by Hilary Duff
“Clea, please . . . ,” he’d begged. The tray of tea and cookies he’d brought in with him sat on my dresser . . . right next to the untouched one he’d brought the night before. “It’s been a week. You have to talk to me.”
“We talk.”
“We talk about nothing. You tell me you’re not hungry and you don’t need anything. You tell me you’re tired and you need time alone. That’s it.”
“There’s nothing else to talk about.”
“Are you kidding? How can you even say that? You were shot, Clea. You could have died.”
“Who says I didn’t?”
“I do. Sage would too. I know because he told me, before they took him away.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
“You don’t have to. Just listen. He said something to me, before they grabbed him.”
The memories of that day flooded back to me. The Saviors standing in a clutch on the beach, guns drawn and pointed as Sage walked over the sand, away from me and toward them, his hands raised in surrender. Two men had been holding Ben, and they shoved him roughly toward Sage, who caught him and held him upright. Ben was nearly hysterical, but Sage gripped him by his arms and stared into his eyes. He’d said something to Ben . . . I couldn’t hear what . . . and Ben nodded. He might have responded, or Sage might have said more, but before they could, two of the more powerful Saviors swooped in and seized Sage, their guns to his temples as they rushed him into their van and screeched away.
“He thanked me, Clea. He thanked me, and then he said, ‘This will end it, but Clea needs to go on. Make sure she goes on. Help her.’”
“Fine. You’ve done your part. You’ve helped me.”
“You won’t let me help you! But I want to, Clea. And I can. I know I can. I lo—”
“Don’t say it, Ben.”
“I have to. I’m not keeping secrets anymore. I love you, Clea. It’s not like you don’t know it. I love you, and I want to take care of you. I want us to be together. We’d be good together; I know you know that.”
I wouldn’t look, but I felt Ben lower himself onto the edge of my bed. He leaned closer, urging me to meet his eyes.
“This is how it ends. The chain of tragedy. That’s why Sage made the sacrifice he did. It ends with you and me together, choosing life—real, mortal, human life.”
“Don’t you get it?” Fury threatened to burn me up inside. I whipped my head to finally look in Ben’s eyes. “Sage didn’t make a sacrifice; you sacrificed him! You ran onto the beach where the Saviors could grab you and hold you hostage. Sage didn’t turn himself over as part of a grand plan; he turned himself over to save your ass.”
Ben opened his mouth to respond, but I wouldn’t let him.
“I know you didn’t mean it that way, I know, and I swear to God that’s what’s stopping me from kicking and punching at you, but it’s taking every bit of energy in my body not to do it.”
“Clea . . .”
“You saw the same visions of the past I did. You never mean it, and you always regret it, but you do it every time. You destroy me.”
“No! Not this time! Don’t you see? That’s why he thanked me! I saved you this time! Look, I’m not stupid. I don’t expect you to just drop your feelings for Sage and be with me. I’m just saying we can move on from here. We can start over. We can—”
“Get out of my room, Ben.”
“Listen to me!”
“I did listen! You need to get out of my room before I do something I’ll regret.”
“Clea, they have the dagger. Sage is gone.”
“He’s not gone. I don’t believe that, and I won’t believe it until I have proof.”
Ben sat there a few moments, then sighed and got up. “Your tea’s already cold. I’ll bring you some more. We can talk about everything later.”
“We can’t. I can’t do this, Ben. I can’t act like nothing’s changed and we’re friends.”
“What do you mean?”
“I need you out of my life. That’s how I’m breaking the chain.”
Ben’s face wavered. He tugged at his front tuft of hair. “But . . . that’s . . . wow. You can honestly just cut me out?”
“I can’t see you anymore, Ben. Don’t bring me tea, don’t come check on me, don’t e-mail me. . . .”
“You’re just going to shut me out forever?”
“I don’t know for how long.”
