Other Side of Love (A Different Kind of Love Book 5)

by Liz Durano

She shakes her head as I look around the apartment. One door, a few windows. Second floor. “I don’t think so.”

  “How many times have you been moving around hoping the pictures don’t follow you?”

  “This is my third assignment. He found me at the first two but so far, he hasn’t found me here,” she whispers. “Dad would prefer I didn’t work but I can’t let Ryan scare me like that.”

  “Your dad’s right. You shouldn’t be working. Not out here, Sarah.”

  Sarah glares at me. “Would you rather I’d have hidden the entire time?”

  “Until this thing is resolved, yes,” I reply. “Look, I get what you’re saying. You don’t want him to see you scared, but the thing is, you are.”

  “No, I’m not,” she says. “I get to work and make a difference out here.”

  I shake my head. Sarah’s being her defiant and feisty self and I get it. “I want nothing more than to beat the shit out of this asshole. Ryan’s his name?”

  She nods, smiling. “Maybe after your arm heals, though. You’ll only end up tearing your stitches.”

  I reach for her hand from across the table. “Sarah, this isn’t funny.”

  “What would you like me to do, Benny? Stay home and hide the whole time like Dad would like me to do? Let this guy scare me from living my life, earning a living? I don’t want to be Daddy’s girl. I want to earn my own way, make my own money.”

  “Have you reported this to the police?” I ask. “Has this guy, Ryan, been caught, at least?”

  “Of course, I have, but the police can’t do anything about it, not if it involves the Internet. They told me I could file a restraining order, which I did, but that doesn’t address the pictures released online,” she says. “I even tried to take care of things myself. Paid some company to have the pictures removed from a forum but it didn’t work. They simply crop up in other forums anyway. It’s like playing whack-a-mole. Some guys ended up sharing it because they saved it to their hard drives.”

  “And your phone number?”

  “My dad was paying for that original one because it was under his company plan,” she says. “I have a new phone number now. Nothing fancy. Just one of those monthly deals and it’s not listed. I call it my burner phone, like they call it on those detective shows.”

  “You’re not exactly working under a burner name,” I say. “He can still find out where you’re working.”

  She sighs. “I’m a nurse, Benny. I need a license to work… my real license. I can’t just make up some name and expect the company to hire me without a license to back my resume up.”

  “How long were you and this doctor seeing each other?”

  “Eight months,” she replies. “We started dating six months after I graduated.”

  I do the math in my head. Fourteen months after she graduated, she was on her own again but this time she was in trouble. “That’s ten months ago.” Ten months she’s been moving around as a travel nurse because of some guy who can’t accept getting dumped.

  “Thanks for not asking me why I posed for the pictures,” Sarah says softly as I chuckle.

  “Well, now that you mentioned it…” I begin as Sarah glares at me and I raise my hands in mock surrender. “Just kidding, Sarah.”

  “He wanted to take pictures one day and I said sure,” she says. “Haven’t you ever wanted to have a naked picture of your girlfriend? Something to look at?”

  “Not naked, no,” I say, pointing to my temple. “That’s for up here, but that’s just me. I’m also not one to share something special to me. I’m selfish that way.”

  Sarah looks at me for a few moments, a faint smile on her face. “Whoever’s gonna end up with you is gonna be a hell of a lucky woman, Benny. I already envy her.”

  “I’m not a saint, Sarah. Don’t paint me as one.”

  “No, but you’re a man of your word. You stand up for what you believe in,” she says, then shrugs. “And when you say no, you mean it. You really mean it.”

  Ah, she must be referring to that night two years ago. “You’re right. I do and I did that night, if that’s what you’re basing this observation on. Besides, the stuff you asked me to do… I’d expect that between two people with a commitment but we didn’t have one in place. We were just friends.”

  I want to tell her that it would have also cheapened the whole experience. We’d just be two people doing things for the sake of doing them, to try them out all because she was drunk and probably figured I’d be game. But what Sarah wanted required more than just following instructions she found on the Internet. It required a connection between two people and trust that went beyond friendship.

