I grit my teeth for a moment as I steady my tone and my response. “That is not true. I suggested hanging out. You wanted the sex.”
Her eyebrows lift halfway up her forehead. “How the fuck is any of this my fault?”
“It’s not your fault. No one is at fault. It’s more like a misunderstanding that-”
“Oh. My. God. Ben, just tell me you didn’t get close to me to change my mind about tattooing your clients.” She closes the distance between us and practically presses her nose to mine. “Look me in the eye and tell me nothing that happened in the last week has been about changing my mind about that.”
I can’t lie to her. “In the beginning it was about that, yes.”
“I fucking knew it. Then there’s nothing else to talk about.”
“Jen, can’t you see I was also trying to help you?”
“Help me? Like I’m some pathetic loser who couldn’t get herself laid?”
“Stop putting words in my mouth,” I tell her, my own anger levels rising. “Your confidence was shattered. You practically begged me to have sex with you. What would you have done in my position? If I turned you down, you would have felt shittier than you already did. When I did turn you down, I could see how much it hurt. I was trying to help you.”
Something that looks like dawning understanding fills her expression. “You were trying to fix me,” she says in a quiet voice. “You thought by having sex with me, you could boost my confidence. Help me come to terms with my loss? That’s how you put it, isn’t it? The work you do with your clients. Helping them come to terms with everything they lost and put them on the right track forward to completion? Is that it, Ben? Is that what you were doing?”
“I have to help people, Jen, but you make it sound wrong. What we did together was one hundred percent because I wanted to do it with you.” I reach for her but she steps away. It’s not far because the bed pulls her up short but I don’t press. “I wasn’t trying to fix you.”
Her smile is sad. “You probably believe that, but I don’t. My family experienced controlling behaviour already and we’re aware of the signs, the red flags, and you have so many red flags. Your brother, tattoos, even the way you have sex should have been a red flag but I got caught up in the excitement.”
Each one of her ‘red flags’ is like a punch to my gut. I’m not a red flag guy. “Ian is the reason I like control, yes, but only because he was so out of control. He’s the reason I help people now. He’s the reason I do what I do. Seeing someone descend into that kind of dangerous lifestyle, without thought to the consequences, without accepting help from anyone, it leaves you with a mark you can’t get rid of. Tattoos are the reason he’s dead but it all added up. The drugs, the bad decisions, the unsafe lifestyle. All I asked from you was a little more time for my clients.”
“But you’re not asking,” she throws at me. “You’re demanding it. You’re helping them but you’re also trying to fix them and I’ve told you before, we can’t be fixed. We’re always going to be damaged. You can’t give back what we lost and we’re not asking you to so stop. You have to stop.”
This time I do touch her, the soft skin of her arms as I hold her still, force her to look at me. “You can have so much more,” I tell her. “You can work on your confidence, stop wearing these jeans and swim and enjoy the beach again. You swear and act outrageously to draw attention away from your leg but you don’t have to. Own it and stop letting it hold you back.”
She leans back against the bed until I’m forced to let go of her and take a step back. Her eyes fill with tears and her sob rips my heart in two. Her words do more. “Is that what you think of me? That I’m hiding because of my leg?”
“You chose me to have sex with because I’m used to it. You said the words, Jen, what else was I supposed to believe?”
“I chose you because I wasn’t sure it all worked the same. I was worried that some positions would be different. I was worried about a guy freaking out about my stump but not because I’m ashamed of the stump. I don’t give two fucks what people think about how I look, that should be obvious to you.”
“Then what is it? What are you hiding from?”
“People like you. Pious arseholes who think being under the influence makes you a terrible person. People who think tattooed women must be prostitutes. You want to know where my shame comes from, Ben? What holds me back? It’s the fact I was drink driving when I lost my leg. Every single person who sees my prosthesis asks me how it happened. Maybe not right away, but they get there eventually. Almost everyone gives me the look you did when I told you. That I’m an idiot. That it was my fault. I know that.” She lifts the leg of jeans and swears. “Here’s the bloody proof of how stupid I was but I don’t want to spend my life justifying my actions to people like you who are so black and white, straight and narrow, that you’d never understand a poor decision doesn’t define you. It doesn’t make you less of a person. Neither do tattoos. Or piercings. They’re a decision, just the same as the ones you make. You talk about holding back but have you ever let go? Really let go? Get a fucking tattoo, Ben. Do something reckless and fucking enjoy it instead of holding back until it hurts.”
She has more passion in her little finger than I do in my entire body. But she’s wrong about me. Control is what I need. Order is my life. Without it, there’s nothing stopping me from descending into the same sort of chaos that cost Ian his life. “If you’d have died in that accident, your sisters would never drink again. Don’t ask me to do something that cost my brother his life.”
Her palm cups my cheek. “You lost someone. I lost something. Our lives don’t have to be defined by those events, no matter how hard or traumatic they were. You’re allowed to move on, Ben. You’re allowed to live and be a little reckless, it doesn’t make you him.”
With every word, I feel like she’s trying to open me up. Expose my broken pieces.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Jen
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he tells me. “You’re still so young and idealistic. I’ve built a life I can be proud of. I haven’t missed out on anything. I have no regrets. I’m exactly where I want to be.”
