Page 91 of Free Heart
“So, if I see him considering something too chancy, I’ll try to talk him down. Remind him that he could be sacrificing years with you for whatever risk he’s considering. I swear, Sejin, I’m not the kind of person who thinks that just because I can’t have something, no one else should either. I want a future for Dan.”
“I appreciate that.”
“In exchange, though—” She touches my engagement ring, and I swallow a lump in my throat looking at it.
I can imagine him picking it out. I wish I’d been there to see the confidence with which I’m sure he chose it.
“In exchange, Sejin, I want you to work on accepting that he’s an ambitious man. He’s focused on building a brand and making money right now for only two reasons. One, he wants you to have the life you deserve without the burden of poverty. Two, it makes him feel successful and like he’s making headway on his ultimate goal of Heart Route, though he’s not even allowed on the wall yet.
“But you need to accept that’s not going to be enough long-term. Even when Heart Route’s in the past, he’s not going to settle down. He’s going to need another project and—God, Sejin, just don’t be like Carrie, okay? Accept now that it’s not going to be a life of planting flowers and cleaning litter boxes. He’ll find something else terrifying to do. He needs that to feel alive.”
I want to deny it, but I know it’s true. It’s what I’ve known ever since the accident. I just haven’t phrased it exactly like that. “Do you knowwhyhe needs it?” I ask, earnestly.
I half expect her to say “I don’t know. You tell me.”
But she ponders, and then she squeezes my fingers before letting go and taking up her water. After swallowing a sip, she murmurs, “Do you want the scientific reasons or the ookey-gookey emotional reasons?”
“Both.”
She tilts her head back, and her hair shifts and folds around her shoulders. I wonder if it’s as soft as it looks. “Ookey-gookey-wise, it’s different for all of us. Absent or difficult parents are common amongst risk-takers. Chicken or egg, you might ask, and the answer is I don’t know. Did my parents hate me because we’re built alike? Self-absorbed and ambitious, but not about the same things? Did Dan’s mother abandon him because she couldn’t connect to him? Or was he unable to connect to his foster parents because of the damage of being abandoned by hismother? No one will ever know that either. So, next, let’s look at what science tells us about intense, life-or-death situations.”
I swallow. I’m not sure I want to hear all this, but we’re in it, and I feel there’s no turning back.
“First, we know most research shows that those who like taking risks—no, not just like it, butneedit—feel out of control in the rest of their life. By conquering something terrifying and enormous, they can challenge those damaging life stories they’ve otherwise been subjected to in a very visceral way. Things like ‘you’re worthless’ or ‘you’re useless’ or ‘you don’t matter’ all fall away, and you prove to yourself again and again that, in these life and death situations, you’reallthat matters.”
“I matter too.”
She nods, looking thoughtful. “Yes, you matter. But that brings me to the chemical side of things. During extreme risk-taking, the brain is flooded with blood. Adrenaline is released. Time slows down, making everything feel bright and immediate. We’re lifted out of the boredom and pain of our everyday life and focused entirely on the wonder of being alive. It’s a primal, virile feeling. Everything else drops away. It’s a high like none other, and it feels, at the time, all-encompassing, and all-important. When it’s over, it leaves our day-to-day life feeling like an empty farce consisting of roles we’re forced to perform out of obligation.”
My stomach lurches. Is that how Dan sees me orwillsee me when all the newness of our relationship has fully worn off?
“Add a little ‘escape from all thoughts of a future full of suffering’ to the mix, like with me, and you’re looking at the most addictive experience. One that invokes a compelling drive to find a repeat of whatever scenario evoked it. I chase after anything that promises to make me feel something more than dread as a baseline. Dan’s the same. That’s how he fell for you, isn’t it? You make him feel more than empty. I have no doubt he loves you,but there’s also every chance that as time goes on, you’ll be less compelling to him.” She shrugs. “It’s also why he can’t walk away from Heart Route and why he’ll seek out another dangerous project one day. You’ll gradually lose your grip on his heart and mind, and become another part of the scenery.”
Anger pierces me. “And Caroline? She was scenery?”
Sailor swallows hard. “She was starlight and sunsets and everything beautiful. But in the end, she was scenery, yes.Stunningscenery. But you get used to even stunning things after a while. Wake up to a blue ocean outside your window every morning, and soon enough you don’t see the way the colors shift on the water as the sun goes down. You just see the same-old, same-old. You just see a prison.”
I want to believe she’s projecting, that Dan’s not the same as her, but the despair I saw in his eyes when he was trapped in bed after his injury is enough for me to start to wonder ifI’mgoing to be the walls locking him in soon enough.
That’s what Sailor’s warning me about, isn’t it? Not that Dan’s going to stray with another person, but that if I want him at home, if I want tonotbecome the walls that bolt him into a bed of despair, then I have to find a way to embrace his brain’s need for high risk and high stimulus activity. Even become part of it, if possible.
“So, you think, what? I need to take up climbing too?”
She laughs. “What a leap to make! But sure? Why not? Or become okay with being beautiful scenery that he returns to after his life-awakening, risk-taking projects. You can be the safe, comfortable place to rest his head. Just don’t expect him to give it all up once he’s done with Heart Route.”
I don’t know what to say. My head whirls with her words, and I don’t know if I believe her or think she’s projecting her failed relationship onto Dan and me.
Regardless, she’s turning her camera back on.
“So, we’re on the record again. You’re engaged now, as we all know. Congratulations on that. What’s married life with Dan going to look like? Have you given it any thought at all? What about the wedding?”
It’s unusual for her to ask more than one question at a time, and I think she can see I’m still reeling. She’s giving me a moment to come back to the present, back to the interview she’s insisted I give, as well as offering options to choose to answer. But my mind keeps thinking about her bleak depiction of a future where I’m carpet or drapes or a motherfucking shower curtain to Dan.
But no.
Dan won’t stand for that. He loves me. He’s already taken me out of my comfort zone and challenged my ideas of what I’m capable of, and I figure that won’t change. He’ll keep pushing me, and I’ll keep letting him, and we’ll build something magical and entirely ours.
Sailor doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Not when it comes to us.
