Page 68 of Hell Bent (Portland Devils #5)

RADICAL ACCEPTANCE

Alix

I could have gone home to the trailer again on Monday night.

Well, on Tuesday night, because I’d wanted to spend Monday night with Sebastian.

Of course I had. The guy had just won the conference championship, his team was going to the Super Bowl, and we needed to celebrate that.

So Monday was understandable. But somehow I didn’t go home on Tuesday, either, or any other day that week.

For one thing, there was the conversation Ben and I’d had on the flight home Monday morning. He’d offered me his Greek yoghurt, “because, like, gross,” poked at his winter squash and apple frittata disconsolately, and said, “I kind of forget what regular food tastes like.”

“Yeah?” I asked. “How’s regular food different?”

He shrugged. “Like, you know, chicken pot pie. Pot roast. Lasagne. Scrambled eggs.”

“We’ve had tacos,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, but not with hamburger meat, like normal. I wish I knew how to cook some things. My mom said she needed to teach me once she wasn’t so busy, now that I was older, but then, you know?—”

“She got sick.”

“Yeah.” He forked up a bite of frittata and chewed unenthusiastically. “Plus I wasn’t exactly excited to learn. I kind of wish I’d pushed it, but I mostly just wanted McDonald’s or pizza or something.”

“Well,” I said, “you were younger. Your tastebuds mature.”

He said, “You mean I’m going to like Greek yoghurt? Yeah, I don’t see that happening.”

I smiled, but went on, because this seemed important to mention, “Also, everybody thinks they’ll have forever with the people they love. We’re kind of wired that way, to assume things won’t change. Too uncomfortable otherwise, I guess.”

“Sebastian said that,” Ben said. “Some garbage like that.”

“What do you mean?”

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 whole point, 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 should go 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’d thought to 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 let that go?

Don’t you even want to, like, feel things 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, and then he’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 and thought I 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 your wedding?” 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, was that guy 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, I had just 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. ”

“So you’re just going to count on that?”

“No,” I said. “I’m going to keep counting on myself. But I’m also going to try to trust him to keep being the man I see. Responsible. Fair. Caring. A man who’s always going to try harder.”

“I’ll remind you of that,” Ben said, “the next time he’s bossing you around.”

I laughed. “Yep. That too. But—hey. You don’t have to decide to trust him all the way now.

I don’t think you can force trust like that anyway.

It comes when the … the circle closes.” I pulled out my pendant, which I was wearing with my sweater, because it was just so beautiful, and showed it to him. “This is one part of a circle, right?”

“Right,” Ben said slowly. “This sounds like it’s going to be symbolism.

I don’t really get symbolism. Thomas keeps trying to explain it, because of Romeo and Juliet, which by the way I still hate—did you know they both die at the end?

What kind of a sucky ending is that?—but I don’t get why Shakespeare didn’t just, like, say what he meant, instead of using symbolism that you have to read the notes to understand. ”

“Humor me,” I said. “I think I’m telling you this for me anyway, and it’s a long flight.

So this necklace is part of a circle, and Sebastian gave it to me because he cares about me.

Because he wanted to make my birthday special.

And every time he does something else for me—insists on taking me to the ER, or backs off when I tell him to, doesn’t give me a hard time about going back to the trailer, acts like he’s proud of my job, even though it’s not exactly feminine or glamorous—it feels like a little more of the circle gets filled in.

It feels like I can be myself, all of myself, and even if he doesn’t always like that part of me, it doesn’t make him care about me less.

It makes him understand me more. We’re going to change, but maybe we can roll with the changes.

Maybe I’m believing that can happen. That could be radical acceptance, I guess.

Knowing you don’t have to be so scared of change, because you can deal with it.

You don’t have to run away or hold yourself back because you’re scared you can’t cope or you can’t be enough for somebody, because you’ve already proved that you can.

And I think that trust is what he’s trying to build with you, too. At least that’s what I see.”

“Oh,” Ben said. “Huh.”

“Yeah,” I said, “it’s not something you can decide now even if you wanted to.

You have to kind of slide into it despite yourself, I think.

That’s how trust works. But—hey. We started out talking about cooking.

Eating regular food, which sounds good to me right now too.

We’ve eaten a lot of restaurant meals lately, and normally, I pretty much only eat regular food.

Food with more vegetables in it than you may prefer, but still.

We’re going to get home about two. Want to go for a trail run with me, since we’ve been sitting down for about three days, and then make dinner?

Regular dinner? Sebastian keeps paying for all that food we’re eating, and I don’t care how much I’m getting to trust him, that’s just never going to feel great to me.

So maybe I should buy groceries and we should make dinner, so we can remind ourselves that we aren’t just passengers on somebody else’s bus. ”

Ben said, “That last part was symbolism. I told you, I don’t get it. Do you know how to make spaghetti?”

“You bet I do. Fortunately, your idea of normal food matches my skill level. Spaghetti and meatballs?”

“Awesome.” Ben sighed..

“Only if you do half the work,” I said. “I’m not carrying any freeloaders. Willing to chop the onions even if they make you cry?”

“At least I’ll have an excuse,” Ben said.

So, obviously, I stuck around on Monday night.

And then I kept sticking around, because Sebastian would only be home a few days before flying to Vegas for Super Bowl week.

I probably wanted to have some sex. No, I definitely wanted to have some sex.

Also, the guy was fun to hang out with, he and Ben both deserved support, and Ben wanted to cook, which felt better to me anyway.

And then there was Lexi. I’d be staying all of next week anyway, because there was no way I was leaving Ben alone, or even with Thomas, while Sebastian was gone.

Ben needed all the stability he could get. So, you see, I stayed.

I knew I hadn’t closed all the pieces of the circle, and I was never going to be able to accept radical impermanence. I might want this too much, in fact. But that was better than not wanting it enough.

Solange had thought she had forever. She’d only had thirty-six years. I’d learned one thing from all this, anyway. When you have a good thing, hold onto it. Time enough to accept a loss once it arrives.

Which reminded me that I needed to call my grandmother.

And say what?