Page 131 of Hell Bent

Sebastian

Center my body, center my mind. Three deliberate steps back and two to the left, exactly like always. Three running steps forward, and hit the ball where I needed to. Feel the solidity of the contact, watch the ball sail up, reach the top of its arc, and head down again.

I normally knew. I normally knew to the inch. This time, though…

It felt like thirty seconds. I was just standing there. Standing and watching. Not thinking, not praying. Watching, everything in me suspended.

The ball hit the right upright.

I stopped breathing. So had everybody else, apparently, because I could hear that “doink” like a bell ringing.

The ball bounced left, and I froze.

It went through.

I unbuckled my chin strap, my knees possibly a little wobbly, and did my best to breathe as men surrounded me, hands pummeling my back. One of them was Simmons, and I grabbed him and yelled, “Hey, man. Hey. We did it! We said we could, and we did. Belief, man.Belief.”

His grin took up half of his twenty-three-year-old face. I thumped him on the back, laughed, and said, “Do not mess with special teams. Do not mess with specialteams.”

A group of us in a circle now, chanting, “Special teams. Special teams. Specialteams.”The crowd of players growing, until it was offense, defense, and all the rest of us, jumping and laughing like fools. If there’d been snow, you bet we’d have been making those angels. There was Owen grinning out of his whole bearded face, and Harlan flashing his million-dollar smile, slapping backs, and shouting over the noise, “No stars, baby. No stars. Just a bunch of Devils, and you better look out, because we’re coming for you.”

Emotion. Elation. Belonging. It wassomething.

I felt it, you bet I did, but I was still thinking,Work on those long ones. That should’ve been cleaner.

Also, more meditation.

52

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 toteach 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?”