Page 79 of Hell Bent (Portland Devils #5)

“Cast your mind back to our last conversation about the future,” I said.

“ Your future. When you were telling me about Stanford, and about your grandmother. I looked it up, and Stanford’s number three for electrical engineering.

Berkeley’s number two, but you already got into Stanford, so silly me, I figured you might want to go there.

MIT’s number one, and the Patriots are probably going to be looking for a kicker, but that’s even farther from your family. Jump in any time here.”

She had her mouth open, but she wasn’t jumping in. I said, “That changes the picture, doesn’t it? You keep saying how I’ve stepped up, how I’ve been solid. What part of ‘solid’ would it be to walk out on the woman who’s helped me feel something again?”

She still had her mouth open. I said, “I don’t care about ‘too soon.’ You love me?

Well, I love you, too. I don’t care how many months it is.

I love you.” I probably still sounded mad.

Too bad. “And I’m just going to say this, OK?

I’ve been numb for thirteen years. I thought I was fine, but I was just numb.

But these last few months? Sometimes I’d have loved to be numb again, because being alive hurts, but I don’t have a choice.

I can’t go back, and I don’t really want to.

I’ve gone through my life afraid even to think about what I want, just trying my best to make it wherever I’ve ended up, but being alive means wanting things, and I want this.

I want a team I can call mine. I want Ben. I want Lexi. And I want you.”

She said, “You do?” Not her brightest moment either, I guessed.

I said, “I’ve never wanted to beg, even in my head.

Begging means I’m losing, and I couldn’t stand losing again.

When my dad was dying, I begged. I don’t even know who I was begging.

God. The universe. Whatever. And when it happened anyway, when I was alone?

It felt so much worse that I’d hoped. That I’d begged.

It seemed like wanting things meant asking to be hurt again.

But I can’t stay in that place anymore. I need to try for things now, to try in my life, even if that means I have to beg. Even if that makes me weak. ”

My hands were shaking. My hands never shook. I stuck them in Lexi’s fur to hide them, since she was behind me but snaking her head around all the same, and tried not to feel like I’d just opened a vein.

If I hadn’t sounded my strongest in all of that, neither did Alix when she said, her voice shaking as much as my hands, “You don’t have to beg.

You’ve never had to beg. Don’t you see, don’t you know, how much stronger than me you are to be able to say all that?

It makes me ashamed, but I’m not going to let myself be ashamed, and I’m not going to let you be ashamed, either.

I’m going to sit here and put my heart in your hand.

I’m going to trust you to hold it, even though I can’t see the future, and that scares me to death.

And what’s even scarier? I need you to trust me with your heart, too. ”

This emotion. It filled my whole chest. I couldn’t even have told you what I was feeling. I said, “It scares you because you left that other guy at the altar. I’m guessing part of you worries that you won’t stick.”

She leaned over, wrapped her arms around her thighs, and hugged herself. “Yes,” she said from down there. “Yes. It does. But I’m not lying to myself anymore, and I’m not lying to you. I’m going to prove that to myself, and I’m going to do my best to prove it to you. So here’s my deal, OK?”

I had my hand on her back, was rubbing there. “You can sit up,” I said. “You can tell me.” I wouldn’t have said that I could have more emotion. I’d have been wrong.

She did sit up. The moment when you stop holding onto yourself and hold onto somebody else instead? That’s a sea change. I should know.

“Then here we go,” she said. “I’m doing my plan.

I thought I could start taking some of the basic classes at the community college, get a jump on the fall, wherever I end up going.

The classes I don’t already have, because I have pretty much all the math and a whole lot of computer science.

Spring trimesters start everywhere around the end of March, so I thought …

” A breath, and she went on. “And I need to go to Germany with my grandmother. And all right,” she burst out, “I’m going to put it all out there, because why not?

I’m not numb. I’ve never been numb. I’m scared as hell, but I’m not numb. ”

I had my arm around her now. You bet I did. “You can be scared,” I said. “Change is hard. But I’m here. Tell me.”

She laid her head on my shoulder. That was something.

That was just about everything. Alix, laying down the shield.

She said, not looking at me, “I thought you’d need me.

In Vancouver. With Ben. And when you said that about San Francisco, I felt so presumptuous.

So dumb. But that was the other reason. That I thought you’d need me. ”

“You were right.” I kissed her head, stroked her hair back, and tried to keep it together.

“That was a … a bad time up there. You held my hand. There were times that night when that hand was the only thing keeping me there. I was—” I had to stop.

My throat was closing, and the tears were welling. It wasn’t a good feeling.

I hadn’t cried since my dad died. Not when I’d been cut from a team.

Not when Solange had told me about the cancer.

Not when she’d taken her last breath. But now, the tears were here.

Call it the Super Bowl. Call it Alix. Call it the dam breaking on thirteen years’ worth of emotions, but I couldn’t keep going.

Alix was sitting up, and now, her arms were around me. Lexi’s muzzle burrowed in there, too, so she could lick my arm, and I tried to laugh, but I couldn’t do it. I said, “I can’t—” and couldn’t go on. I had my hands on my face, and the tears were right there.

I hadn’t remembered how much crying hurt, how the sobs tore your chest and your throat on the way out.

It was horrible, but I was doing it anyway, because everything was rushing back.

The times when my dad had taken me to the park for kicking practice after work, no matter how tired he’d been.

The way he’d come to every game he could manage and stood on the sideline in his leather jacket, arms crossed, not yelling or criticizing, just watching.

If I was steady? I got that from my dad, because he'd showed me how.

I cried for that secure feeling when you’re driving home from the game with your dad and he makes sure you have your seatbelt on, then takes you for ice cream even though you lost, and tells you that losing’s how you learn to win, that as long as you learn something, you haven’t really lost at all.

I cried for the time we’d won the provincial championship and he’d put his arm around me afterwards, and I’d known I’d made him proud.

I cried for the fear and the pain of losing him, of watching his own fear and pain and being helpless against it. For the nights I’d slept on the floor beside his bed, and how I’d woken each morning praying that he’d still be there.

And I cried for the day when he hadn’t been. The day I’d gone numb. The day I’d known I was alone.