  “We were more than just friends, Benny, and you know it even though we never acted on it. That’s all we could handle then, I guess,” she says, her gaze more direct this time. “It wasn’t like you were already sleeping with other women. It wasn’t exactly a secret.”

  “Did you ask this Ryan guy the same things you asked me that night?” I ask, my stomach clenching when Sarah presses her lips together though I don’t need to hear her answer.

  Of course, she told the guy, and I’m sure he said yes. Probably showed up with fucking bells on.

  “Did he do the things you asked him to?” I ask Sarah who begins to bite her cuticles. A few moments later, she lowers her hand.

  “That’s when he took his pictures, when I couldn’t tell him to stop.” Her voice emerges as a whisper and I can feel my anger rising as images of Sarah tied up on some bed come to me. Did he hit her, too? Was she gagged? Was that why she couldn’t say no?

  “Is this why you can’t come home to talk to your dad? Because this… this fucking animal, Ryan whatever his name is, took pictures of you while you were…” I don’t finish what I want to say. I reach for her hands instead and clasp them in mine. This time, tears fill her eyes and it’s as if the floor disappears from under me.

  Wood scraping against the linoleum floor, I push the chair back, walk around the table and pull Sarah to me. I’m glad she doesn’t fight it. Not when it’s as if the dam has broken and she utters one sob that tears right through my heart. Holding her in my arms brings everything back—the times spent together laughing and being ourselves, doing our best to remain friends until the night we ended up in my bed and she told me things she regretted hours later. But if Sarah believes her confession ruined everything she and I once had, she’s wrong.

  For it didn’t ruin us, certainly not for me. It made me realize the lie I’d told myself the whole time I was “just” her friend. How I wanted her to be so much more. I wanted her to be my everything. But I never got to tell her that. By the time I went to her apartment the next morning, she was gone.

  And now she’s broken.

  Chapter Five

  I don’t know why I had to tell Benny everything as if he’s still my friend and can be there for me after I ghosted the guy two years earlier. Surely he’s got his own life to live and a woman breaking down is the last thing he needs to deal with.

  But the moment Benny pulls me into his arms, all my doubts fade away. My fears, too. That’s always been the way it was with Benny back then. He wasn’t just a friend, he was someone I could trust with my life. It was a connection we had that I destroyed in one night, all because I was too drunk to care about the consequences and then later, too stubborn to stop myself from telling my secrets to someone else who absolutely didn’t deserve it.

  No wonder Ryan was more than willing to fulfill them. Every single one of them until the day he refused to hear my pleas for him to stop. Stop with the hurting. Stop with the humiliation. Stop with the pictures.

  This is just for us, babe. No one else will see this but us.

  I feel Benny’s hand stroking my hair, his mouth kissing the top of my head as he tells me everything will be alright. But it’s his arms that circle me that calm me the most, his deep gravelly voice that vibrates through me. It’s his hard body pressing against mine reminding me I’m not alone.


  “I want to see what this guy looks like, Sarah,” he says. “I want to make sure he doesn’t come near you.”

  I pull away and look at Benny. He’s serious, his eyes blazing. He’s also angry. “You don’t have to, Benny. I’m fine. It’s just…”

  “It’s just what? You’ll just keep hiding?” He brushes my tears away with his thumb. “You can’t hide forever, Sarah. You can’t move from place to place thinking those pictures won’t follow you. You’ll just be one step ahead but that’s not going to solve your problems. Pretty soon, being one step ahead isn’t going to be far enough from this man and what he’s doing.”

  I step away from Benny and wipe away the rest of my tears with the back of my hand. Of course, he’s right. It’s the same thing Dad has been telling me, wanting to sit down and talk to me about a solution even if it means having to tell him everything. But the thought of telling my own father about my kinks makes me cringe, making me not care that it’s been over four months since I’ve seen him, always canceling plans to come home every time I caught whiff of any news that he’d be there, too.

