Say the Word(44)

“Do you think he liked it?” Bash asked me, linking our fingers together as we walked through the dense foliage. We’d dropped Jamie back at the hospital about an hour earlier, before returning the gardener’s truck to Sebastian’s garage. I’d worried that Bash might want to go inside his house — I was definitely not looking forward to another encounter with his mother — but he’d surprised me by grabbing my hand and leading me toward the wooded path that led to the old oak.

“He loved it,” I assured him. “Jamie doesn’t do false enthusiasm. If he doesn’t like something, he’s not exactly shy about letting the world know it. Seriously, you should’ve seen him when the new trilogy of Star Wars movies came out — he was quite vocal. I think he even wrote a letter to George Lucas, petitioning him to recall The Phantom Menace from circulation worldwide.”

Sebastian chuckled lightly. “Well, I’m glad he had fun today. It was good to see him laugh like that.”

“He used to be like that all the time,” I said, my own smile slipping as I thought of the animated boy Jamie had been before his diagnosis. “Not that he doesn’t still joke around — he’s just a little different. More contemplative. Maybe a little more serious.”

“He’s brave,” Sebastian noted quietly. “I don’t know if I could wake up every morning and face the reality he faces. All the chemo, the surgeries…”

“Jamie believes that everything happens for a reason,” I told him.

“And you don’t?”

“I’m not sure,” I said, shrugging. “What do you think?”

“You can’t laugh,” he ordered, looking at me sternly. “Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Well,” he began, reaching up to rub the back of his neck in what I’d come to recognize as one of his few nervous tells. “It might sound cheesy, but I think some people are destined.” He looked anxious as the words left his mouth, as though I might laugh at him after all. In truth, laughter was the farthest thing from my mind.

“Destined?” I whispered.

“Destined to cross paths. Fated to enter each other’s lives, and change them in some fundamental way. Call them soulmates or star-crossed or whatever you want — the point is, I think some people are just…” he trailed off, taking a breath as our eyes locked. “…meant to be.”

“Meant to be,” I echoed, my breaths shallow as I stared at him. “So you think there’s only one ‘right’ person for everyone?”

“Essentially,” Bash said, nodding.

“But what if you never find that person? Or what if you meet them, and it doesn’t work out? Or what if they’re married to someone else with seven kids? Are you supposed to just… live the rest of your life without the other half of your heart?”

“Truthfully?” he asked.

I nodded.

“I don’t think many people even find their soulmates. Most of them meet a nice boy or girl who fits a specific set of criteria — good job, good looks, good family — and they decide, ‘Hey, this must be it. This must be true love.’” Sebastian looked at me, his eyes intense. “So they give up their search for the elusive ‘one’ and they settle for what they consider to be the next best thing. And maybe they even convince themselves that they’re happy for a time — that they’re living in perfect sync with the person who was designed for them — but that feeling rarely seems to last.”

“So, you’re saying that if you were separated from your soulmate — from the person you supposedly knew was the one for you — you’d never move on? Never get married, or have kids with someone else? You’d choose to be miserable and alone forever?” I asked, incredulity lacing my tone.

“I’m saying that soulmates are a reward, not a certainty. I think you have to earn them. And I believe, if you’re one of the bastards lucky enough to stumble across yours, that you have to fight for them with everything you have,” Bash told me. “There’s this phrase that kind of sums up how I feel about life in general, but also how I feel about love — aut viam inveniam aut faciam. ”

“I shall either find a way, or make one,” I translated, my three years of high school Latin finally paying off in a real life scenario. “Ha! Take that, everyone who ever told me to take Spanish because it was more practical.”

Bash smiled at me indulgently. “Legend goes that when Hannibal the Conqueror’s generals told him it would be impossible to cross over the Alps during the Second Punic War, that was his reply.”

“And did he do it?”

“He did.” Sebastian nodded, his expression earnest. “Despite insurmountable odds, despite huge losses, he found a way. That’s how I want to live. It’s how I want to love.”

“Epically?” I asked, equal parts teasing and serious. “Or tragically?”

“Maybe both,” he said, laughing lightly. “Aren’t the truly epic love stories also the most tragic?”

“That’s kind of…devastatingly sad but beautiful all at the same time.”

“Well, if it helps, I also think that if two people are meant to be together, nothing can ever truly separate them. Time, distance, other people — it doesn’t matter. They’ll circle back around to each other eventually.”