by Shey Stahl
He needed some help on this one, and because I still had so many questions, I was willing to help.
“Why did you act like you didn’t remember me?”
“I didn’t want to remember.” His voice cracked this time, his hands fidgeting. I could feel his words heavy on my heart and lungs, but I could also feel his temper rising again. I knew he was tired of my questions. Hell, I was tired of them, too.
“Why?”
“I’m an asshole. Think about what I did to you, to your sisters, your family. I didn’t want to remember being that much of a douche.”
“It wasn’t all bad. There was some good in there, too.” By now I was trying to look at a good side, if there was one.
“I took your virginity against a wall.” He gasped. “How fucked up is that?”
“Oh, right.” I laughed, not knowing what else to do. “There was that, but hey, you gotta lose it at some time.”
“Not like that you shouldn’t have.”
“Why against the wall? If it wasn’t about the bet with me, why then? Why the wall? Didn’t I deserve better?”
“I was a fucking kid, Sophie. A no-good fucking kid. I just, I saw you down there, and you were willing, so I did it. It wasn’t what I had planned for.”
“And that was?”
“Something good for you.” He shrugged. “A bed maybe.”
“Oh, well that’s nice of you,” I replied humorlessly, only to have him shake his head. “I don’t know who you are, Bensen,” I admitted finally. “Were you who Stephanie thought you were? Or what about Shanna … and Hadley, or maybe Sadie? Did they know you?”
He frowned, looking like I stabbed him, my words turning the knife.
“That’s what I thought.”
“You knew the real me,” he said, not meeting my eyes. “You did.”
“Really? What makes you say that?”
“Because you did.”
“All that time I was a bet … you … you were lying to me.” I shook my head again, trying to make sense of the last few hours and what he was asking me now. “I can’t tell what’s real with you.”
“You were real to me,” he said, not missing a beat. “You were real. Who I was with you was me.” He nodded. “You were real.”
I stayed quiet as he spoke until I couldn’t any longer, until it burned to keep the words inside any longer. “Bensen …”
“I won’t sit here and tell you it was easy. It wasn’t. I did love you. I know I never said it, but I did. I couldn’t tell you and have you look at me the way you are right now. Not after what I had just done, what I had taken from the girl I loved. I hate myself for what I did to you.”
“So leaving was easier.”
“You think it was easy to leave?” His gaze turned hard. “You don’t think it would have been worse if I had stayed and your dad told you?” He looked down at me, and the honesty in his face knocked me sideways. There was no more pleading or begging, there was only his version of the truth, his own regrets. “That night I had every intention of telling you I loved you and giving you what you deserved—an honest relationship. I would have gone anywhere you wanted, college even, just to be with you. But I couldn’t have him tell you that same night. It would have been worse that way, wouldn’t it have?”
“I don’t know, Bensen, and I suppose we never will,” I said, trying to stay strong.
The journal came back to mind and my reason for writing it. To remember.
In this very spot, in a place where so many memories were created, I sat motionless, taking the moment to remember where the change occurred, where the lie was revealed.
And it finally made sense.
Clear as day—it was when he backed away from me as I searched for my clothes. He wanted to tell me then. I interrupted him.
“Sophie … I—”
“I know what you’re going to say to me,” I whispered, not knowing if that was really what you were going to say. Climbing your body, you gave me a lift, hands low, holding me there. My mind didn’t bother trying to make sense of any of it. For once.
You didn’t answer right away, but pulled me closer, your arms so strong, so right. You kissed me again. “Then let me say it.”
“No, not right now.”
I thought he was going to tell me he loved me. But no, he was going to confess.
He was looking at me again. I couldn’t deal with the vulnerable side of him; it made me feel vulnerable, too.
“Tell me what you want, Sophie. Do you want me to walk away?” he asked, stepping forward. “Tell me.” He reached out and cupped my face. Bending down, in a true Bensen style of just going for it, he lowered his lips to mine, pressing lightly, warm and soft. My reaction was anything but gentle. And then neither was his. He inhaled loudly, my breath in my lungs exhaling just as harshly. “The way I feel about you hasn’t changed. It never will.”
He drew back and looked at me with dark eyes, his breathing heavy, his anger slow, silent, and strong. “Well?”
“I don’t know, Bensen …” I sighed. “I think I need some time.” Everything he said melted me, but it didn’t heal what had already been done. No, it couldn’t. If anything, it shaped what was about to happen. Forgiveness or forgetting.
He pushed me back so I could see his face. “Sophie, I want to be with you. Always. I just want you. Now. A week from now. A year from now. Whenever you’re ready. What I want is never going to change. It’s you. Just you. Always has been. Always will be.”
I took in a ragged breath. What he was saying ... the way he was saying it.
He turned his back on me, and it wasn’t out of hate or regret or whatever other reasons he might have turned his back on me before. It was him giving me space.
I knew if I let him leave now, I’d only be hurting myself. Again.
“I love you, Sophie,” Bensen finally said at the side of his truck, like maybe he knew, maybe he finally understood the meaning and needed me to hear it.