  “Come with me tomorrow,” Benny says. “I have to drive to Taos for a meeting and come back in two days. We can carpool and I’ll drop you off at your parents. If you’re not enjoying yourself or want to come back sooner, let me know.” When I don’t say anything, Benny continues. “Talk to your dad. Have him help you if he can. Get a lawyer, I don’t know. You once told me your dad was very well-connected back in New York. I’m sure he’ll know a few people.”

  When I don’t say anything, Benny lifts my chin up with his index finger so I’m looking at him. “Fight back, Sarah. Don’t run and hide.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. It’s not your naked ass all over the Internet.”

  “Then fight even harder,” he says, his eyes darkening. “Don’t let this man get the best of you. Talk to your father. Let him help if he wants to. Let me help you. If I have to beat the shit out of this monster, I will.”

  I pull away. “I brought this on myself, Benny. The things I told you that night… I should have taken the hint when you refused because you said it wasn’t right.”

  “Then,” Benny says. “It wasn’t right then, Sarah, not when we were just friends. And no, you didn’t bring this to yourself and you need to stop thinking that. That’s why you need to stop running as if you asked for this thing to happen because you didn’t.” He pauses, exhaling. “And stop keeping so many fucking secrets. It’s not good for you.”

  “It’s getting late,” I say. “I should start clean up and go home.”

  “No, I do the clean up. That was the deal, remember?” Benny says. “I will follow you home though. I’m not comfortable knowing you’ll be driving home alone this late.”

  “Benny–”

  One look from Benny and I know better than to object. Besides, he’s right. Come to think of it, I’ve never left my apartment at night, not since I started my job in Shiprock. I went to work an hour early while there’s still light out and went home in the morning, after my morning run. Then I stayed home most of the time, sleeping and waiting for the alarm to sound so I’d hop in the shower and get dressed for work. That’s been my life since this nightmare all began. I can’t even have coffee with anyone. I’m too scared someone will recognize me from some picture online.

  “Think about what I said,” Benny says when I walk toward the door and collect my keys from the console table. “I plan on staying two days before heading back.”

  “What time do you plan on leaving?”

  “I usually leave here before seven so I can make it to Taos by ten. Eleven at the latest. My meeting isn’t until one in the afternoon but I’d love it if you can ride with me,” Benny replies as he opens the front door. “I’ll drop you off at your place and you can call me if you want to leave earlier. I usually leave Taos at three to get back here by seven.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  Twenty minutes later, I unlock the door to my apartment and Benny follows right behind me. It’s not enough for him to simply make sure I walk into the apartment and close the door. He wants to inspect the place and so I let him. I like watching him take over, moving like a big cat through my apartment as he checks the windows to make sure they can’t be easily opened from the outside, opens the closets and peers inside.

  I don’t have a lot of my own stuff in my apartment. It had come furnished, available to the travel nurses who did their sixteen weeks and left and so I didn’t need to bring in anything of my own except my clothes. I basically just sleep and eat and watch home movies, secretly anticipating the moment some stranger would tell me that I looked familiar or say something crude like, I hear you like it rough.

  “Satisfied?” I ask when Benny emerges from the bathroom. Even the tiny bathroom window didn’t escape his scrutiny.

  “It’s good enough,” he says, looking around the living room. “Do you know your neighbors?”

  “Not really. I mean, we don’t hang out or anything,” I reply. “But really, Benny, I’m safe here. It’s gated and you’ve got to be buzzed in to enter.”

  He walks to the door but stops and turns to face me. “Come with me tomorrow, Sarah. I’ll feel better if you do.”

  “What time do you want to pick me up?”

  Benny’s grin lights up his face. “Six-thirty. Be prompt.”

  True to his word, Benny arrives at six-thirty with two cups of piñon coffee from a local shop. “I didn’t know what you wanted to eat but I figure we can decide on the way there.”

