Page 63 of The Love Haters

Honestly? Not really.

If anything, it made it pretty clear that I had moved on. Thanks to some very intense journaling, some bossy life advice from Beanie, and the stability that comes from standing on your own two feet for a while.

I’ll also add: it really kinda takes the shine off a man once he’s cheated on you.

Plus, to be honest, the sunny memory of Hutch’s handstand dive into the swimming pool kept lighting up the corners of my consciousness.

Not that I needed that visual of Hutch to be okay. I was just fine on my own, thanks.

But if it was free for the taking… I’d go ahead and take it.

Ten

I SPENT THEnext week trying to make the “Day in the Life” happen.

Hutch had saidno way in hell? We’d just have to see about that.

I decided that if I couldn’t get him to say yes, I would come clean and tell him that my job was on the line.

But I didn’t want to have to do that. I didn’t want to abuse his sense of pity.

I wanted to talk him into it, fair and square.

I cornered him with lists of reasons why telling his story would inspire the world—but none of them worked. I tried arguing that Rue would be proud of him—but he said she was proud enough already. I made an impassioned argument that the world was on a slippery slope of self-centered thoughtlessness that we all needed to push back against.

But hisnoheld firm.

I tried catching him at different times of the day, too: while swimming laps, or running sprints, or doing pull-ups. I tried asking as we carpooled to and from the air station. I practiced arguments in the mirror to myself—from detailing how stepping outside our comfort zonescould help us grow emotionally to explaining patriotism toa person in the military.

But, yeah: nothing.

The only argument that had any promise was also the one that seemed morally wrong: to tell him that I needed to be rescued.

I drew the line at that—at first. But as time wore on and his rejections piled up, I started to wonder.

I did need to be rescued, after all.

I wasn’t going to blackmail him. Or force him. I would just give him the full picture. He was free to make whatever choice he wanted. You could even argue, I decided, that the true morally suspect behavior was withholding information from him that he might have been interested in.

The truth is, it’s hard to make yourself ask for something that you know the person you’re asking doesn’t want to give.

Toughen up!I pep-talked myself.This is your career.

But what was I going to do, interrupt him in a preflight meeting? Demand his help over the sound of the sewing machine while he was mending his gear? Stop a safety training as he walked the crews through the items stashed in the pockets of their flight vests? Was saving my job really more important than Hutch teaching these folks about the knives, rations, oxygen tanks, signal mirrors, and life rafts that might one day save their lives?

Thiswas the kind of thing Hutch did all day.

Can you even imagine?

Picture it: Hutch describing, say, the technique for placing a tourniquet on a victim, including serious details like “If you can’t get the bleeding to stop, add a second tourniquet,” and adding, half joking: “Just twist it until they scream and then give it one more twist.” And then me, on the heels of that, jumping in to say, “I’m so sorry to interrupt. Quick question: I’m in danger of getting fired. Can I sleep over at your house and film you jumping rope shirtless?”

No. Just no.

My problems, my worries, mywhole lifeseemed positively silly in comparison.

For example—safety tip from Hutch in that same meeting that I sat in on: “If you’re ever in a boating accident, and you smell fuel in the water, do not launch your flares.”

I mean, the man was on another level.

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