tell me. I just feel like there was a reason why he, you know, sent me the audio of you guys talking um in his goodbye email, and I just really wanted to find you. So I'm just very emotional about having found you, and I really appreciate your openness to talking with me, so thank you. Yeah. Do you know I really cared about him. That voice, it's Alice, it's really her. When you contracted me, I still didn't know what his real name was, but

that didn't matter. You know. That's so interesting though, because you guys talked about such personal stuff. Yeah, yeah, we would, but not the not the small stock details, No, no, nothing like that. So was it mostly like about stuff that you guys were struggling with or just like sharing where you were at? Sometimes it was um, but sometimes it was also just you know, our favorite movies and just music and yeah, or Taco Bell. Yeah we're talking

things like that. Yeah, he loved Taco Bell. It's weird, so weird to talk about him like this, you know, like in past tense, and it's hard just can't believe it. We talked about our grief for a while, But I also have a million questions. I asked about her voice. It's really how she talks, she says. I ask if she's brittany. She says she's not. I asked if she

knew she sounded like her before the chats. She had a sense before a friend encouraged her to join in, she says, but it wasn't until she was there that she realized just how similar they sound. But mostly I want to know about her relationship with Alex. This was no fleeting connection, she explains. They kept in touch for years, mostly over text, but they would also talk on the phone, sometimes for hours. They understood one another in a very

special way, she says. The conversations were like therapy open honest. No, he really understood. But I was going through like we had similar issues really, you know, with a deep depression and stuff like that. You know, he really understood when a lot of people, you know, they try to understand, but they don't, you know, if they haven't gone through that type of depression. And there's just so much you know, therapy can do because you know, they're professionals and stuff

like that. But when it comes to like a person who really like understands, you know, there's nothing like that, nothing can be that. Is that part of why you would go online? Like were you going into because I know that's something Alex did, was he would go online to like connect with people and there was almost something about the anonymity of it that helped him feel more open to be able to share. Is that was that

kind of your experience too? Yeah? I think so. And because of circumstances like I didn't really have access to my friends and stuff like that, so I would go on there and I would, like I had friends there. We would you know, we would hang out and it's like talk about all these things, you know, and it didn't matter really that it was on the internet because it felt it felt real. I mean, it is real. Um. You said when you talked a couple of times, it

was like for hours. Was that was it like one of those things where you just sort of almost lose track of time because the conversation is going so many ways. Yes, sort of like you know when you're in love, you know, you lose track of time and you start talking and nothing and like nothing can stop you it's kind of like that. But obviously where you love. I mean, it sounds like you guys loved each other. Yeah, I loved him. Alex and Alice fell out of touch when he dropped

out of most everyone else's lives. But as it turns out, it's in part because Alice changed her number around the same time Alex did. Can stop thinking about it, you know, like, why did I change my number that last time? Exactly when he did. He couldn't find me and I couldn't find him. Both of us just thought, you know, the other one one in space. And the thing is he did not want to be found, you know, I mean, that was what he wanted, was to disappear. You know.

I tried texting him and I I just never heard back. He had a very dark view of the world sometimes. Can you say more about that? I'm interested in what he shared with you about it. I don't know if he thought this all the time, but sometimes he would say, you know that the world was an evil place and he wasn't happy. Yeah, try to tell him not to be so negative. You know, Alison Alex would share their darker truths with one another when they talked, because that's

just how they both were. They would talk about the big things, their mental health, their views of the world, the meaning of life. Sometimes like it was so deep, like about God or the universe or stuff like that. She loved listening to him talk about anything. It's hard to find the words to describe him. Like you said, he was very unique. He was very mysterious and really sweet. M very smart, very very smart, one of the smartest people. He had an opinion about everything. It wasn't unusual for

them to go awhile without talking, though. They would drift apart, sometimes for really long stretches, but they would always find their way back to one another eventually. Whenever they reunited, they dive right back into the deep end. He didn't like small talk, you know, so, No he didn't. We never, you know, did that, how are you? And what's going on with you and stuff like that. We would just

jump right into conversation. He had no taste for small talk at all and just wanted to talk about what was real. Yeah, I was really like that. That's why he kept us in this life. Yeah, I think so. It wasn't all serious though. Alex always knew how to make Alice laugh. He knew when to be the funny guy totally. I think he could feel it if you were in a bad place. He would offer his humor to Alice as a gift, like he did for me in all the video messages and memes he sent whenever