  “I already had oatmeal.” It’s a habit I learned from Benny whenever I stayed the night at his place hanging out with him and his friends. We always had oatmeal first thing in the morning. It was the only thing he could make besides coffee. His forte lies in front of the grill. He can make a mean steak.

  He chuckles as he takes my backpack and slings it over his shoulder. “Me, too. But we’ll stop along the way for something more filling.”

  We stop at a roadside food stand two hours later. Benny orders a roast mutton sandwich (on fry bread) while I opt for a Navajo taco with homemade pinto beans and ground beef served on fry bread instead of a tortilla.

  I’m glad we don’t talk about me this time. Instead, we talk about his job. Turns out Benny is based out of Taos since the Bureau of Indian Affairs has an office there. Sometimes he telecommutes which means he works from anywhere he wants to be or where he’s sent to survey or do research. In fact, he’d been out of town the last three weeks or so, checking a waste spill in Utah that never made the news.

  “A lot of incidences don’t make the news but we do what we can,” he says, shrugging. “Right now, I’m finishing up a study I’ve been doing with the US Army on the effects of uranium mining on Navajo lands. We’ve been working on the research for the last year and hopefully it can make a difference regarding the policies for my people. But that’s something that’s beyond my control.”

  As Benny continues talking, I can see how much he loves what he does, joking that his mother probably loves it more to the point that she invites everyone over whenever he comes home. She usually collects every news clipping that features him and shows it off to anyone who’ll listen. It turns a weekend where Benny’s planned to fix things around the house into a social event.

  “It’s like she forgets that she’s got three other children,” he says, shaking his head. “But I also know she’s just really proud of me.”

  “My mom and my grandmother dote on my younger brother,” I say, smiling. “I think it comes with the program.”

  “Dax, right? How’s he doing?” He bites into his mutton sandwich as he waits for my answer.

  “He’s okay, I guess. Getting ready to graduate from high school but he hasn’t applied to any colleges,” I reply. “It’s driving my dad crazy especially since Dax has shown no interest in going to college to begin with.”

  “What about trade school?”

  “He’s never mentioned it.
He just likes hanging out with his friends and playing video games,” I reply. “But maybe he’ll figure out what he wants to do with his life eventually. Maybe it will take the attention off me.”

  “You really don’t like seeing him, do you?” Benny asks. “Your dad.”

  I shrug. “It’s no biggie. Like you said last night, I need to let him help me if he can.”

  Seeing Dad may not be high on my list but I miss Nana’s cooking and Mom’s gentle wisdom. I like watching her throw clay on her wheel, creating something beautiful every time. I wish I had her talents but I don’t. Instead, I have Dad’s knack for numbers although in my case, it’s dosages that I calculate inside my head.

  “Thanks for asking me to join you on this drive,” I say as Benny takes another bite of his sandwich, his eyes hidden behind dark glasses. The beginnings of a tattoo peek from under the open collar of his white shirt.

  “I’m glad you came along,” he says after he swallows his food and takes a sip of root beer. “How long do you usually stay with your folks?”

  “Two days, although this time, just overnight since I flaked out the first night.”

  He wipes his mouth with a napkin. “If you need to get back sooner, let me know.”

  For the next few minutes, we don’t talk as I finish my taco. I watch Benny put away the empty paper plates and bowls in the trash, grab two bottles of water from his truck and hand one to me.

  “I was just thinking,” I begin as Benny sits across from me. “Why didn’t you ever call me the last two years?”

  “Because you never returned any of my calls and messages after that night,” he replies. “I took the hint.”

  You could have persisted, I almost tell him but I don’t. That’s Benny for you. He knows a no when he sees one and I certainly gave him a clear no... or as clear as unanswered phone calls and messages can be. Besides, he always had his life, his women. He had Noelle.

  “Hey, don’t be too hard on yourself, Sarah. What happened between us two years ago is history,” he says, opening the passenger door. “Why don’t we do this? As of today, we officially start over. What do you say?”