Page 83 of Hell Bent
He didn’t say anything, just nodded, but his eyes were big behind his face mask, and I put a quick hand on his shoulder, shook it, and said, “We’ve got two minutes, and we’ve got this. You and me. Let’s go.”
Alix
I was on Sebastian’s second couch, which had arrived earlier today. Oversized, a practical brown, and built for two. Of course, Ben wasn’t on his own couch now but beside me instead, his eyes glued to the screen along with mine. My hands were at my mouth, my heart galloping like it was running for the stables, and I was saying, “Oh, man. Oh, man.”
Ben said, “Why won’t you just let me tell you whathappened? You’re, like, torturing yourself.” I couldn’t tell whether that meant the Devils had won or lost, but I was the one who’d said I didn’t want to know. A commercial, and Ben said, “Do you want me to make you a cup of tea or something? Sebastian bought some.”
“What?” I turned my head and tried to focus. “Because I’m going to need comforting? Wait. Don’t answer. No. I don’t think I can evenholda cup of tea.”
The endless, stupid insurance commercial went on, featuring people sitting around talking—what was the point of an ad like that, when most people would have it muted?—and as I was fumbling for the remote to fast-forward, the snow was back. Also a bunch of blue-clad players lining up like they were in starting blocks, and a bunch of white-clad men opposite them, their helmets and uniforms almost invisible against the snow. Could your uniform color actually be an advantage?
Please,I thought.Please.I hadn’t seen Sebastian all game long, other than two kickoffs and one extra point, which he’d executed with his usual lack of drama, which meant I couldn’t tell one bit how he was feeling. The other field-goal kicker had barely made that kick, and it had been from right out in front, so maybe I didn’t want Sebastian to have to try. How hard would it be if you tried and failed, and they lost?
It would be doing your job, that’s what. I suddenly realized the word for that quality he had. Resilience. He didn’t justbelievehe could come back from anything, heknewit, because he already had. He’d started over again and again. Now he’d taken in a boy, and he was making that work somehow. His sister was dying and it was too hard, but he was coping anyway.
You weren’t successful because you always won. You were successful because you never gave up. You gave yourself everychance you could take. You changed course, but you never surrendered.
All of that flashed across my mind in a second, and then the ball was sailing through the air and one of those white-clad figures was catching it. All the way down near the goal line—I couldn’t tell how close, because you could only see some cleared patches on a few of the stripes —and he was running.
White ghost in white snow, the black numbers on his jersey and the black gloves on his hands almost all you could see of him. Ducking, diving, spinning, somehow keeping his feet in the inches of powdery snow. Hands reaching for him, grabbing, and missing.
Down the field, running like slow motion, slogging through the snow. The noise of the crowd, roaring at their team to stop him, getting louder as a player converged from either side and slammed into him. A collision so fierce, you could swear you felt it right here on your couch.
Three figures in the snow now. Two of them rolling to their feet, and one of them, that white ghost, staying down a minute, then getting up haltingly. Jerkily. The clock showing one minute and forty-three seconds. And a commercial again.
“I can’t,” I was moaning, my hands in my hair. “I can’t.”
“Do you want me to tell you?” Ben asked.
“No,”I said. “How many times do I have to tell you? No!”
“OK,” he said. “Geez. You don’t have to bite my head off.”
“Sorry.” I reached for his hand, and he let me take it as the commercial ended. “I need to hold onto somebody,” I said, “and you’re the only one here.”
“There’s Lexi,” Ben pointed out.
“She’s busy.” In fact, she was stretched across the other couch on her back like it was hers now, her four legs in the air, one of them twitching as she uttered little dream-barks. Lexi, it seemed, was the most evolved of all of us. Lexi hadno trouble rolling with life. Maybe the solution was to be a dog.
I forgot that, because the game was back. No huddle now. No time for one. A short pass to Harlan Kristiansen near the sideline, and he ran out of bounds, then flipped the ball to an official and sprinted to the new spot. A handoff to a running back, who made three and did the same. Third down, a pass to … somebody else—I couldn’t tell in the snow—who made a couple of yards, maybe, slid, and went down like a toppling snowman.
Two officials, made bulky by the extra clothing they wore under their striped jerseys, running out with a length of chain. One of them holding it at what must have been the original line of scrimmage—how could they even tell?—and the other one moving forward through the deepening snow, stretching the chain taut.
Almost a foot ahead of the nose of the ball.
The referee—who, Ben had explained, was the guy in the white hat—holding up a fist, and Ben saying, “Fourth down. A minute and five seconds to go.”
“Where are they?” I asked. “How close?” The view had shifted to Sebastian, his heavy parka off for almost the first time tonight, kicking a ball into a net. Looking—well, the same way Sebastian always looked. Kicking the same way Sebastian always kicked. Like he was a machine, but he wasn’t a machine.
Ben said, “At the Bills’ 39.” Even as the team was in place again, the quarterback so close behind Owen Johnson, the center, that his hands were between the other man’s legs as he turned his head from side to side, calling the play. Players shifting position behind him, the defense shifting with them, and before I realized it was happening, Owen lunging forward, bent nearly double, the whole offensive line going with him, all crouched low, like a herd of charging, snow-covered bison, the quarterback seeming carried by their momentum, practically running up Owen’s broad back. The referee’s arm in the air, and I was saying, “Did they get it? Did they make it?”
“Yes.” Ben’s hand was still in mine, and he was leaning forward on the couch, beating the other fist against his knee. “Come on,” he muttered. “Comeon.”As if he hadn’t seen it before.
Forty-nine seconds. Two more plays, the team making almost no progress at all, and I tried to add the seventeen yards to the Devils’ field position and for once, struggled with simple addition. That one guy had barely made it when his team was at about the 10-yard line, and the Devils were barely past the 40!
Third and eight, and the quarterback was farther back from the center now, for some reason. It seemed dangerous. The ball would be slippery, and how good would Owen’s aim be, snapping the ball in this?
I was thinking it, and then I wasn’t, because the ball zipped straight back into the quarterback’s hands like it was on a string, and he was taking a bare two steps back and letting it go. Not on one of those slant routes, but straight down the field to where a tall, slim white ghost was turning, leaping, his blonde hair showing under his helmet, his gloved hands in the air. Jumping higher than a man should be able to, and another player jumping up too, not quite as fast, not quite as high. The ball hit Harlan’s hands, and he was coming down, the other player still all over him, trying to wrestle the ball away.