I was having a hard time. But while some people made Alex feel like they only valued him when he was the life of the party, he didn't have to put up a front with Alice. I think that he knew that he didn't have to be the funny tie with me. It's bittersweet, but I am so grateful to know that she and Alex really were friends, that it wasn't just some random brief interaction years ago. I still can't believe I really thought I wasn't going to find you. I'm so happy that I did. I wonder if there's

a reason that he chose to find me. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe he maybe didn't give up because he knew it would be hard. He knew it would drive me up the wall. I know I've said this like twenty times, but I really just I'm so sorry. Yeah, So okay, hi everyone, Um, So I did talk to Alice this morning. Did just Moments after I've hung up with Alice, I'm on a call with the Thor Daniels group, who were all eagerly waiting to hear from me. So we talked literally up till ten minutes before I got

on this call with all of you. So we talked for like. They asked the obvious burning questions. What was her voice? It was the same, It was the Brittany voice. Yeah, like that, that's insane. Wow. We debate a bit about whether or not she's Brittany because we're all clinging onto the fact that it's still Actually it's not very long. It could be, though, right, I mean, anything is ply possible. But I really don't think it's Brittany. I'm pretty convinced

she isn't. But in a funny role reversal, my friends have now become the skeptics, and they are grilling me. Do you have her phone number? Have been late? Did she live in l A? Why do you all your little details? You want to know her? And look, in the end, I can't prove she isn't Brittany. I didn't do some of the things Kerry would probably advise me to do in order to verify her identity. I just got enough information to confirm they for sure knew one another,

and the rest I take on faith. It's not what's important to me. And also I want to honor her friendship with Alex and the fact that they both sought out anonymous connections online. Even though they shared deep parts of their lives, he never shared his actual name, and I don't want to pry into the details she's chosen to withhold either, So I take her at her word

that she's being honest. I set aside my skepticism and adopt the kind of faith Alex did when he logged on, because to me, what matters most, what is most real, isn't found in her name or any other detail about her life or identity. It's in hearing about the connection she and Alex shared and then sharing that with other people who loved him too. This is like the best ending to this. Yada's incredible. I can't believe it, really,

Christ congratulations on finding Alice. Thank you, Thanks everyone, all of you for all your help. From being nice, it's Alice. Bit. When Alex entered our lives, many of us were worried about following life's rules, but he helped us see another possibility, another way of being in the world. I think that's one of the reasons why many of us where his friend is because even like if I knew, I was like still on my path, even just like spending a week with Alex was like a vacation from that path,

and it just always felt like so good. People might look at Alex's wandering life and all of his online games and think he was irresponsible, But while exploring Alex's digital life and talking to his friends, I've come to realize that he just had a different understanding of what it means to be responsible. Like, well, I was prioritizing my career, Alex was prioritizing me. I think that Alex didn't see value when a lot of things that society

asks us to put our time into. But he valued his friendships, you know, And he didn't have that many friendships because he only wanted to keep people around who he really really cared about and loved and like those people were incredibly special to him, and he made a point of keeping in touch with them and making them laugh and sending them things. This was something he did for all of us. Yes, he could disappear, but he would always seem to resurface at the exact moment you

needed him. When James had a health scare a few years ago, Alex was right there with him in his typical way, sending a steady stream of texts and memes while I was in the hospital, and especially like the two nights I was like overnight in the ICU UM, he and I were messaging constantly, and I would not have gotten through that week without him literally staying up all night with me, just like messaging me and checking in and seeing how I was doing. And you just

like sending funny bad picture I like, said him. I sent him a selfie of myself like when I was in the I see you um attached to all this ship. And he replied back, can you just post that on Instagram and say goodbye? Because I looked like I was tying. Is cracked me the hell up. This was part of why Alex was always posting so much funny stuff online. It helped him deal with his own sadness and bring

light to others too. Sometimes you could really see through his videos that he's having a bad day, but he's just doing Like a performance for Britney Dancing is therapy. I think for Alex it was like, I think that was his salt let to deal with everything. But whether you saw one of his memes or laughed with him on a roller coaster, you always felt his love. Alex had that energy about him that you could just open and everything you said it's kind of normal and there's

no being smart about it, is just pure compassion. He really understood people. After he died, all of us in Team Thor Daniels came across so many other people he'd helped along the way, and there were many many more we couldn't even track down. He would drop in and out of people's lives. But even if he didn't keep every single person he met in his orbit forever, for Alex, connecting with and supporting other people was everything, the driving

force of his life. When the most important thing in your life is to find connection and meaning and meaning through connection with very little regard for anything else in career, it's imperative that you find people that understand you. Even though he's gone, it's like he's still offering us that understanding and still helping us learn the lessons he taught us while he was here. Beth recalls one moment, in particular, the summer after Alex died, she'd been seeing someone who

turned out to be kind of a dick. This guy that I was sort of dating loosely basically turned on NPR and I was still talking to him because he asked me to stay for coffee the next morning. So I'm talking to him, He's like, could you He kind of like cuts me off, like shut up, and he's like, why don't you check out the porch? Like he basically banished me to the porch, this man. So I go

on the porch. I'm sitting there and drinking this coffee, and I'm looking out into the hills and I just started crying, not sobbing, just silently crying, thinking of at Alex and him saying, like, you should be with a guy who treats you well. I think sometimes when I'm in nature or a you're looking at that, like, I definitely think of him, and h I should have totally never talked about guy again, But don't worry. I'm sure

