Good at Being Alive(91)

Throw out your phone, Bex. Don’t read the news; don’t watch TV. We’ll hunker down here and leave the world behind because it’s the only way I can avoid what’s coming.

She smiles. “I’m pretty sure we’re a solid three thousand miles from the midpoint, but I’m okay with that.”

I slide my hand over hers. “We could blow off the show and never return to civilization. Buy a little place in the mountains, go for a run every morning, milk our own cows, and grow our own vegetables…”

She raises her sunglasses and turns her head toward me. “You know I’m too lazy to do those things,” she says with a sad smile. “You’d be better off with Bronwyn for almost all of that.”

She’s doing it again. And it’s insane. Did Jessie condition her to be like this, or did Bex choose it for herself?

“Bex, do you realize how often you tell me that Bronwyn was superior to you? If it was possible, I’d think you were trying to set me up with her. Why?”

She blows out through her nose, her body sagging into the raft. “Bronwyn had this crush on you. I know it sounds silly, but sometimes it still feels as if you’re hers, as if I’m borrowing you but need to remind us both that she’s the better choice.”

“I wasn’t hers. We met in passing, five minutes max, and I know based on that alone that she wasn’t the better choice. Just once, I want to hear you name one significant thing you’re better at than her.”

“Being alive?”

I laugh. “Rebecca. Aside from that.”

“In terms of significant skills, I can’t come up with anything else,” she replies. “I’m assuming that you wouldn’t consider holding my liquor a significant skill?”

“I would not. Also, you’re not that good at it.”

“You didn’t say I had to be good compared to the general population,” she argues, “only relative to Bronwyn. And Bronwyn was a terrible drinker.”

Lars is waving us in. She playfully gives him the finger, and he grins and shakes his head. They all adore her—Lars lights up when she speaks, and Paula fights a smile even as she’s scolding her. Katrina races to her side when she’s not occupied, and the guys treat her like she’s one of their own. Does Bex see that at all? Does she understand that it’s rare, her ability to charm and seduce everyone who meets her? Does she understand that the way she’s rebounded after what she’s suffered is rarer still?

“You are, you know,” I tell her, as we wade toward the shore. “You’re good at being alive.”

She smirks. “I’m actually just good at missing flights, but I’ll take the compliment.”

“That’s not what I meant. I meant you’re good at living. You’re good at finding a way to make the most of your life, whether or not the chips are down.”

It’s the piece of her I fell in love with first.

I don’t know how I’m going to survive without it.



* * *



? ? ?

That afternoon, she naps while I’m interviewed by Lars in a room reserved just for this purpose. “Describe how blissful it was at the start,” he says, “and then I’ll have you tell me how it’s gone downhill.”

He wants the best moments, then the worst. He wants to know what I hoped for and what worries me now. Every answer is a struggle, and most contain a half truth or no truth at all.

But the doubts…those come pretty easily. How couldn’t they when it’s increasingly clear I’ve ruined everything?

Bex is still asleep when I get back, flushed and peaceful, her mouth slightly open, her long hair splayed across her pillow…and it feels as if I betrayed her with what I just said on camera.

But I didn’t lie, and Lars didn’t put any words in my mouth. I do have doubts, and I can’t bring myself to effuse about my wife and our marriage when I know what a bloody fool I’ll look like after it ends. My parents’ legacy can’t be two sons who publicly lost the plot over women. But when I look at her sleeping there, I regret it all. I regret what I said, and I regret that I’ve grown into the man I have—one who makes decisions like the one I made last summer and is so unable to be what she needs. If there was a way to just silence the world and slip away with her somewhere right now, I’d take it.





Bex


The phone rings early. We’ve got a full day of waterfall rappelling and cliff-jumping planned—all of which I’m slightly too sore to enjoy after yesterday’s run—but I certainly didn’t plan to have it begin four hours after I fell asleep.

Theo grabs his cell and takes it outside. I’m out of bed and making coffee when he returns, and I see the change in him before he ever says a word.

His eyes are empty. “There’s an issue at home,” he says, looking away. “I need to make a few more calls.”

He walks back outside with his phone and continues onto the beach, and every joyful thing inside me evaporates as if it was never there at all.

Nothing about our company would require privacy, not from me, and that sends my brain to all the worst places just the way Bronwyn’s used to.

She allowed herself to care enough to be wounded by people. I guess I finally have too.