by Ren Benton
She was content here. She had a purpose. He understood why she wasn’t in a hurry to leave everything behind.
Tally, on the other hand, was miserable, but she wouldn’t trade that for someone who would devote every day of his life to making her happy. She’d chosen misery over him.
“Maybe when there are grandchildren I can spoil, or when they close the school, or when I retire and can lounge around the pool all day turning myself into human jerky.”
It would be more like human soup most of the year in Seattle, but he didn’t have to make it sound even less appealing to her. “Whatever you want, Mom.”
She stroked his hair. “By the time you were eight, I was afraid you were going to turn out like your father. All the girls in the world wouldn’t be enough for you.”
He closed his burning eyes. “I don’t think being an abusive, unfaithful piece of shit is genetic, and I certainly didn’t admire what he did to you and want to follow in his footsteps.”
“I know, sweetie, but we see what we’re afraid of everywhere we look. Like you think I’m going to die horribly because of a gas gauge I’ve been living with for ten years or a deadbolt that hasn’t worked since before you were born or because I have to drive a little ways to get an annual checkup. Fear isn’t interested in facts.”
Tally’s ability to spot doom in every word and gesture must mean she was afraid of... everything. He couldn’t compete against that. No amount of proving himself would ever make her believe in him instead.
“You were never keeping score, were you? You were always trying to find the one you could be with forever.”
He’d thought he found her. He’d been killing time with everyone else, waiting for her. Part of his heart had always been reserved for Crystal Castle, and he didn’t know what to do with the vacancy now that he knew for sure, finally, she didn’t want to be there.
She rubbed the defeated slope of his shoulders. “What did that girl do to you?”
Unlike fear, he was vulnerable to facts and slumped further under the weight of this one. “She’s not doing anything to me anymore.”
Chapter 36
Tally spent the entirety of Friday vacillating between berating herself for making a terrible mistake and congratulating herself for the selfless act of saving Ben from making a terrible mistake before deciding the two weren’t mutually exclusive concepts. Doing the right thing in the name of love came at great personal cost all the time in movies.
Maybe the heroic feeling came later.
Having done the right thing didn’t make her feel less shitty about the way she’d done it. She should apologize. Not to make it better. There was no better. For what, then? Trying to ease her guilt wasn’t in keeping with her selfless sacrifice, and Ben wouldn’t be interested in taking a shot at her to even the score.
She should leave it alone.
She made a detour on the way home and drove by his mother’s house. His car wasn’t there. For about ten seconds, she thought that meant everything would be all right and he would be waiting in her driveway, making it easy for her again by meeting her more than halfway.
He wasn’t waiting in her driveway.
Maybe he was buying another tank of gas.
The Buick wasn’t parked at his mother’s house when she drove by at four the next morning, either, or when she went home at eight that night.
He was gone. She dreaded losing him so much, she ran him off early.
But hey, at least she got rid of him on her own terms, right? That was an accomplishment to be proud of. A real heroic achievement.
Her father came out of his bedroom around midnight and looked over the mess she’d made — the contents of every closet, cupboard, and drawer vomited on the living room floor to be organized or taken out to the trash. “You need sleep, princess.”
So she’d thought, but as soon as her head touched the pillow, she felt wide awake, full of energy in need of a purpose.
In the absence of a purpose, she sorted garbage.
She shook one of seemingly hundreds of old dance trophies at him before jamming it into a trash bag. “Why did you keep this crap?”
“I was proud of you.”
Past tense. “Sorry the best thing I ever did was win a meaningless contest.”
He hobbled deeper into the debris field. “If you could be the best at something you hated, I knew you would be extraordinary at what you loved. I didn’t count on you not recognizing what you love when it’s right in front of you.”
She’d been too busy surviving to find something to love. “I don’t have a calling, Dad.”
He shook his head. “I’m not talking about a job. Some people are lucky enough to love what they get paid to do. To most people, a job is just what finances life when they’re off the clock.”
He used to refuse to talk about his work at the prison when he got home. “Did you like your job?”
“I liked having one. Being useful.” He tapped his cane against the new foot that made too many employers think he was no longer useful. “Prisons are depressing. The only man I ever met who enjoyed working there was a sick fuck. I put in my time so I could keep a roof over my girl’s head.”
Another way he’d been sentenced to a life he hated because of her — his great personal cost in the name of love. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not. Somebody had to do it. Better me than another sick fuck. But my life was coming home to you. Even if you fell asleep on the couch waiting for me to get home, the sight of you was the best part of my day.”
She tried to wait up for him on nights when her mother drank herself unconscious. She would wake up with his heavy hand on her head and find him sleeping in his recliner, arm stretched across the gap between them. Even if she had a crick in her neck or had to pee, she’d stay still until morning so she didn’t wake him.
“Ben seems to like his job, whatever the hell it is he does.”