I stayed a couple of extra weeks. Um. Now I can add one more person to the list of people who Alex connected with, people who helped him feel understood and who he helped in so many other rule shattering ways in return someone else who is still carrying Alex with them too. He really understood, but I was going through like a lot of people, you know, they try to understand but they don't. But when comes to like a person who really like understands, you know, there's nothing

like that. Nothing can be paid. One night, not long after finding Alice, I ask Lexi if she has any other audio or video messages from Alex I might not know about. She forwards three voicemails. The first I play is when he left on Lexi's birthday. Well, well, well, looks like someone's going to have to change their voicemail from their twenty nine year old voice to their third or third or third or first or first or third or third orth or thirst or thirst thirst thirty year

old voice. Because that's you today, because it's March seventeen. It is currently well phone one am, and this is your friend Alex. I just wanted to wish you happy birthday. It's a happy thirthday for me to you, Happy birthday, Happy birthday. You know he's thirties and forty and then fifty soon will be eighty will happen. Then I love you. As the message continues, Alex does something a little unusual

for him. He talks with Hope about the future. I Hope you're just stuff in your face with some entire food, but you know, in like a mature way, because you're thirty now. So I think we're gonna have to lower our voices a bit and just kind of make it work. You know. We're just gonna go with the flow. Um, We're going to get it together, you know. I can

feel it that these are gonna be our years. These are going to be our years where we discover ourselves, you know, and then when we turn forty, we'll be like, wow, what was that all about in our thirties, But it'll be like really really healthy, just to get to know ourselves, to know each other, and to know how each of us as individuals fits into this world. Because things are just crazy, you know. And I think that three is a charmed you know, and two is not the same.

I don't see the harm. So are you game? Let's make a team, make them say my name. He may have started quoting Brittany lyrics there at the end of it, but I'm focused on something else. It's painful to hear Alex talk about something he'll never do, grow old. There's also something really beautiful about it, though. It reminds me that, at least in moments, Alex could imagine a future in which he was happy. As I listened to a Lexi's voicemails,

a light bulb goes off. I remember that for three years I used a free digital voicemail service that would email me audiophiles and transcripts of my messages. I hadn't used the account in half a decade, but when I log into the voicemail service, I find over a dozen messages from Alex. A lot of them are him singing Britney songs bloo he thought you knew both if you something, now you know well tonight A bugo mash makes the boogo to match about if they aren't him singing Brittany.

Most of them include at least a nod to her. Hey is Alex, Um, I'm just calling me because I am Brittany Jean, I am your mother, I am your friends, I am funny, I am your life. Um m hmm, well you know, and I'm also just calling because I love you. When I missed you. Most of them are funny, but then acred Alex. Um I just wanted to say, hey, it's been a while. I feel like I did every about to suit if they should be catch what I'm doing. Another funny Brittany reference, of course, but the humor is

overshadowed by a familiar feeling guilt. I hear him saying it's been a while and that that was common, and I begin to tell myself, See, you were a bad friend, not there for him, the same thoughts I had the first moment I saw his goodbye email in my inbox. But then the message continues. There I love you and say and thinks being a good friend and loves to

really filed you. I love you right. In the year after Alex died, I kept telling myself this story that I had failed him, that I had been a neglectful friend, that he went online in search of understanding because I hadn't been the friend he needed. But here he was,

in his own voice, saying otherwise, another gift. The truth is I went looking for Alice because I wanted her to have significance, whether she was Brittany or not, though of course part of me did really want Alice to be Brittany, because it'd be this affirmation that Alex was special, and in turn that I was special too, That he sent these files to me as a way of saying he trusted me with this amazing secret. I used to scoff at some of the commenters on Britney's Instagram posts,

but now I understand them. We're all searching for meaning in the mundane video. When Alex died, I felt like everything was out of my control. Things I couldn't go back and change about the past, and so much I didn't understand about the present. But if I could keep moving, picking, searching, maybe I could outrun my uncertainties, regrets and questions, or even uncover some critical meaning something I had missed, some

