Page 155 of Hell Bent

“That,” I said, “is exactly the circumstance under which I’ll live with you. Not the stupid money idea. The proportional idea.”

“Right,” he said. “Utilities, food, like that. Realizing that about ninety-five percent of it will come from me, if it’s proportional. Maybe ninety-nine, if you’re going to school. I get pride, though. I get that it matters.”

“Excuse me,” I said, “mortgage?”

“I told you, the signing bonus alone will be millions. I’m guessing I’m not going to need a mortgage. And I draw the line at charging you rent. Hard no.” His profile fierce now, like the wolf he was and wasn’t. “And I reserve the right to give presents. And buy the furniture.”

I raised my hand from my side in surrender. “Fine. Geez. Just don’t buy me a Porsche 911 Turbo. Carlton’s dream car,” I explained when he stared at me.

“Ben’s is a Porsche 911 Carrera GTS,” he said. “Don’t tell him about the Turbo. That one’s a couple hundred thousand, and you can’t even fit a Golden Retriever in it. Or three people, unless one of them’s five years old. Right. If I promise not to fully support you and not to buy you a car you don’t approve—notice that I’m not sayingnocar—and not to pay your tuition, will you live with me? We can always park the trailer in the side yard. Escape pod.”

I hugged his arm. It was getting cold, and Ben had probably eaten all the pizza, but I couldn’t care. “You know?” I said. “I think maybe I’ll drive the trailer back down to California and leave it in my grandmother’s yard for the time being. It can be my guest room. Maybe my escape pod doesn’t have to be right here. You could go with me, if you wanted, to meet her. You and Ben.”

“Three generations of princesses,” he said. “I could be intimidated.”

“Nah,” I said, and smiled out of my whole heart. “I think you’re good.”

61

RADICAL ACCEPTANCE AGAIN

Sebastian

Solange’s service was just as hard as I’d expected it to be. Or harder.

We had it at the funeral home, depressing as that was, because we hadn’t had anyplace else to do it. I had no ties here, and Solange had had her office. Her patients. The hospital. You can’t have a memorial service at a hospital.

People came, though. Other doctors. Nurses. Even some patients. She’d been an oncologist. There’s an irony. Skinny people came, women with turbans over their bald heads, a man pushing an IV stand along with him. Other people, looking healthy, looking good, coming up to me after the extremely short service, shaking my hand, shaking Ben’s. A man telling him, “Your mom saved my life. You should be very proud.” A woman saying, “She never lied to me. She never pretended it would be easy. She never said I’d be cured. She said that if I wanted to fight, she’d help me do it, and that was what she did.”

Ben stood there like a robot, like he was frozen. Only one of his friends had come. Kyle, a short, skinny kid who hadn’tgrown yet, who’d arrived on his skateboard, wearing baggy jeans. He didn’t say much, just stood there, but he’d come.

So had Harlan and Owen. They stood on either side of Ben like bodyguards. Like shelter. Solid as rock.

Brothers.

Alix? Alix was with us for all of it. Holding my hand. Passing me a sneaky Kleenex when I teared up. Ready to help. Ready to do whatever she had to do.

The rest of them left eventually, and the three of us headed to the cemetery. That was what Ben had wanted. “In case I, like, bawl or anything,” he’d said, “I don’t want my friends to see.” But his friends hadn’t come. I knew why, and it made me furious all the same.

The hole was small. So little space to hold so much person. The funeral director handed me the brass urn, and I handed it to Ben. Green grass, pale-blue sky, fitful sun, doing its best to shine. Canada, saying to hold on and wait, because spring would come again.

Ben knelt down and put the urn in the hole. So carefully, like it mattered. His hands shook, and he stayed down there for a minute. Tried to stand up, and couldn’t quite do it. His face, that had been so set through all of this, was crumpling in front of me.

I pulled him in. I held him tight. And he cried like there was nothing but tears inside of him, like the arms around him weren’t the right ones, the ones that had held him since the moment he was born. I got it, so I did the only thing I could do. I held him and thought,I’m here now, though. And I’m never letting go.

It felt like forever. It was probably ten minutes. At the end of it, Ben still stood with his face against my chest, heaving in breath. Alix put a wad of tissues in his hand, and he mopped up. Shaky as hell. And said, of course, “Sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about,” I said, and then I went ahead and said, “I cried, too.”

He stood back at that. Tearstained. Skinny. Full of love. “What? When?”

“The day after the Super Bowl. I think I kind of … held back until then. No choice. I had football to play. Obligations. But once it was over, it all busted out. My dad died like your mom did.” A breath through aching lungs. “He died hard. I held it in all my life, but when your mom died—she was my sister, and she was leaving you just like our dad left us. I couldn’t hold it in anymore. Sometimes life is just too damn sad.”

“Yeah.” Ben had some more tears there, but he wasn’t hiding them now, at least. “Sucks.”

I laughed a little. “You bet it does.”

“So I guess you can’t, like, do radical acceptance anymore,” he said.