I gingerly twisted my head and felt his cool mouth over mine. His hand touched my face delicately as he kissed me. He was so gentle about it, and it twisted me even worse.
When he finally pulled away, he whispered, “I missed these lips.”
“I missed yours too.” Half of a lie.
I went back to my position and prayed for sleep. I wouldn’t survive the night if he expected more from me.
Thankfully he didn’t, but his grip around me never loosened even long after he fell asleep. He held me like I belonged to him, and for a moment I pretended this last week had never happened. I wanted to pretend for a minute that he wasn’t responsible for my pain and that he hadn’t marred someone like he marred me. He could never offer an explanation that I’d forgive, but in a way I wanted to give him the opportunity. There was so much to be said and it sat at the tip of my tongue, but I had to keep my mouth shut.
Because at the end of the day he was a criminal.
And he had to be put away for all the hurt he was responsible for; mine and all the women he destroyed before me.
*****
I pretended to be happy the next morning. I threw on a black and white skirt and white top. He changed into clean clothes out of his suitcase and we went out for breakfast. We found a nice place nearby and ate at a table outside. The heat was oppressive, but the overhead cover offered some cool shade.
“How was your trip?” I asked him, forcing a smile.
“Long,” he answered. “It’s good to be back and with you.”
I could hardly look at him eat while I kicked around my food. This fucker had no idea I knew everything, and looking at him felt like a kick in the gut. My body trembled. I wanted so much to inflict pain on him the way he did to me.
But I just plodded on through.
“How’s your mother?” he then asked.
“Good.” Having cut myself off of everyone, I hadn’t talked to her in over a week, but the move had made her really happy. I was sure nothing changed in a week’s time.
“So I have a confession,” I declared, trying not to get annoyed by his constant need to stare at me. It made me constantly aware of my façade, and the amount of times I caught myself beginning to glare at him disturbed me.
“Is that so?” he said with a smile. “What is it, little lady?”
Little lady. I wished he’d stop with that stupid nickname. It wasn’t cute. It wasn’t endearing. I hated it now.
“Well, you gave me your apartment key and… well, you know how what happens when you give a woman your key, right?”
He chuckled, and even that sounded like a fucking wailing dog. “I take it you went to my apartment?”
“And?”
He shrugged. “Snooped?”
I nodded slowly. I had to bring this up. He needed to hear it from me in case Jamie opened his bloody mouth and beat me to it. And if it was said by him first, that would have made Ben suspicious. And what was Ben like when he was suspicious? I didn’t want to know.
“Yes,” I admitted coyly. “I did. I went everywhere, including your office. It was only after Jamie found me that I felt so guilty. Then I realized you might be very upset by that –”
“You were alone with Jamie?” he interrupted, all humour gone.
“I didn’t know he was there.”
“So you were.”
“Well, yes.”
A look of anger flashed through him, and it made my insides coil. How had I ever found this man attractive when his anger was set off so quickly?
“What happened between you two?” he then asked, tightly.
Now I was genuinely confused. “We just talked.”
“About?”
“I wanted to know about you and he offered some explanations that helped.”
He abandoned his food and looked away from me, balling a hand tightly. “Why couldn’t you come to me for explanations?” he then let out, angrily.
“You never say anything. It’s always some reserved response –”
“So you go behind my back and look for answers from my brother?”
My heart spiked. I nervously said, “He offered, and… at that point I was too curious to pass it up.”
“And what did my admirable brother tell you?” he demanded bitterly.
I couldn’t meet his eye when I muttered, “He told me what happened to your parents, and the reason you don’t drive.”
The silence that followed stretched on for minutes. When I willed myself to peek at him, that anger from before was gone. In fact, his walls were too. He looked lost, and it was startling to witness him so sad.
“I should have died with them,” he muttered reflectively. “It should have been me. I’d rather it was me if it meant not seeing that hole in the earth. Everything burnt. Dead. I got this just by trying to sort the mess out.” He pointed to the scar above his eyebrow, and then he showed me the scars on his knuckles. “And these. Sharp, burning bits everywhere. The shrapnel cut into my knuckles as I desperately tried to sort through the mess. Millions of pieces of metal and burnt flesh everywhere, and you could smell it in the air. Pungent and overwhelming. You could never escape that smell. It still follows me around like a shadow.”
I didn’t move. I don’t even think I blinked. The look of pain on his face tore me to pieces, and I hated that it wrecked me. I kept scolding myself to pull it together, to not feel, yet he looked so human, and so like the man I fell in love with.
What was wrong with me?
I rested my hand over his, cringing and seeking it at the same time. “It shouldn’t have been you,” I lied, because it should have. If he’d died, my life would have been whole.
Ben looked into my eyes just then. For a second I thought he caught my lie until he grasped my hand tighter and said, “I never wanted the life that was handed to me. It fell into my lap. It had always been set for me, but I want nothing to do with it. I want out, and I don’t have to start over here. We can do it somewhere else. Nothing stopping us. You’ve finished your schooling. I can leave everything to Jamie. And we can get away from here and find some tropical paradise to live in.”
We.
I tensed in my chair. “Where would we go?”
“Anywhere you want.”
I tried not to look warily at him.
“Morocco,” I said with a faint smile. “You said you loved it there. That’s where I’d go on the first leg of our journey.”