“He designs—”
“He explained it for an hour, and it sounded very impressive until I asked him if I needed it, and he said, ‘God no. Nobody needs it.’”
And that was why he had a marketing director. He did not have the talent for bullshit to sell what he made.
Her dad pointed a finger at her. “You don’t love your job, and you haven’t had much of a life outside it, either. Until lately.”
She stuffed a binder full of newspaper clippings about the mother of a trophy-winning dancer into the bag. “I told you things would get back to normal.”
“I know I haven’t been a good father.”
A corner of the binder tore through the bag, and the contents clattered onto her feet unheeded. “That’s not true!”
His face was carved with deep lines. “I should have taken better care of you.”
“You were the only one who did take care of me.” Her eyes flooded. “I ruined your wife and your life, and you stayed because of me.”
He’d loved her mother enough to marry her. She changed when Tally was born, made the next twenty-eight years of his life hell, and nearly killed him. His freedom came with chronic pain and a limp.
He was a good man, fair and kind. He deserved so much better, and he hadn’t gotten it because of her.
“Stop that right now.”
She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and turned her back to him. Crying didn’t accomplish anything other than manipulating witnesses into feeling bad. “I’m sorry.”
He navigated the obstacle course she’d created with the pointless souvenirs of her life and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “You cry all you want, but stop blaming yourself for other people’s choices. I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you don’t have that much control over everybody.”
She rested her achy head against his shoulder. “I don’t know. I seem to have a knack for making them do what I don’t want them to do.”
“What did the punk do?”
“He asked me to go back to Seattle with him.”
“
That bastard.”
“I know, right? So it was totally rational for me to have a screaming fit and make him go away.” The tears she’d been holding back for two days broke through the dam, and she stifled a sob against his chest.
His arm tightened around her. He let her cry for a little while before asking, “What did you want to happen?”
What did she want? She hardly knew what that meant. She was always so focused on what she didn’t want to happen, what she dreaded, what must be avoided at all costs, she never gave any thought to a good outcome.
She wouldn’t wish staying here on Ben. He was one of the lucky ones who loved his work. He had friends he adored. She would never ask him to change any part of his life for her.
The only way for her to be a part of his life was for her to step into it.
But the idea of him asking her to take that step was so far from the realm of possibility, she never considered it. When he asked, it came out of nowhere. He couldn’t have given it any real thought. It had to be another impulse, a tactless mistake he’d regret if she held him to it.
When he persisted despite being offered an out, as if he had given it thought and meant the invitation, she panicked. She hadn’t been prepared and didn’t have the choreography for that situation. She coped poorly with upheaval and drama, of which she’d had a lifetime’s worth already. She wanted to be safe now, for once in her life.
That life wasn’t what she’d call satisfactory, but she knew what to expect day to day. She was safe.
With the exception of her panic when Ben behaved contrary to her expectations, she felt safe with him. She always had. He was only dangerous to her heart, and on the rare occasions she took it out of the vault and let him see it, he’d been gentle with it. “I wanted to be with him.”
“It’s not too late.”
She rolled her head against his shoulder in denial. “He’s gone, Dad.”
“He’s in Seattle. He’s not dead. Nothing’s final.”
According to her mother, Tally’s mistakes were a fate worse than death, but her dad was more understanding. So was Stella. If there were varying responses to imperfection, why default to her mother’s?
Because the notion there might be another way turned her chest into a gasping hollow she vaguely recognized as hope. The magnitude of the disappointment hope exposed her to terrified her more than failure. She protected herself from that pain by refusing to entertain the possibility of happiness. “I screwed up really bad.”
“No man voluntarily spends a whole day with a girl’s father unless he’s committed. It’s not too late.”
Her mother never let her forget when she made a mistake, no matter how small. Could Ben forgive a huge, deliberate fuckup?
Of course he could. The question was whether he would give her yet another chance. Her dad had more confidence than she did, which seemed odd. “I thought you didn’t like him.”
“I hated every horny little bastard that looked at you because I didn’t want one of them trapping you here under your mother’s thumb.” He sighed as if what he was about to say pained him. “When I worked the early shift, I’d drive home about the same time you were walking home from school if your mother hadn’t dragged you somewhere. Every time, that boy was walking behind you, calling out ‘Car!’ like you couldn’t hear them coming.”
Sometimes she couldn’t. Those solitary walks home had been crying time.
“Every time, from kindergarten through high school. Even when the boy had a car, he rode the bus so he could follow you to and from the bus stop and protect you from traffic. Always had a look on his face when he turned to check out the car like he’d throw himself in front of it for you.”
She’d been aware of him walking behind her; they took the same route home, after all. She never would have guessed he did it to protect her.
“He had that same look when he was picking out apples for you, like it was life or death that he saved you from bruised Granny Smiths. Only the best for you. He treats you like you’re precious. How can I not like that he treats you as well as I would if I could?” He pulled her braid through his fist. “I never saw a teenage girl who wasn’t crying or yelling about a boy. Some of that’s because it’s not your nature to carry on, but if he’d ever made you sad or mad, I would have seen and put a stop to it.”