Everything went cloudy when those words left his lips. They were the words I had always wanted to hear and told myself I never would. The weight of the words settled over me, sinking way down deep, and a sudden pang of insecurity hit when I thought what he meant by them. I wanted to believe that those words changed everything, and that I would have the relationship I always wanted with him. With those three words, the future I thought I was going to have was changing, and in its place was a huge question mark.
I would have gave anything to turn my brain off right then.
I wanted to believe him.
I wanted to tell him he was too late, that I could never be with someone like him, but I also couldn’t lie to him.
“Our life was messy, and complicated, and filled with so much fucking passion I didn’t have a clue how to cope with it all.” He turned to face me again, making the few steps he’d taken back to me. “I know I didn’t handle it the way I should have, but I loved you. That was something I couldn’t deny no matter how hard I tried.”
You could close your eyes against things you didn’t want to see. You could cover your ears to the things you didn’t want to hear. But your heart, your heart was defenseless. You couldn’t tell it not to feel or bleed for another. Sure, you could tell your brain not to love someone, but your heart always did what it wanted, loved who it wanted and forgave when it wanted.
I knew what my heart wanted. I knew he was worth it. I’d always known that. I knew it before he did. Real love was taking two hearts, two bodies, two souls and creating one. That was when you knew it was pure and worth fighting for.
“Say it. If you want me to walk away, then say it.”
This was what mattered. The experience. The forgiveness and how it made you feel. You rarely realized what forgiveness could do for your soul. But really, it was your love that really mattered. It was the only thing that mattered, aside from the experience.
I looked at him, his eyes were hurt, and seeing him like that made this too real.
“Say
it, Sophie.” He swallowed, hard and determined to make me say something.
A familiar ache started in my chest and weaved around my throat.
“Sophie … please, tell me what to do.” His hand came up to my check and tilted my head to look at him. “I just want the chance to show you. Give me one night.”
My eyes closed, and I felt my chest heave as the tears slipped down my face, wanting to answer him as honestly as I could. I drew in a deep breath and looked at him, thinking of Ivey and how shitty tonight had been for her. “Don’t leave. I want you to stay. That’s what I want you to do, but right now, I can’t make this decision. Tonight should have never been about me and you. So I’m going back to the wedding and giving my best girl the attention she deserves. And you should do the same.”
“You’re right,” he said, standing with me. It seemed this was the one thing he didn’t need to overanalyze tonight. We both realized we were getting nowhere, and if I did forgive him, it still didn’t help the fact that, together, we ruined Ivey’s wedding.
THE STORM had passed, the rain all but gone, so we decided to walk back to the wedding, which was surprisingly still in full swing given it was two in the morning. We’d been in that barn for almost three hours.
As we left the barn, there was a new sense of reality. We grew. And maybe that was what I meant when I said I wanted to know my past like it was my future.
I wasn’t the same girl I was back then. He knew that. He felt that.
Ivey was dancing with Wyatt when I made my way to her, Bensen approaching with me. Wrapping my arms around her middle section, I pulled her against my chest. Immediately, she turned and hugged me despite my shitty behavior tonight.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered against her neck, starting to cry again. Over her shoulder I could see Bensen shake Wyatt’s hand and pat his back, his only act of maturity toward him I had ever seen. And beyond that, I could see the destruction of our blow-up at the wedding. Two tables had been crushed, glass and flowers splayed over the grass. No one bothered cleaning it up.
Ivey turned and faced me, her palms on my cheeks just as she had done the night Bensen left me at graduation. “You will always be my best girl, Sophie,” she said, tear-soaked, same as me. We were definitely having a moment.
Bensen smiled, watching now, his own eyes teary as his chin quivered. He nodded, trying to compose himself. It wasn’t the journal or the wedding or the fight with me, it was all of it. For once, he saw for himself what a friendship, just a friendship, could do for you.
He asked her to dance after that, and I watched, declining Brady’s invitation to dance only because I was afraid of falling. I was still very drunk and didn’t trust my legs to move me around a dance floor.
It was nearly three in the morning when the party began to wind down, and I made my way to the dock for some time to think. Ivey and Wyatt had just left on their honeymoon, leaving only a handful of people at the house, most of which were hired to clean up.
With my white heels in hand, walking out there alone was something I needed to do. After all, this dock was where it started for me. All of it. My friendship with Ivey and Bensen.
The rain was just a steady mist now, a lurid haze lit the sky as lightning scattered across the lake, and the air had that familiar, smothering humidity it always had.
Bensen gave me close to twenty minutes on that dock by myself. I felt his presence before I heard him come behind me.
I couldn’t tell you why I eventually gave in that night in the barn, but I thought it had to do with the fact that I was tired of trying to force myself not to love him. If I wanted to be happy, I needed Bensen William Cole.
Back then I saw what I wanted to see. Bensen played the part, and I’d honestly never know how much of what I thought he felt was true and what parts were lies. But I did feel what it left behind, and I would be lying if I didn’t say that part was stronger, tattooed even, a mark that would be there forever.
His love.
In one way or another it was there and always would be.