Ben’s upper lip twitched. I wasn’t sure if he was going to scream or cry. His eyes were already red, but his jaw tensed, and I saw his hands clenching.
“You could do that?” he asked. “Let me out of your life without blinking? Like I’m nothing to you?”
It was the opposite. If he meant nothing to me, it would be easier, but telling him that would just muddle everything up and lead him on. I loved Ben, but I couldn’t love him the way he wanted. He might have been willing to settle for that, but I couldn’t. Not anymore.
“Please just go,” I said.
I forced myself to keep my eyes on Ben as I said it. I owed him that much. As he heard the words, I saw his face shatter.
He didn’t say another word. He piled the contents of both tea trays together on a single one, then stacked the trays together and left, taking away not just himself but any evidence he’d ever been in the room.
Now after that, here I was, desperate for his help.
There was no reason on earth why he should say yes. I’d shut him out, and even if I hadn’t, finding Sage wouldn’t exactly be among his top priorities. But this was Ben. He and Rayna were the two people I knew I could count on no matter what.
My stomach did another flip-flop as I knocked on the door of my dad’s office.
No answer.
I knocked again, harder.
“Ben?”
Nothing.
I knocked and called a few more times—to the point of being ridiculous—when I could have just pulled open the door. I wasn’t being polite. I’d been avoiding my dad’s office for a long time now, and I was hoping Ben would just slip out. However, it was becoming painfully obvious that wasn’t going to happen. He must have been listening to his iPod and hadn’t heard me knocking.
I twisted the knob, pushed open the door . . . and gasped.
The last time I’d been inside my dad’s office, it looked like a very small tornado had just spun through, leaving piles of strewn papers, reference books, and various anatomical models in its wake. No horizontal surface had been visible under the snowdrifts of clutter, and the one path across the floor required carefully tiptoeing around precarious towers of Dad’s things.
Now everything was pristine. The only thing on Dad’s desk was his computer. Nothing sat on his filing cabinet. His bookcase was decimated, with a few family pictures lined up on the top three shelves. Even the pile of fifteen moving boxes were stacked neatly in a single corner.
I’d once entered this room and been sure it had been ransacked. It felt horrible, like my father’s memory had been violated. This felt worse. It was like he’d been erased. I walked to the desk and sat down in Dad’s chair. It was something I’d done in the past when I wanted to feel close to him. I leaned the seat back, just like my dad had . . . but he wasn’t here anymore.
Neither was Ben.
I’d been so stunned by the room that I hadn’t even noticed at first, but he wasn’t there. Had he finished the job? I tugged at one of Dad’s desk drawers, and had to fight against the curl of papers to pull it open. It was wildly overstuffed, so Ben wasn’t finished.
I checked my watch. Ten a.m.
Because Ben worked for my mom, I knew it wasn’t like he had a time clock—she trusted him to make his own hours and work at his own pace. But Mom was paying him to do a job, and he took it seriously. He liked to come in by nine on weekdays and leave around three, so he had his late afternoons free to meet with the college students he advised. I used to ask him if he ever had trouble with the students, since at twent
y he was younger than many of them, but he said it wasn’t an issue. There was a reason Ben already had a doctorate, and apparently everyone who sat down to talk to him was so impressed by his knowledge that they quickly forgot his age.
He was probably sick, in which case I shouldn’t bother him, but since I’d decided to reach out, I wanted to do it immediately. Time is short, the message had said, and I couldn’t waste a single second.
I went back to my room, grabbed my cell, and called his landline, figuring that’s where he’d be if he was sick. The machine picked up.
“Ben? Hey . . . are you there? It’s me. When you get this, give me a call, okay?”
I hung up, then called back. That way he’d know it was serious and he’d grab it.
The machine answered again.
“Hey, Ben . . . sorry, I know you’re probably sick, but I just need to talk to you, and—”
I heard a click as he picked up the line. “Hello?”
“Hey.”
“Who is this?”
