Beloved Ink

by Ranae Rose

  She’d never heard so much love in anyone’s voice, or so much pain. It was terrifying, because love for Ben coursed through her veins, too. It leaked from her broken heart, filling her with a heavy sadness.

  “I don’t know,” Ben eventually said. “It sounds too good to be true, and you know what they say about shit like that.”

  “At least try it, for real this time. It won’t be as painful as blowing your brains out, I promise. If you really don’t like the therapist you went to, we can find another one.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  Hannah squeezed her eyes shut and let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. She hoped to God Ben meant what he’d just said and hadn’t been bullshitting to placate Dylan.

  Muted footsteps came from the hall, and her heart beat faster.

  “Wait.” Dylan’s voice.

  “What?”

  “Hannah’s still here. In your room – I think she’s asleep.”

  Silence, and then the door creaked softly on its hinges.

  She didn’t open her eyes, didn’t say a word. She didn’t know what to say, and the idea of putting Ben through any more stress that day was unbearable.

  The mattress shifted beneath her when he sank onto the bed. For a while he was still, and so was she, unbearably relieved to have him whole and close.

  It was a shock when he rolled over and brought his body so close to hers that his breath warmed the exposed side of her neck. Her back was to him, and she was glad, because if he could’ve seen the moisture that clung to her lashes, he’d know she was awake.

  “Fuck,” he said, the fight gone out of his voice. Now, it was a harsh, broken whisper – like his brother’s. “I’m sorry.”

  A frisson raced down her spine when he ran a hand through her hair, then placed it on her side. He let it rest there, and she fell asleep with her scalp and skin still tingling from his touch.

  * * * * *

  Ben woke up on Sunday morning with Hannah by his side, spring sunlight filtering bright and bold through the curtains. Birds were singing back and forth somewhere out in the parking lot, or maybe the tree below the window. For a few seconds, he was at peace, and then memories from the night before shattered that.

  Fuck. He stared at Hannah – still dressed in her jeans and shirt from the day before, her long hair spilling over one of his pillows – and felt sick.

  Before he could come up with a plan of action, she rolled over and blinked at him. “Are you and Dylan going to the gym today?”

  He sat up on the bed, feeling like a deer caught in headlights. “I guess. Why?”

  “I know I can’t lift yet, but I was thinking I might go and get some exercise on an elliptical or something.”

  He nodded, succumbing to a bizarre, surreal feeling. After the way he’d stormed out last night, she wanted to talk about the gym?

  He’d expected her to be angry. Disgusted. What was going on?

  She reached out and laid a hand over his, and he knew she hadn’t forgotten what’d happened. How could she have?

  “Sorry I abandoned you here with Dylan last night. I went for a drive – that’s all.” He tested the waters, unwilling to go through the day with confusion and uncertainty hanging over his head. If she was mad, he wanted – needed – to know.

  “It’s okay.” Her calm expression finally broke, slipping briefly into a frown until she hitched it back up. “Everyone needs a little breathing room, sometimes.”

  “Aren’t you pissed?” He’d understand if she was. Last night had been a clusterfuck, and it was all his fault.

  Now, in the clear light of day, he felt ashamed. Maybe there’d been some truth in what Dylan had said; maybe he’d launched himself headlong into obsession with the worst possible scenario.

  “I was never mad,” she said. “Just scared.”

  “I never meant for you to find it. I never meant for you to know.” He felt bad for scaring her, felt bad for exposing her all at once to the ugly side of how he sometimes thought, felt … was.

  He wanted to be someone better – someone she could respect – but it was too late to hide or change the truth.

  “I’m glad I found it, even if you’re not. I’ve been blind. I thought things had been looking up lately. I thought you seemed happy.”

  Her words lanced into him, releasing a flow of ugly honesty.

  “I’ve been so damn happy with you, Hannah. And I didn’t buy that gun because I wanted to use it. The possibility of being convicted and sent to prison just freaked me out so much that it was like having blinders on – I couldn’t relax unless I felt like there was another option.”

  “There are lots of other possibilities. I don’t think it’s likely that you’ll be sent to jail, Ben. You have a good lawyer.”

  “I know. That’s what Dylan said. And maybe you guys are right – maybe I jumped the gun.”

  “Literally,” she said.

  He couldn’t laugh at the dumb pun he’d made without meaning to. Talking about this with Hannah was too humiliating.

  Eventually, he nodded. “All right, I did. And it’s not the first time. If this changes things between us, I understand.”

  He more than understood; he expected it with a bone-deep, heart-piercing dread. How had he kept her this long?

  His mental state was like the weather: out of his control and often something he disliked. Sometimes, all he could do was brace himself and bear it, wait for storms to pass. And he’d expected her to step inside his ever-changing world and endure it alongside him.

  He really was crazy.

  She frowned. “It changes things. It changes how I see the way I’ve been treating all of this. Obviously, we weren’t on the same page. You were suffering and I was oblivious.”

  He snorted. “If we were on the same page, I don’t think that’d be a good thing. What I meant was that if you don’t want to keep seeing me, I get it.”

