Page 127 of Hell Bent

“I don’t need to have a conversation,” he said. “I told you, I know how to take care of myself. Are you ever planning to bother figuring out how I can go to school, or do I just keep on being home alone with no friends except a dog? Because that’s going great. Thanks for asking.”

I said, “There’s a bench. We’re sitting down.”

“I don’t need to—” Ben started, but I said,“Sit,”in my most commanding tone. Lexi sat, so that was one. When I sat on the bench myself, though, Ben finally joined me. At the extreme other end.

I said, “Look. Could you wipe the slate, just for a minute, of what you think I feel and want and plan for you, and try to listen?”

He muttered, “Fine.” Arms crossed.

“First,” I said, “I get why you’re mad. My dad died when I was seventeen, which was about the roughest thing I’ve everhad to handle, and I went into foster care for almost eight months until I turned eighteen. After that, I would’ve been on my own, trying to figure out how to finish high school while I was homeless, but I signed that soccer contract and flew to Newcastle instead. I’d never even left Canada before, and I was scared to death. You know how that all came out?”

He said, “You realize this isn’t talking about me.”

I ignored that. “It came out as me being mad, that’s how. I was mad at everybody. My dad. The doctors. The school. The foster care system, and the crappy group home they stuck me in that was more like juvie. I was mad because I was scared, and I couldn’tfeel scared. Feeling scared is for guys with parents.”

“I’m not scared,” Ben said, predictably.

“OK. You’re mad. Like I said, I get it. So it’s time for me to lay it on the line for you. You’re right that I never thought much about kids. What did I know about raising a kid? I could barely remember being one, and I didn’t have any parents to ask. And then your mom called me, and I met you again.”

“Yeah, that went great,” Ben said. “When you left me the first night.”

“Yep. That’s my bad. What I should’ve done was trusted my teammates when they offered their help. Owen told me we could arrange for you to stay at Harlan’s that night, and you could’ve gone with his family to the game the next day. But I didn’t know either of them that well then, and I don’t trust people easily. I’ve always figured it was up to me. I should’ve realized that it wasn’t about me and what I wanted anymore.”

“Yeah, right,” Ben said. “Like that wouldn’t have been awkward, being at somebody’s house that I didn’t know atall.”

“Oh, come on. You wouldn’t have wanted to hang out at Harlan Kristiansen’s house? He’s got a game room. Pool table,ping-pong table, foosball table. Got a competition-size heated pool and a basketball court and a putting green and a gym and a home theater. That is one ridiculous house, plus he’s Harlan Kristiansen. You’d have been hanging out with a girl, sure, but she’d have been Annabelle, so …”

“Dude,” Ben said, “it isn’t all that comfortable being around girls like that.”

“All right. I concede that. That is one seriously good-looking girl. But I could’ve done that, and I didn’t. I could’ve talked to you more since then about plans, too, haveaskedyou more about plans. I got kind of … caught up. The season. Your mom.”

“Alix,” Ben said.

“Alix,” I agreed.

“Except Alix is OK.”

“Yeah,” I said. “She is.”

“She gets, like, pissed off,” Ben said. “Like my mom. She’s not fake.”

I had to laugh at that. “Yep. She sure does. The woman is direct. But hey. I want to talk to you about schools, about how to work that, but I need to say this first. At the beginning, I freaked out some, yeah, about taking you. I knew I had to do it, but I didn’t know how to do it.”

“I noticed,” Ben said.

“Bet you did. But I learned. The hamburger count isn’t where you’d like it to be, but I feel like we’re getting there. Getting used to each other. I’m glad I had to take you up to see your mom, for one thing. That’s been hard, but I’d have been kicking myself forever if I hadn’t been able to see her again.” I paused. “And I’d have been kicking myself more if Alix hadn’t been there to convince me thatyouneeded to see her again.”

“OK.” Ben was rubbing Lexi’s ears now, and Lexi, for her part, was leaning into his legs, giving him as much of a doghug as she could manage right now. “I thought you were, like, mad about that,” Ben said after a minute, not looking at me. “Having to take me on your one day off. With your football job and Alix and all.”

“No,” I said. “No. It was hard as hell to be there, that’s all, because it was like being with my dad.”

“Because he died too.”

“Yes.” I hesitated, then thought,Say it.“Because taking care of him while he died was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and it’s been kind of a … like a wound. Alix bleeds into her muscles, and it hurts. That’s what it’s felt like. Like I’m bleeding into my muscles. And I’ve tried to hide that, the same way Alix does, because I thought that was strong, not showing you’re hurting. If I never showed weakness, I thought nobody could hurt me. But nobody could help me, either, I realize now. I was kind of a … self-contained system, and that’s a pretty lonely way to go through life. Never asking for help, and probably never giving enough help, either. Focusing on doing my own thing, taking care of myself. And then—boom. Everything changed.”

“Like how?” Ben was listening, anyway. I had this blank slate, and it was up to me to fill it with something he could hold on to.

“I got Lexi, for one thing, because no choice. I didn’t tell you, but I was at a rest stop, coming up here from San Fran, and a guy dumped her right in front of me.”