Page 132 of Hell Bent
He poked at his frittata some more. “It was the first day we went up to see my mom. You know what his great wisdom was about her dying? Something like, ‘Everything changes, and there’s no long-term security, so don’t bother chasing it.’ That you were supposed to accept it instead. That’s B.S., if you ask me. That’s the wholepoint,wanting to have people with you and know they’re there. And now he says?—”
“Yes?” I asked when he didn’t go on. “What does he say now?”
He looked down and speared a home fry, looked at it without enthusiasm. They tasted rewarmed, which they were. “He says he’s there for me. Blah blah. That he wants to—” He broke off.
“Wants to what?”
“Adopt me,” he said with some reluctance. “If I want him to. So ‘we can both know we have a family,’ or something like that. That we’ll decide together where to live, where I shouldgo to school and everything. Like he’s in the game, you know? Except I know he doesn’t mean it.”
“How do you know that?” Sebastian had said all that? He’dthoughtto say all that? I thought of him doing that in the midst of his own pain, his own preoccupations, and the distance between us shrank a little more, like your soul actually could touch somebody else’s, even when you were thousands of miles apart. It was a weird feeling.
Oh. Ben. He said, “I know because he said so. Want to know his mantra, or whatever? ‘Radical impermanence requires radical acceptance.’ All about how you can feel things and then let them go, because nothing lasts anyway. Well, I can’t, all right? I feel things, and then I keep on feeling them, especially if they’re really bad. Or really good, I guess. And I don’t want to think about how everything good is just going to end!”
“Like being with Lexi,” I said, as I couldn’t think of anything else in Ben’s life right now that would qualify as “really good.”
“Yeah,” he said, stabbing another potato. “Like I should think about Lexi dying or something and be OK with it. These potatoes are weird. It seems like potatoes should be easy to cook right.”
“They are. But not as easy to reheat at 30,000 feet, I guess.”
“Like watching the game yesterday,” he burst out. “How do you just feel that and let it go? Or if they’d lost, how do you letthatgo? Don’t you even want to, like,feelthings all the way? That thing he said, that’s not like, ‘I want to have a family forever.’ It’s more like, ‘I want to have a family for now, because I know it’s not permanent.’ So why should I believe him?”
“Excellent question,” I said. “And one that I can’t answer.”
“Good thing I asked you, then,” he said. “Thanks a lot.”
“You could ask Sebastian, though,” I said.
“Yeah. Like he’s going to have that conversation.”
“He had it with you already, sounds like. He went out of his way to have it. And he’s a pretty reasonable guy.”
“Not how you sound when you’re fighting with him,” Ben said.
“True, but I stand up to him and we talk it over, andthenhe’s a pretty reasonable guy.” I hesitated, because I wasn’t sure what was OK to say here. Was it talking behind Sebastian’s back? I gave it up and went for it. “He’s been alone a long time. Maybe he’s had to find a way to be OK with that.”
“People get married if they don’t want to be alone,” Ben said.
“If they think they’re capable of that kind of attachment, they do. If they believe in forever, or just trust enough to hope for it. If they have to depend on themselves from the age of seventeen, though? I can’t really speak for Sebastian, but I can speak for me. I’ve always been independent—you could say ‘stubbornly independent’—but it’s for the opposite reason. Because I felt oppressed by how much my parents cared. Always in my face, wanting to know how I was feeling, what I was doing next, having opinions about it, giving me pressure. But I realize now that I was nothing like Sebastian. See, I lived in my trailer and trained to be an electrician against my parents’ wishes andthoughtI was so independent, but I lived on my grandparents’ property and saw them every day, and I always had their support for how I wanted to live my life. Heck, my grandmother helped me run away from my wedding, that’s how much support I had. And my parents are still around and still love me, even if my mom drives me crazy sometimes. All that makes it easier for me to get closer to somebody, maybe. To trust it. I thought I couldn’t, but that was, you know, that wedding.”
“You ran away from yourwedding?”Ben asked. “Like in the movies?”
“Exactly like in the movies. I left him at the church. Not my most shining moment. You know what I was wearing when I saw Sebastian for the second time ever?”
“Your wedding dress?” Ben was smiling. Well, it was an entertaining story from the outside.
“Nope. My reception dress. Short, shiny, silver, spangled. Same thing I was wearing when I bought my pickup, and boy, wasthatguy surprised when I bargained him down. I met Sebastian again wearing a one-shouldered cocktail dress and high heels and a ratty ponytail. Not at a club, either. In a random Target in Somewhere, California, right off the freeway. I looked like a lunatic. But, see, even though I thought I didn’t want to be involved with anybody again, because I’d screwed it up so bad and hadn’t even understood my own heart, I still got involved with Sebastian.” I stopped, then went on, “And with you. And Lexi. Because I realize I’m used to having people around to care about, and people who care about me. I was a little confused about how much I wanted to get involved with a man, especially if I had to count on him for anything or be there for him to count on, but hey, Ihadjust screwed that up. Also, I got over it. Making progress, anyway.” I tried a potato. Just no. I ate more frittata instead.
“So is that supposed to make me understand Sebastian, or whatever?” Ben said. “I don’t see what that has to do with how he feels. I mean,” he went on hastily, “I’m sure he likes you a lot and everything, but you know …”
I said, “But he’s never lived with anybody. Never married anybody. Never owned a home. Never had a dog. Never even had a team for more than a year or two. That’s all true. But is that what you see from him now?”
Ben shifted in his seat. “I don’t know.”
“You could think about it. And you know what I think? For me?”
“Well, obviously,” Ben said, “you think he’s in love with you and all that, because he acts like it, but how do you know if it’s for real?”
“Let me think about that a minute.” I finished the frittata and the fruit cup, which was the best part of the meal, then said, “I don’t know. Every day, every time feels a little like a … a leap of faith. He’s made me mad plenty, but he’s never let me down. He’s never let you down. He’s never let Lexi down. And he didn’t let your mom down, either. You know what I think? I think his life is changing, and that he might be changing with it. He might be starting to recognize the man he’s always been.”