Was he kidding?
“It’s me, Clea.”
“Oh.”
That was it.
“Can you meet me at Dalt’s?”
“Now?”
I got it. He was making me pay. I understood, but it still tried my patience.
“Not now, but when you can get there. An hour?”
“An hour?”
“Ben, I know you’re sick. I wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t important. I—”
“I’m not sick. Why would you think I was sick?”
“I don’t know; I just . . . you weren’t here, so . . .”
“So you assumed I have no life outside of work?”
This was going far worse than I’d imagined. I was tempted to say “forget it” and hang up, but I didn’t have that luxury if I wanted to find Sage.
“Ben . . . please. If you won’t come, just tell me.”
“No, I’ll come. Give me a couple hours though. I’m recovering.”
“Recovering?”
“I had a long night last night.”
There was something coy in his voice, and it turned my stomach. He was with Suzanne last night. I didn’t take the bait.
“Noon then. See you there.”
I clicked off. Ben could try to annoy me if he wanted. It didn’t matter, as long as it got me to Sage. The scent he’d left was gone now. With the message delivered, it was like it hadn’t even existed. I treated myself to a long, hot shower, during which I forced myself to specifically not think about Ben and Suzanne.
I spent extra time shaving and giving my hair a deep conditioning. When I got out, I slathered my body with my favorite grapefruit lotion, put some makeup on, and blew my hair dry so it draped over my shoulders. I put on my best beat-up jeans and T-shirt, and threw on my favorite earrings. I told myself I was putting in the effort because I had time to kill, so why not use it to look my best. Never mind the fact that I preferred to look completely inconspicuous in public, and rarely ventured out without a baseball cap and sunglasses. My parents’ celebrity—and my own recent tabloid splashes—made me eager to stay incognito, and yet here I was, practically making sure anyone interested would recognize me.
I pulled my ancient mint-green Bronco into the Dalt’s parking lot at exactly noon and scanned the windows for Ben. The place was built like a long train car, with the booths pressed against the windows, so I’d have seen him if he was there. Dalt’s had been our favorite meeting place for years—the greasiest of greasy spoons, twenty-four-hour diners—and there hadn’t been a single time I’d arrived before Ben.
Until now.
I considered waiting in my car, but I could see there was one free booth, and I didn’t want to get stuck talking to Ben at the counter.
I walked in and immediately regretted trying to look good. Several tables of people looked up and stared, nudging the friends opposite them so they could turn and get a not-so-subtle gaze in too. I gave a half smile to the people who met my eyes, then slipped into a booth of my own. I turned my concentration to the menu, despite the fact that I knew it by heart, but I could hear the squeak of stools as people at the counter turned to peek at me as well.
This is the problem with living in a sleepy part of the Connecticut coast. Other places in the world I might be recognized, but I was hardly the biggest story around. Here, the Weston family was like royalty. Even more so now that Mom was spending more time here than in D.C.
I checked my watch. Twelve fifteen. No sign of Ben in the diner, or of his car in the lot outside. Was he going to stand me up? I pulled out my phone to text him for his ETA, when a throat cleared behind me, and I turned to see a gangly guy about my age. He wore thick glasses, jeans, and a T-shirt so worn he must have had it since he was twelve. I pegged him as one of the people obsessed with my dad’s quest for the Elixir of Life and the meaning behind it. I used to call them “alien lovers” and write them off. Now I knew better. If Ben didn’t show up soon, I’d be tempted to have this kid join me and pump him for any information he might have on one Charles Victor and his connection to airborne swine.
“Clea Raymond?” the kid asked.
I nodded—a gesture he took as an invitation to join me in the booth. He slipped into the seat facing me and leaned his forearms on the table. “I know you’re not officially part of Senator Weston’s team,” he said, “but you have her ear. There is a bill coming up for vote on the Senate floor that could ruin the economy of this great state of ours, and I’m afraid from everything I’ve read your mother is on the wrong side of the issue.”