With every proclamation that he’s happy with his life, I die a little inside because I can’t believe his words. I can’t believe he believes them. “Then there’s nothing left to say. I still want to take risks, calculated risks. I am young. I don’t even know yet where I want to be. Maybe it’s right here, maybe it isn’t. I don’t want to put myself in a box and never step out of it, Ben. That’s not my idea of living.”
His defences are up when he says, “You can’t tell me you’re truly living now either. You love the water. You’re a swimmer and yet you don’t. I bet the water calls to you, doesn’t it. That’s why you watch the surfers. Not because you want to be out on the waves, but because you’ve landlocked yourself and you’re convinced it’s because you don’t want to answer the hard questions but I know you well enough to know if you didn’t want to tell people your story, you’d just tell them to fuck off and be done with it.” He’s out of breath by the time he’s finished hurling dirt at me.
“I am not ashamed of my leg,” I tell him again.
“And I don’t believe you,” he responds, his arms crossed over his chest.
“I don’t give a fuck what you believe.”
“And there it is again. Deflecting with salty language. This is what you do, Jen. What, you don’t like hearing it? Did I hit on something?”
Now we’re just going around in circles and it’s getting us nowhere. I want to show him he’s wrong about me so he might see I’m right about him. Appearances to him are everything. Meeting the expectations of others drives him, not his precious self-control or achieving success. His mother made me see that about Ben and I hadn’t before.
“Follow me,” I say, pushing past him to the door and wrenching it open. I storm past Jo and Ash who must have arrived in the time I’ve been wasting arguing with
Ben. There’s a question on Ash’s face and worry on Jo’s. I don’t look back. I’m determined now. Jack’s security guy opens the front door for me before I even get there and Jack is wearing Jo’s identical expression as I stomp past her too.
I’m going to show him he’s wrong about me. I’ll also to prove to myself that I’m not scared of what people think about me. I don’t care. I’m so sick and tired of playing everything safe, letting my sisters treat me like an invalid. I was wild and reckless. I did lose something. But I learned my lesson. I’m not the same person I was and I need to stop trying to get her back, to be her again.
There’s a few people on the sidewalk as I cross the street to the ocean. “You might as well come watch too,” I call to them as I pass. I hit the sand but I don’t slow down. I toe off my shoes which is bloody hard but I’ve got it down to an art. There’s heat under my sole and for a second I miss planting both my feet in the hot sand, feeling it spread between my toes.
I stop and turn to find Ben right behind me, his arms crossed over his chest and his frown almost expectant, like he’s waiting for me to do something he’s not going to like.
“I can’t change anything about the past,” I tell him, my hands going to my jeans where I undo the button and slide the zip down. I push the denim from my hips, over my knees, over my good foot and then I unhook it from my prosthetic. Balancing is hard but if I fall now, I achieve nothing. “I can’t do anything about my leg.” I pop the foot off and remove the sock, dropping them on top of my jeans. “But I can control my future. My life. I honestly don’t care what people think of me, Ben, and you shouldn’t either. You can’t change the past. You can’t save your brother and you can’t fix me. But you can decide not to care what people think of you. Not to live up to everyone else’s expectations, and never really live for fear of falling or failing. I won’t do it anymore and neither should you.”
I hop towards the water and I’m fully aware I have an audience. Jack calls out, “Jen, what the fuck are you doing? He’s not worth it.”
Jo backs her up with, “Jen, you’re going to get hurt!”
I turn in a circle and the cold water caresses the back of my foot as a small wave rolls across the sand. I face my sisters and try as I might, I can’t control my frustration, my tone or my volume. “What’s going to hurt me?” I yell at Jo. “I’m a good swimmer. You stand in the same water and don’t get hurt. What’s it going to do to me that it won’t do to you?” I hop backwards and reach down to flick some water with my hands. “See? Harmless! I am not breakable and you have to stop treating me like I am.”
Jack follows me down to the waterline. “We’re just worried about you, okay. We’re allowed to be.”
“But this isn’t about you, Jack. Where were you when all this happened, huh? Not in the car. Not with us.” I lift my bad leg in her direction. “It happened and I’m dealing with it but we all have to let it go. This entire year we’ve stopped living and I’ve fucking had enough.” I tilt to look past her to Ben. “What’s it going to be, Ben? You called me out and you were right, the water calls to me, but it calls to you too doesn’t it. You can’t control the tides or the waves or currents.” I turn and hold my arms out, hop a few more paces in. I’m facing the horizon and there’s nothing in front of me but sea and freedom. Over my shoulder I say, “I think you love the chaos of the ocean and I think you love my chaos too, just a little bit.”
“You’re completely crazy,” he calls to me, but he comes closer, doesn’t back away. “You’re wearing underwear for god’s sake. This is a public beach.”
