Page 153 of Hell Bent
I said, “I’ve never wanted to beg, even in my head. Begging means I’m losing, and I couldn’t stand losing again. When my dad was dying, I begged. I don’t even know who I was begging. God. The universe. Whatever. And when it happened anyway, when I was alone? It felt so much worse that I’d hoped. That I’d begged. It seemed like wanting things meant asking to be hurt again. But I can’t stay in that place anymore. I need to try for things now, to try in my life, even if that means I have to beg. Even if that makes me weak.”
My hands were shaking. My hands never shook. I stuck them in Lexi’s fur to hide them, since she was behind me but snaking her head around all the same, and tried not to feel like I’d just opened a vein.
If I hadn’t sounded my strongest in all of that, neither did Alix when she said, her voice shaking as much as my hands, “You don’t have to beg. You’ve never had to beg. Don’t you see, don’t youknow,how much stronger than me you are to be able to say all that? It makes me ashamed, but I’m not going to let myself be ashamed, and I’m not going to let you be ashamed, either. I’m going to sit here and put my heart in your hand. I’m going to trust you to hold it, even though I can’t see the future, and that scares me to death. And what’s even scarier? I need you to trust me with your heart, too.”
This emotion. It filled my whole chest. I couldn’t even have told you what I was feeling. I said, “It scares you because you left that other guy at the altar. I’m guessing part of you worries that you won’t stick.”
She leaned over, wrapped her arms around her thighs, and hugged herself. “Yes,” she said from down there. “Yes. It does. But I’m not lying to myself anymore, and I’m not lying to you. I’m going to prove that to myself, and I’m going to do my best to prove it to you. So here’s my deal, OK?”
I had my hand on her back, was rubbing there. “You can sit up,” I said. “You can tell me.” I wouldn’t have said that I could have more emotion. I’d have been wrong.
She did sit up. The moment when you stop holding onto yourself and hold onto somebody else instead? That’s a sea change. I should know.
“Then here we go,” she said. “I’m doing my plan. I thought I could start taking some of the basic classes at the community college, get a jump on the fall, wherever I end up going. The classes I don’t already have, because I have pretty much all the math and a whole lot of computer science.Spring trimesters start everywhere around the end of March, so I thought …” A breath, and she went on. “And I need to go to Germany with my grandmother. And all right,” she burst out, “I’m going to put it all out there, because why not? I’m not numb. I’ve never been numb. I’m scared as hell, but I’m not numb.”
I had my arm around her now. You bet I did. “You can be scared,” I said. “Change is hard. But I’m here. Tell me.”
She laid her head on my shoulder. That was something. That was just about everything. Alix, laying down the shield. She said, not looking at me, “I thought you’d need me. In Vancouver. With Ben. And when you said that about San Francisco, I felt so presumptuous. So dumb. But that was the other reason. That I thought you’d need me.”
“You were right.” I kissed her head, stroked her hair back, and tried to keep it together. “That was a … a bad time up there. You held my hand. There were times that night when that hand was the only thing keeping me there. I was—” I had to stop. My throat was closing, and the tears were welling. It wasn’t a good feeling.
I hadn’t cried since my dad died. Not when I’d been cut from a team. Not when Solange had told me about the cancer. Not when she’d taken her last breath. But now, the tears were here. Call it the Super Bowl. Call it Alix. Call it the dam breaking on thirteen years’ worth of emotions, but I couldn’t keep going.
Alix was sitting up, and now, her arms were around me. Lexi’s muzzle burrowed in there, too, so she could lick my arm, and I tried to laugh, but I couldn’t do it. I said, “I can’t—” and couldn’t go on. I had my hands on my face, and the tears were right there.
I hadn’t remembered how much crying hurt, how the sobs tore your chest and your throat on the way out. It was horrible, but I was doing it anyway, because everything wasrushing back. The times when my dad had taken me to the park for kicking practice after work, no matter how tired he’d been. The way he’d come to every game he could manage and stood on the sideline in his leather jacket, arms crossed, not yelling or criticizing, just watching. If I was steady? I got that from my dad, because he'd showed me how.
I cried for that secure feeling when you’re driving home from the game with your dad and he makes sure you have your seatbelt on, then takes you for ice cream even though you lost, and tells you that losing’s how you learn to win, that as long as you learn something, you haven’t really lost at all. I cried for the time we’d won the provincial championship and he’d put his arm around me afterwards, and I’d known I’d made him proud.
I cried for the fear and the pain of losing him, of watching his own fear and pain and being helpless against it. For the nights I’d slept on the floor beside his bed, and how I’d woken each morning praying that he’d still be there.
And I cried for the day when he hadn’t been. The day I’d gone numb. The day I’d known I was alone.
60
LOVE TO THE TEST
Alix
It was a long time before Sebastian could talk again. It was a long time before I trusted myself to. Finally, though, we were sitting limply on the steps in the dark, the lights of the city spread out before us, and I said, “I love you,” because I thought he might need to hear it.
“Yeah,” he said, and wiped his face on his T-shirt. “I can see why. I’m pretty impressive.” I laughed, he smiled, and I hugged him tighter and felt better.
A snuffling sound behind us, and I said, “We bored Lexi so badly that she went to sleep.” We both laughed a little at that, and I added, “Carlton at my work—the one who’s always betting against you—says you’re going to get a bunch of offers.”
“Yeah. My new agent says so, too.”
“When do you find that out?”
“Mid-March.”
“And what do you want?”
He didn’t say anything for so long, I looked up. He said, “I’ve never really asked myself that.”
“Now, see,” I said, “that’s why you need me. I’malwaysasking myself that. Because I’ve been privileged enough to always have the choice, I’ve belatedly realized. That’s the difference. You clearly need me to help you learn to be spoiled, so—what do you want? If there’s a dream scenario, what is it?”
He said, “Honestly?”