I’d misjudged the guy—he was a follower of my mom, not my dad. He kept talking, but I wasn’t listening anymore. It’s not that I didn’t care about the state’s political issues, but I had long ago decided that I’d form my opinions by reading and talking to sources I trusted, not from random strangers trying to use me as their mouthpiece. This guy was at least polite, and he was clearly passionate about his argument. I did my best to give him a studied expression while he spoke.
That’s why I didn’t notice when Ben walked in.
“Sorry . . . am I interrupting something?”
He stood at the end of the booth, smirking down at us. Like my new political friend, Ben wore a T-shirt and jeans, but there was no comparison. The same outfit that made my booth mate seem more nondescript enhanced Ben’s sudden air of easy confidence.
Was it sudden? Or had this been building in him the whole time he was off my radar?
“Yes, you are,” the guy with the glasses said. “I was trying to impress on Miss Raymond the necessity of—”
Okay, that pushed it over the line. Now the guy wasn’t being polite; he was intruding.
“Actually, we’re done,” I told him. “Thanks for your thoughts.”
He opened his mouth to say more, but I smiled in a way that thankfully conveyed what I felt.
“You’re welcome. And thank you.”
The guy slipped out, and I saw him walk over to his booth of friends. They slapped him on the back and celebrated his bravery. Had I seen his crowd, I wouldn’t have misjudged him as an alien lover. Every one of them wore the pressed khakis and oxfords I’d come to expect of the poli-sci majors who followed my mom’s every move.
“Did he get you to sign his petition?” Ben asked, sliding into the space the guy had just vacated.
“Hadn’t pulled it out yet. It was just a matter of time.”
“You asked for it. You’re out of uniform.”
I felt myself blush.
“I see you got dressed up too,” I said. “No wonder it took you so long to get here.”
Ben’s hair was rumpled, the slightly overgrown front tuft hanging a bit in his face. His clothes looked like he’d slept in them, and he hadn’t shaved, though the growth was so minimal you’d have to know him well to realize it.
“Yeah, well . . . I kind of fell back asleep after you called. . . .”
“Right,” I said. “Late night last night.
”
Ben didn’t answer. He just let that sit between us a bit. The waitress came to take our orders. I got a toasted bagel, knowing full well that at Dalt’s “toasted” meant “buttered and fried on the greasy grill to within an inch of its life.”
“I’ll have a veggie omelet with egg whites, well-done and dry. No toast or potatoes—sliced tomatoes instead. And a side of fruit,” Ben said.
Now I wanted to change my order, but the waitress was already gone.
“When did you get so healthy?” I said.
Ben shrugged. “You should try it.”
Asshole.
“So,” he said before I could respond, “I was kind of surprised you called me.”
“I know. I just—”
“Then I realized you probably need something. And you couldn’t ask anyone else, which means whatever you need has to do with Sage.”
“Wow. Cutting to the chase.”
Ben shrugged. “Am I wrong?”
“No.”
“And you think I’ll be willing to help you because of our years of close, meaningful friendship?”
“Something like that.”
“I see. So when you said you needed me out of your life, you meant you needed me out of your life . . . until you needed to use me in your life.”
“You could have just said no.” I pulled out my wallet to throw down money for our food. It hadn’t arrived yet, but there was no way I was staying. “Forget it. I’m sorry I dragged you out of bed.”
“I’m not saying no. I’m just noting the circumstances.”
So he was willing to help, but he wanted to torture me first. Fine. I guess I deserved it.
“Are you denying you cut me out of your life?” he asked.
“No, Ben, I’m not denying it. I’m not. I was shitty to you, is that what you want to hear? I was. But if you think I’m going to scrape around and beg for your help, it’s not going to happen. I’m sorry you were hurt, but I’m not sorry I said what I did. I couldn’t be around you then, and I couldn’t give you what you wanted.”