I ignore him. I ignore the fact my bum cheeks are on display and everyone can see my stump, my scars, me. I can’t describe what I feel as I dive beneath the surface of a wave. I don’t go deep. I know the beach, I know the ocean. I just don’t know my own limitations anymore. When I surface, I can hear their voices behind me. I can hear splashing too but it could be me. Something inside me shifts and settles, like it was knocked loose and being in the water slides it back into place. So corny, but it’s like coming home. I miss this. I go to dive again but hands close about my hips and hold me tight.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Ben
She’s still doing it. Taking her metaphorical knife and gutting me, slashing across my middle and exposing everything I’ve pushed down over the years. Every opportunity I’ve said no to. Every adventure I’ve shied away from. Everything I’ve done to prove to myself I’m not like my brother. Every time I said yes to my parents to avoid seeing the look of disappointment that was always reserved for Ian.
I don’t like being raw. Being vulnerable. I never wanted her to know me like this. It’s why I broke it off with my last girlfriend. It’s why I picked up sticks and moved again. I only came home because my parents were pressuring me, saying they missed me, and wanted me to check in. I moved out of their house because I couldn’t bear the pressure, the tension, the scrutiny. It didn’t matter that Ian and I were like chalk and cheese, it’s like they were waiting for me to make his mistakes, waiting to lose me too. I got it then. I get it now. But I have been playing it safe and there’s something about Jen that makes me want to be a little reckless. But I can’t.
“You’re completely crazy,” I tell her from the safety of the sand.
People are watching. She’s making a scene and on the strip, people talk. They gossip and whisper and talk. I kick off my shoes, rip off my shirt, empty my pockets, and follow her into the water. I tell myself it’s just to bring her back in. Take this conversation somewhere more private.
I’m about to lose her beneath another wave but instead, I reach out and grab her, hold her, pull her back against my front and just hold her.
I don’t want to lose her. When I’m with her, I can be a version of me I don’t hate. “I do care what people think, Jen. I do. I can’t help that. What do you want from me?”
She goes slack against me. Rests her wet head against my shoulder. “I want you to let some of it go. You hold on too tight, Ben. We had fun, or at least I did. I want to keep having fun with you but not if we’re going to keep doing it in circles like this. Not if you can’t accept me like this.”
I force a chuckle. “I can definitely accept you in your underwear.”
She turns to face me and as another wave knocks us, she steadies herself with hands on my shoulders. “You know what I mean. I’m loud. I swear. Too much sometimes, I admit that, but this is me. Right now I don’t want to change anything, not my face, not my body, not my leg. I’m okay with this, all of it. I have zero shame but also give zero fucks and I’m just not sure you can live the way I do. I don’t think you can accept me like this without wondering and worrying how other people see me.”
She claps a hand over her mouth but I hear the swear before she says, “That’s why you took me to a dark dinner isn’t it? So no one would see you with me? Then we went to a deserted car park to… Oh my god. You don’t want to be seen with me. I am such an idiot. Oh my God.”
She pushes me away but I hold on. “You’re wrong, Jen. Don’t do that. I took you to the dark dinner because I wanted the excuse to touch you but I was trying my hardest not to. The carpark was because I was going to crash the car with the need to be in you. It was your idea to go to a private swimming pool. Your idea to stay in at your apartment rather than go out. I am not embarrassed to be seen with you. I never was and I never will be.”
“Really?” she asks, her voice small and unsure. As much as she talks a good game about her confidence, it sure doesn’t take much to rock it.
“I like you. I know I shouldn’t. We are definitely from different worlds. We’re not close in age. We’ve got nothing in common as far as I can tell. But I do like you and I do want to explore this thing with you.”
“Even if I keep tattooing your clients?”
For fuck’s sake. “Yes. I’ll ask them to get a new driver. I won’t come to appointments anymore.”
“Even if I swear too much and wear jeans
when it’s hot out?”
I lean my head down and press my lips to hers. She sighs and kisses me back but then she pulls away again and says, “What about your parents?”
I press my pelvis to hers and say, “Not thinking about my parents right now, Jen.”
She wraps her legs around me and only one heel digs into my back. “You can’t pretend it won’t be a problem.”
“We’re going to have plenty of problems but if we’re in an adult relationship, then we’re going to behave like adults. We’ll talk. We won’t run away when things get hard and if they do get too hard, we shake hands and walk away. Deal?”
“Do we always have to behave like adults? Because that sounds kind of boring.”
“What did you have in mind?” I ask, because she’s flirting now and we’re good. We’re going to be good.
“I was thinking about closed doors. Or rather, what happens behind them.” She nibbles my ear and whispers, “What about when I’m naughty.”
My blood rushes south and I am beyond grateful my lower half is submerged. I wish we didn’t have an audience though. I’d probably pull her g-string aside and… “Jesus, Jen. If you ever want to make it out of here, you better not keep that up.”
“Spank me later?” she says?
I squeeze the twin globes of her arse and grind my erection into her. I don’t want to hold back right now. “Later,” I promise.
She laughs and then wriggles free of my grip. “Right now, I’m going to swim.”
“In your underwear?”
She shrugs and her eyebrows lift up and down. She’s cheeky. “In for a penny, might as well be in for a pound!”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Meet Jack
“But this isn’t about you, Jack. Where were you when all this happened, huh? Not in the car. Not with us.”
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