“I didn’t know you knew back then.”
“Nobody’s dumb enough to need that much tutoring.”
Her face heated. She hadn’t been anywhere near as adept at secret keeping as she’d thought. “I’m surprised you didn’t put a stop to it anyway.”
His shoulders hitched. “As long as you came home in one piece and smiling, I thought you were due an act of rebellion. Nobody ever gossiped about you because of him. More important, your mother never found out.”
Her mother never would have allowed her relationship with Ben — because he would distract her from dancing, because he would get her pregnant and ruin her mother’s shot at fame and fortune, or just out of spiteful refusal to let Tally be happy for five seconds.
All along, she had been convinced Ben was ashamed of her, but he only wanted her undivided attention. His desire for seclusion had spared her public and maternal repercussions. He’d shielded her without even trying, on the one front she’d left undefended.
“If he treated you that well when he was a punk teenager, he was bound to grow into a good man.”
“He did.”
Better than I deserve.
But when she let him go so he could make room for something better, he filled the void with destructive lunatics and a wife who didn’t even like him. Impossible as it seemed, he might have been better off with a stripper who, even if she had no other virtues, loved him.
“You shouldn’t up-end your life to make somebody else happy. But you shouldn’t stay where you’re unhappy because you’re afraid to up-end your life.”
She couldn’t remember a time when she wasn’t afraid. “It didn’t work out last time I left here.”
“You were a kid, and you were alone. If I hadn’t thought getting away from your mother was the best thing for you, I wouldn’t have let you go unprepared like that. I should have found you a place, stayed with you until you were settled in and on your feet with a good job.”
“Instead of swinging on a pole with a disgusting job.”
“I’m not ashamed of you for doing what you had to do to survive. I wish you’d thought you could come to me for help, but I let you down too many times while you were here.”
She held him at arm’s length. “Dad. No. I cost you a fortune while I was here — dance lessons, costumes, travel fees.”
“Concealer.”
That too. “I was an adult. I wasn’t supposed to freeload off you anymore.”
“I would have worked two jobs to give you the freedom to be happy.”
He would sacrifice too much, destroy himself making her happy — as if she could ever be happy knowing that. “I didn’t want you killing yourself with overwork to support another lazy bum.”
“You are not lazy. You’d go to school all day, dance all afternoon and evening, then come home and recite times tables, Spanish verbs, and the periodic table in your sleep. Even now, you never rest.”
Yet she had nothing to show for any of the work she’d done, none of the material trappings of success, no accomplishments other than garbage bags full of trophies celebrating a useless skill.
“When you left in such a hurry, I hoped you had plans to run off with Ben or Jules, but both of them seemed like they were never going to leave Westard.”
He could be excused for forgetting the sequence of events a dozen years ago. “Ben left for football camp right after I went away.”
He shook his head. “He didn’t leave until after Christmas. Had to wait another year to play ball.”
She searched his face. He didn’t look confused at all. “Why would he do that? He worked so hard to get there.”
His brows elev
ated. “Looked brokenhearted to me. You’d probably know more about why than anyone.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. No, no, no. Ben was supposed to bounce back, console whatever minuscule pang her rejection of his proposal caused him with the next girl waiting in line, and get on with his promising future, not jeopardize it by lingering in Westard.
He wasn’t supposed to really love her.
She’d been trying to save him, not break his heart. “The one time in my life I knew I was doing the right thing, I was still wrong.”
“It’s okay to ask for a second opinion, especially when your decision affects someone you care about.”
The advice came too late. That second opinion relied upon the someone in question caring about her in return, and she’d been busy burning bridges lately.
She was used to being controlled or fending for herself. She didn’t have a lot of practice working together. “I’m not good at... living.”
“You’d have somebody to lean on this time.”
If Ben would have her. Clinging to him like a tick wouldn’t make her a more attractive risk. “It’s not his job to hold me up.”
Her dad waved his cane to encompass both of them. “This isn’t a job. If I can do anything to make you less worried or sad, I’m going to do it because I love you.”
Nothing she did for her dad was out of obligation. She did it to make his life better however she could. They were a team, helping each other get through. “We’re family. You have to.”
“You know blood doesn’t have a damn thing to do with love.”
Blood hadn’t made her good enough for her mother’s love.
He hooked a finger under her sinking chin. “Your mother’s failure to love you was about her being broken, not you. You deserve to be loved. The punk sees that, even if you can’t.”
She absorbed her mother’s loathing of her without ever considering the reliability of the source. All she knew was that she must be really worthless if the person genetically obligated to love her thought she was garbage. She’d been brainwashed that she couldn’t do anything right, that everything was her fault, that any bad treatment had been earned, and that she would never be good enough for anyone.