key to unlock the entire puzzle. As long as I was investigating, it felt like maybe there was still more to learn, to discover, more to the story, some new detail that would make me feel better. But sometimes the story is just done, even if it doesn't end how you thought or hoped it might, even if you still feel unresolved. The coaster reaches its summit, drops, you do the loops, and then it's time to get off. The

rides over. My search through Alex's online wonderland is done, and now I have to keep moving forward with all my uncertainties and sadness. But I can see now that new stories are already flowering. They're in everything and everyone Alex left behind, in Alice, in show She, in Bath and James and Dua and Lexi. They're in all the people far beyond this little circle, the countless people whose lives Alex touched. Some I'm fortunate enough to know, and

others I've yet to meet. They're in Brittany and the outpouring of love for her that's happened in the time since Alex died, in the rest of the world, catching up with the humanity that ale son her years ago.

And they are flowering in Knee In all the places this search took me, and places still undiscovered, places where I've locked away other pieces of my love for Alex, they are there, little stories, still unread, constellating a meaning I do not yet understand, waiting patiently for the moment I need them. Alex is there, too, as real to

me now as ever in my archives. He's still laughing at how serious I am, how eagerly I look for meaning everywhere, how desperately I cling to the things that I think will make me important and worthy and loving me anyway. Our texts, tweets, Instagram, messages, emails, those SoundCloud files he sent me without context, they now serve as a kind of map. I can go back to, one that charts out the lessons he taught me, one that will help me make my way through a world without him.

In these little digital fragments Alex left behind, he is still here, still telling me to stop trying so hard to impress everyone, to just relax and be myself. He is still here, offering me understanding and showing me how to be real by example. I didn't know it when I began, but looking for Alice was my way of charting a map back to Alex. But the roadways were there all along. There's one voicemail I've played little bits

of a couple of times throughout this show. It's one I keep going back to again and again, like I first did with those SoundCloud files, here's the full thing going. I know you kind of clue what to do with the chick. What you are? What you are? They? You know what I'm saying. Sorry, I've send like you know whatever. But first of all, I live a new microphone now and no one ever returns phone calls or ever hangs out,

so I must like a little bitch now. Also, I was really depressed and really physically ill, so you know, there was no point in doing anything but right now in this timer, I choo. But you're another one. So what the book can I still do with my life? I don't know, but I hope you're doing okay. Thinking of you, loving you Sometimes I don't know what the funk I'm supposed to do with my life now that you're not around, Alex, I think of you all the time.

It's bitter sweet, but lately it's more sweet than bitter, because you left so many gifts, not just the Alice files that sent me chasing after one of your strange mysteries, but all the clues and questions you left, things that pushed me to try and be more myself like you always were. I'm not done following your lead. Your example has been one of the greatest gifts of my life, and even though I have to do so without you now, I'm going to try to find the faith to keep

building on it. Thinking of you, loving you Superstar alone. The Woman You Unread is created, written, hosted, and executive produced by me Chris Stedman. Wow. Saying all that narrow has me feeling very Mariah Carey. My co executive producer is the visionary Bethan Macaluso. Our story editor is the iconic Aaron Edwards. Sound designed by the tireless Dylan Fagan. Music by the wildly creative erin Wong Kaufman with additional music by legends Ben Sara Tan and Sadie Duqui of

SAD thirteen. Logo by the talented Jeff niaz Goda, with additional artwork by Mike Queen, Lexi Newman, and the wonderful Lucy Quintinia. Special thanks, of course to Alice, and to Alex's family and friends, especially his mother and father, show she Lexei, Beth Doua James, and all of the incredible people who loved Alex. I'm so grateful to each and

every one of you. Thanks also to everyone at my Heart, Josh ln Gren, at c A. A. Shelby Lano, Christina Everett, Emily Marinoff and the Unread team for bringing Brittany's Instagram comments to life I v Stacklow, Dave Holmes and Carry Poppy for offering critical perspective, Alexis O'Brien at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention for doing a sensitivity listen, Marissa Brown for fact checking, and many many others for support and assistance along the way. And of course, above all,

else to Alex for completely changing my life. I love and miss you dearly. Have you sifted through the digital fragments I loved one left behind after their death and tried to make sense of it all? Or are you doing so now? Email us at Unread Pod at gmail dot com or give us a call at four eight four three to one three three eight two. We'd love to hear your story. For photos, screenshots, me times, and more things mentioned in this show, follow us on Instagram

or Twitter at Unread Pod. Mmmmmmmmmmmm