  She pushed herself up into a sitting position and looked him in the eye. Her hair was rumpled on one side, and she tucked it behind her ear. “I want us to keep seeing each other.”

  His heart turned a slow, faltering cartwheel.

  He wanted to shut up and leave it at that, but he couldn’t. “We’ve only been dating for a month. I know this is bad – I know I must seem like a loser. If you think you have to keep seeing me out of guilt, or because I’ll do something drastic if you don’t, you’re wrong. I’d never manipulate you like that.”

  The only thing worse than the idea of her leaving him was the idea of her staying for such shitty reasons.

  “I know you wouldn’t!” She sat up straighter and narrowed her eyes. “That’s not why I want to be with you at all.”

  “Why, then?” In the wake of the night before, he was having trouble coming up with reasons that’d be strong enough to let her see past the ugly side of himself he’d shown her. “It’s only been a month and I’ve already let you down. If you stay with me, I’ll do it again.”

  “You didn’t let me down.” She held his gaze. “It hurt, though – realizing what was going on. But if there’s anything I’ve come to realize since I’ve met you, it’s that some people are worth risking getting hurt over, and some aren’t. You’re worth it, so I’ll take my chances.”

  For a while, her words didn’t register.

  “Ben?” she asked after a while.

  “Yeah?”

  “You heard what I said, right? I want us to keep dating.”

  “I heard you. But you should know: last night wasn’t that bad. I can be so much worse, so much bigger of a pain in the ass to deal with.”

  “Dylan told me things had happened before, but he didn’t say what.”

  Ben bit his inner lip until he tasted blood and prepared to humiliate himself further. At least he’d have it out of the way.

  “After I found out I was bipolar – after I got arrested for the first time – I had a hard time wrapping my head around it and adjusting to taking medication.
I didn’t want to deal with it and so I decided to kill myself. Long story short, I tried to do it after hours at the garage where I worked – carbon monoxide poisoning – and my boss caught me.”

  The words left a bitter, acidic taste in his mouth. Thinking of what he’d done made him feel like a failure on so many levels, and he hated that she knew, hated the truth he owed her.

  What he’d done had been impulsive and stupid, a product of a mind fogged by panic and the chaos of being medicated with the wrong thing at the wrong time. He saw that now, and when he confessed what he’d done out loud, it all sounded so fucking melodramatic.

  He didn’t feel like the kind of man Hannah deserved, because he wasn’t. Especially since he knew full well he might wind up in a suicidal mindset again at some point. Might leave the people he loved behind in his dust, to deal with his bloody mess.

  “I see,” she said. “I’m glad it didn’t go as you’d planned.”

  “It was stupid. Don’t think I don’t see that now. But I’m sure it’s not the last stupid thing I’ll ever do. The way I let certain things get at me, sometimes … it’s like wearing blinders.”

  “Don’t feel like you have to try and justify it to me. I don’t consider myself fit to judge. I mean, I’m probably in over my head here. Mostly, hearing about all this just terrifies me. But I don’t think you’re stupid.”

  He looked her in the eye. “I feel like I pulled a bait-and-switch on you. Lured you in with cheesesteaks and deadlifts then hit you with all my fucked-up personal shit. I guess I didn’t think it would come out, at least not like this – I thought I was finally on top of my life.”

  “It’s not a bait-and-switch; it’s just two people getting to know each other. Circumstances might’ve sped things up in this case, but so what? I’d have found out eventually anyway.”

  He thought about what she’d said for a while, afraid to let himself believe that it made some sort of sense, that she really knew what she was saying and meant it.

  After the shit he’d just hit her with, she had to have some sort of an idea what she was getting into though, didn’t she?

  “Dylan thinks I could do better if I go through some counseling. Change the way I think.”

  “And do you trust him? Considering that he knows better than me or anyone else what you’re dealing with…”

  “He told you.” Ben wasn’t sure whether he was surprised. Dylan didn’t usually tell people he was bipolar.

  “Yes.”

  “I trust him. But if he’s wrong and I can’t change, I’ll just be letting people down again. Him. You. If I try it, can you at least not get your hopes up?”

  “Don’t worry about what I think. I won’t harass you about it, if that’s what you mean. But I really hope you’ll do it. Don’t you feel like you need to do something?”

  He looked at her for a long time, figuring out his answer. Would he like to reroute his thoughts somehow, so that he didn’t need a gun under his bed to sleep?

  Yes. But it was hard to believe that was possible.

  Then again, Hannah sticking with him through all of this was pretty fucking unlikely too, but it was happening. And feeling like he was doing something – like he was fighting the parts of himself he hated – might feel better than doing nothing at all.

  CHAPTER 23

  Streetlight made Hannah’s bedroom blinds glow a soft shade of yellow against the early night. Ben had done a lot that day – work, a therapy session and then the gym – but he’d still given her so much: deep kisses and hard fucking.

  She still wasn’t breathing steadily.

  Letting her gaze rove over his naked body, she succumbed to a wave of rekindled lust and appreciation, then to one of curiosity. “How was your day?”

  They’d barely spoken, despite how late it was – they’d been too busy fucking.