Bensen and I would never be perfect because both of us had faults deeper than we cared to admit, but I liked my faults with him. Always had.
When he finally stood beside me, the nerves returned. And fuck me if I hadn’t started itching again. This drama had actually gotten under my skin.
“I’m not asking for forgiveness here, Sophie, or even to be with you. I’m asking for a chance I guess.” His hand moved from his pocket to touch the side of my cheek, the same rough touch he always had consumed me. “Maybe a date. One night, or maybe ten, to remind you of the real me. Not the asshole who left, but me, the boy you got to know on that dock for the summer.” He paused, watching my eyes. “Just asking for the night.”
In the midst of scratching, Bensen reached for my hands to stop me and continued holding them inside of his.
“One date. That’s all. One night to show you what’s real.”
Sobs rolled through me as the tears gushed from my body. His face was etched in regret as he watched me. When he closed his eyes, I wanted them open to make him see how he hurt me, consumed me, controlled, and complicated me. I wanted him to feel the guilt and pain because for years that was all I felt. And he did.
His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. “I mean it. If this isn’t what you want, I’ll give up,” he said in that slow, drawn-out voice he got when he didn’t like what he was saying. It was the one that spoke of annoyance and regret. I closed my eyes, trying to keep from falling apart.
Though he said it, Bensen never truly gave up. He couldn’t. If he would have, he wouldn’t have been here with me right now.
The thought of forgiving him terrified me, made my stomach hurt and my eyes burn.
For a moment I saw it for what it was. A dangerous moment that could destroy it all.
I was hung up on the word when it really didn’t mean anything. A bet was a bet. Regardless of the context of it or what Bensen even meant by it, it was still just a word in this situation. A meaningless fucking word.
I wasn’t angry. Not really. Not anymore. Because why be angry?
In a sense, it was like I felt guilty for what he did, as if somehow I had something to do with it, but I didn’t.
I wasn’t going to forgive him right away or forget what happened, but was it even something that needed to be forgiven?
Usually when you were forgiving someone, they’d done something that hurt you. And yes, he had, but I didn’t exactly think this was something you forgave someone for.
When you made a mistake you were usually harder on yourself than anyone else. Surely Bensen had spent the last four years owning up to what he did. I now knew he tortured himself enough during that time. I could see that.
It wasn’t about forgiveness. It was about our future and where we would take it, if we wanted it.
I remembered when I asked myself why people lived for right now. What if you could have the greatest love of your life, but you had to relive the past to find it again?
Well, I went back to the beginning and found that love. Where I ended up was far from where I thought I would be.
It was where I was meant to be.
This was it. Right here, this was what mattered. Moving on. Second chances.
I used to hear my sisters say they’d never forget their first love. Shanna would always hold a special light for Corey. Sara would never forget Jay. Stephanie probably held on to Kolten’s memory, and Sadie, well, she never could get away from Josh, no matter how shitty he treated her.
It was the first piece of your heart that you gave to someone else. When you were young, the love you gave your parents was different. They were there from the beginning. You automatically loved them from the start; you were designed to. Then someone, your first love, came along and you gave your heart to him or her. The difference was you gave it. Or maybe they stole it.
Think about when you tied your shoes in a knot. When I was little, I used to tie my shoes in do
uble, even triple, knots so they wouldn’t come untied when I was running around. Then night would come, and I’d have to untie them. Those second and third knots were always easy to get untangled, but that first knot, the strongest one, always gave me trouble to the point where I would cut the shoelaces and start over.
That was first love. A bond you couldn’t untie. Eventually, if you were brave enough, you could cut the strings.
Surely you survived, but wasn’t always easy. Especially if you were missing the laces.
“Did you mean it when you said I was real?” I asked, my stomach dipping for the unknown as we walked back up the dock and to his truck. “Our time was real?”
Bensen looked down at me standing, directly in front of me now. “Yes. I did.” The words were said with such affliction I didn’t doubt him. I could feel my heart in my throat, and I wanted to run away so I could begin to process this and cry in private. I needed to ugly cry. But I also knew if I had walked away now, I wouldn’t come back.
He needed to see me for who I was, this girl who he destroyed with a stupid bet. Only now, he was seeing it, feeling it. “Let me show you.” Leaning forward, Bensen slowly curved his fingers around the back of my neck, gripping tighter as he leaned in. Searching my eyes as he brought me closer, he repeated, low between hurt and nerves. “Let me.”
I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t sure I could forgive him, feared it even.
I had lived without his summers for years, and I knew I could continue to if needed.
But I also needed some time. I couldn’t just jump back into this without giving myself the opportunity to make the decision sober. I was drunk.
“I’m going to bed.” His eyes dropped to his feet, his gaze impassive and giving me nothing to go on. His head hung as he listened. “I’m not saying no …” I reached up and pressed my palm to his hot cheek. Leaning into my hand, he sighed, his eyes never meeting mine. “Just give me some time to think and sober up.”
Nodding, his voice was rougher than before, so much emotion he couldn’t help it. “Just give me one night. I love you, and I want to show you that.”
