Chapter 111 Section Fourteen

He told her that his father was a career officer in the military and that his family had lived on military bases across the United States and moved frequently. “Growing up, I learned not to be attached to anyone or anywhere.” He told her that his father was a man who didn’t show his emotions, and that he was, in fact, embarrassed to show any emotion, whether it was sadness or joy. “I learned to hide what I felt.” He told her that the special operations training he received after he joined the military—a natural choice for the son of a career officer—had given him greater control over his feelings.

"I had an instructor who liked me very much and talked with me during breaks. We talked a lot about philosophical issues, a lot about how to survive in inhuman conditions without becoming savage. Like how to react to killing people, Or how to deal with seeing a good friend get killed. He showed me a passage from a book that talked about the brain and the emotions, and I never forgot it." Decker had been staring nervously at the headlights in the rearview mirror.There are fewer and fewer vehicles.But he kept driving in the overtaking lane, not wanting to be blocked by the occasional cars on the right.

"What did he show you?" Beth asked. "'When we make big decisions, fate inevitably befalls us. We all have feelings, and feelings in themselves can't hurt us. But if our thoughts about feelings are not controlled, they can It hurts us. Training controls our thoughts, and our thoughts control our emotions.'” "It sounds like he's trying to put a lot of buffers on your feelings so that you hardly feel any emotion at all." "It's the filter, designed to understand feelings in a certain way, so that they're always in my favor. Like—" Decker felt a pang. "Two friends of mine were killed on Saturday night."

"Is it to help you find me?" Beth seemed very sad. "I grieve for them. This grief always overwhelms me, but I say to myself, I don't have time, I must postpone my grief until I can mourn them in a proper way. If I Without focusing on surviving, I will not be able to mourn them in the future. I still haven't found the time to mourn them." Beth repeated a line from the introduction he had told her. "'Our thoughts control our feelings.'" "That's how I used to live." Decker looked in the rearview mirror again.A pair of headlights were moving closer and closer at an alarming rate.He rolled down the window next to the driver's seat and drove into the no-passing lane, holding the steering wheel with his left hand and grabbing Esperanza's pistol at the ready with his right.If the car came up to his left and tried to run him over on this desolate stretch of interstate, he would shoot.

The car's headlights couldn't be brighter now, and the strong reflection in Decker's rearview mirror was blinding.Decker slowed the car abruptly so that the driver of that car would pass him before he had a chance to hit the brakes.But the car didn't just go by; it continued to go, in the outline of a larger pick-up truck.The red taillights disappeared into the darkness. "He's definitely going 90 an hour," Decker said. "I can follow him at a distance and drive at his speed. If a motorcycle police officer pulls up on the side of the interstate, the van will Covering me. Motorcycle cops will see it first and will definitely go after it. I'll have time to slow down and get past it."

The car fell silent again. "So," said Beth at last, "feelings make you uncomfortable? You did trick me this summer." "Because I was consciously changing myself, opening up and letting myself feel. The first day you walked into my office, I was ready, for the first time in my life, ready to fall in love." "And now you feel cheated because the woman you're in love with isn't who she claims to be." Decker didn't answer. Beth continued, "You're thinking maybe it's safer to go back to the old you, to distance yourself from any feelings that might hurt you."

"I thought so." "and after?" "To hell with my pride." Decker squeezed her hand. "You asked me if I wanted to start over. I thought, because the other option scares me so much. I don't want to lose you. If I can't spend the rest of my life with you, I'm going to go crazy... I don't think I recovered after all As it is." He said to himself, you'd better get back to where you were, you've got to make it through the night for both of us.