  “Okay.” He met her eyes, gave her a knowing look. “Therapy is going better than I thought it would.”

  She was inwardly grateful for him telling her what she really wanted to know. She didn’t want to nag, but God, she wanted to know that it was helping.

  “I’m glad.”

  “Hannah…”

  “What?” She lay naked on her side, her heart still racing. The tone of his voice made it beat faster.

  “Doesn’t it bother you?”

  “No.” She looked him dead in the eye and didn’t let her gaze waver.

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Would it bother you if I was getting help like that? Would you think less of me?”

  “No. But you’re not a man.”

  She blew out a hard breath. “So therapy is just for women?”

  He shrugged. “No. But it’s something people see as a sign of weakness, isn’t it? Especially for a guy.”

  “I don’t. Why do you think that?”

  “Because I feel weak as hell, sometimes. I want to be able to be strong for you and protect you. I want to be a rock for you, but I’m not. Sometimes the only thing that feels strong is how much I love you, and it feels like I can’t live up to it.”

  She tilted her head to one side, her eyes locked with his. She saw the raw honesty in his gaze and knew he’d just exposed a tender nerve to her touch. She needed to be careful.

  But she needed to be honest, too.

  “First of all, you have been strong, and you’ve definitely protected me. But I don’t want a rock. I don’t want someone rigid and unchangeable to cling to or hide behind.

  “What I want is simple: I want love. Real love. If you’re sure that you love me even when you doubt everything else, that means we’re doing something right. That means I have exactly the kind of man I want.”

  She stared at him, her gaze burning over his strong, masculine body and honest, gorgeous face. He was a man in ways she’d only dreamed of her past lovers being a man: fiercely honest and brave enough to speak truths he feared would diminish him in her eyes. Unabashedly passionate instead of strategically affectionate.

  He’d just told her he loved her for the first time, expecting to be rejected. His honesty touched her – touched her deeply, leaving a bruise deep in the soft tissue of her heart.

  If he could be honest, so could she.

  “I love you too,” she said. “I thought it would be terrifying to admit that to anyone, but it’s not. The thought of losing you scares me, but loving you … I’m already doing that, so you might as well know.”

  His expression softened just a little, light reflecting in his dark eyes.

  “I love you like I love the thought of my next breath,” he said. “I don’t mean to bitch. I know you said you’re sure about us being together, and for whatever reason, you’ve taken my bullshit in stride so far. But I’m afraid I’ll get worse. I’m afraid my medication will stop working. I’m afraid you’ll see me at my worst someday.”

  “You told me about hitting rock bottom back in Jersey. I know I wasn’t there, but believe me when I say I’ve tried to imagine what it’d be like to see you go through something like that. I hate the thought, but it doesn’t change anything.”

  He shook his head. “Those were shitty times, but it’s not just that. I get hypomanic and do stupid shit that doesn’t make any sense – almost lost my job over it. And when I’m depressed, it’s worse. I try to shut out the world because I can’t handle it. You know how I freaked out and bought that gun?”

  She nodded.

  “I do that about all sorts of shit. I get down and all I can see is the worst possible aspects and outcome to everything. I’m so negative, I’m hell to live with. Ask Dylan.”

  “It sounds hard to deal with. I’m not writing it off. But sometimes that’s what love is: enduring bad things together.”

  She reached out and touched his face, stroking his rough, stubbled jawline. “And then there are times like right now, when it’s forgetting about everything that’s wrong and being happy just to be together. That makes up for it – all of it. Stop trying to talk me out of being with you
.”

  “I just want to make sure you understand what you say you’re up for.”

  “I love your honesty, but I wish you’d respect mine. I mean it when I say you’re worth all that to me.”

  “I know you wouldn’t say anything you didn’t mean. But you can’t be sure of someone until you really know them.”

  She let her hands rest on either side of his face, the stubble making her palms tingle.

  “I know a lot about you. I know you’re honest and loyal and would do anything for someone you care about. Jesus, look at what you’re going through, all because you came to my rescue. And I see you working to improve yourself, to be even better on top of it all. Most people wear their flaws as chips on their shoulders instead of trying to fix them. Not you.”

  She pressed a kiss against his lips and let it linger until she was lightheaded with the need to breathe deeply.

  “You’re the exact opposite of me,” he said. “You see all the good things where I see the bad.”

  “I’m being honest.” She rolled closer to him, so close that his breath rushed against her face. After placing a hand on his chest, she could feel his heartbeat. “Also, you’re really good in bed. At the risk of sounding shallow, that’s a pretty big plus.”

  His solemn expression was shattered by a grin. He placed his hands on her bare hips and pulled her close, so his cock pressed against her belly. He was still hard.

  “That I can believe. The sounds you make when I fuck you…” He sucked in a breath. “I know you mean them; there’s no faking the way your pussy milks my dick when you’re getting off. Feels so damn good.”

  She gasped when he rolled on top of her, grinding his stiff shaft against her clit.

  “Again?” Surprise arrowed through her, spiking her heart rate.

  “Just give me a little time.” He sank down onto his knees and pushed her thighs apart.