Tab Bennett and the Inbetween

by Jes Young

“I can cheer you up.”

  “Maybe I want to be sad.”

  “You have a right to be,” he said, suddenly solemn. “You’ve lost a great deal in the last few days. I don’t blame you for wanting to lock yourself away for a while.”

  “So far you’re the only person I know who hasn’t actively lied to me,” I admitted reluctantly. I wanted to trust someone. I need just one true thing to believe in. I decided to put my faith in Alex.

  “I’m not going to lie to you. I’ll keep this key in my pocket. I promise I won’t use it or give it to Bennett.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Of course,” he said with a wink. “Your pleasure is mine.”

  He walked down off the porch and disappeared into the darkness.

  ********

  That night, I had a dream that Rivers and I were walking in the deep forest. I wasn’t afraid. She was like a beam of sunlight in the darkness, glowing, leading me by the hand the way she did when we were little. She pointed out rocks that might trip me and held back branches that would otherwise have tangled in my long, dark hair.

  “I always protected you,” she said, looking back at me, her eyes big and black. “But you didn’t protect me.”

  “I didn’t know how.”

  With a shrug, she continued leading me deeper and deeper into the woods. And the further we went, the less careful she became about the rocks and the branches. I stumbled and the trees lashed out and pulled at my hair and cheeks. She didn’t seem to care.

  “Maybe we should go back?”

  “We can only go forward from here.” Her hand was very cold in mine. Icy. “Don’t worry,” she whispered, “I’ll protect you from the monsters in this forest. Even though you didn’t protect me.”

  Rivers wasn’t glowing with sunshine colored light anymore. She was pale as the moon. She was growing dimmer by the second.

  “I want to go home.”

  “I’m never going home,” she said.

  The trees blocked out the sky. The branches twisted together above us, seeking something that would always be out of their reach. There were birds perched on the limbs. Shiny black birds that called to each other with human voices.

  home, never going home

  “Hush, you silly birds,” she said. “You’ll frighten the Queen.”

  frighten the queen, frighten the queen. Their call echoed from bird to bird and branch to branch.

  “The starlings like you,” she said, looking up into the sea of glossy red eyes above us. “They don’t want the monsters to get you.”

  They didn’t look friendly. Rivers didn’t look friendly either.

  “Will you let the monsters to get me?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “You let them get me.”

  frighten the queen, frighten the queen

  “I didn’t know about them. I would have protected you if I knew.”

  never going home

  “That’s no excuse,” she said. “I’m still dead.”

  “I’m sorry,” I cried, “I’m so sorry.”

  She started backing away from me slowly. She spoke in a whisper that grew louder and louder which each word. “There are monsters in these woods. Some of They eat princesses for supper but most of They prefer to make them suffer.”

  The birds took to the sky, flying around us, feathers brushing against my cheek and throat and hands.

  suffer, make them suffer

  “I’m not a princess,” she whispered, “so what do you think they did to me?”

  suffer

  never coming home

  “I’m sorry, Rivers. I’m so sorry.”

  The starlings twisted around her, swirling as one, a mass of black wings and ruby eyes.

  “Make them suffer,” she said. Her eyes were like the starlings’, glossy and glassy and empty, the deep color of bad blood. The birds drew close around her and then shot off – like a hundred thousand feathered arrows – into the sky.

  I woke up on the sofa, alone and scared with tears streaming down my face.

  ********

  I’d been sequestered in my cottage for four days when Robbin unlocked the door and let himself in. I’d forgotten he had a key.

  I didn’t hear the door open but I knew without looking that he was standing there behind me. He cleared his throat, gently alerting me of his presence.

  “I let myself in.”

  “I see that.”

  He seemed strangely relaxed considering the tension between us the last time we’d seen each other. I didn’t know how bad my hair looked or if I’d put on deodorant that morning. I wasn’t sure what he wanted. I couldn’t decide if I was happy he was there or not.

  “So what’s up with you?” he asked, leaning back against the counter.

  I shrugged. “Nothing much.” I could be casual too, if I wanted.

  “Then what’s with the lockdown, babe?”

  “It’s not your job to care,” I said.

  The narrow kitchen suddenly felt claustrophobic. I couldn’t stand to be so close to him; I brushed past and headed for the slightly larger perimeter of personal space available in the living room. He followed right behind with no respect for my boundary issues.

  “Is this about Matthew? He’s is an idiot. He’s blaming you because it’s easier to make you the bad guy than to look at where he – we – failed. He knows your sisters didn’t die so you could live. You don’t have to feel guilty for being alive.”

  But I did. Who wouldn’t? I didn’t want to discuss it with him though.

  “Is there anything else before you go?” I asked.

  He stood there for a minute, just looking at me. Something I couldn’t place, maybe sadness, maybe not, flittered across his face and then disappeared. The smile that replaced it was big and bright and fake. “Everyone is furious at Matthew. Bennett is seriously considering giving him to the trolls.” When I didn’t laugh or even smile, he continued. “The point is that he’s in a lot of trouble for the way he acted. They all wanted you to know that. He’s sorry too. He didn’t mean any of that stuff he said.”

  “Yes he did. Maybe he’s sorry he said it, but he meant it.” Of that I had no doubt. The look on his face that afternoon was one of relief—not regret.

  “He’s sorry. We’re all sorry.”

  “Apology accepted.” We stood looking at each other for a minute. Not sure of what to do. “Is there something else I can do for you?”

  “Somehow I wasn’t expecting this to be such a mess.” He gestured between us with the same hand he’d used to illustrate the end of our relationship. “That’s stupid, right? How could this be anything but a mess? I told Bennett he shouldn’t send me.”

  He hadn’t come because he was worried about me. He was following orders. I swallowed back the stab of pain that caused me. “I’ll tell him you did your best. Do you need me to sign your time card or anything?”

  He looked like he was planning to say something else but apparently he thought better of it because he mumbled, “Take care,” and turned to the door.

  “Wait, I want my key back.” I think the request surprised him but he reached for it without hesitation. I watched his eyes sweep the room as he worked it slowly off his key ring and set it on the table near the door. I could tell the moment he noticed the empty spaces where the pictures of us together used to hang.

  “Why’d you take them down?” He picked up a silver picture frame that was laying face down on the table. It was a picture Rivers took on the day Robbin and I got engaged. In it I am smiling and holding up my ring for the camera; he is looking at me with the most amazing expression on his face. We both look deliriously happy.

  “I didn’t want to look at them.”

  He dropped his head into his hands, looking down at the floor. I felt bad immediately. I didn’t want to hurt Robbin; he was the last person in the world I would ever want to hurt. I had to fight the urge to rub my hands against the peach fuzz of his hair, to give and take comfort from the familiar gesture. I
put my hands into the pockets of my hoodie so I wouldn’t.

  “What do you want me to do?” he asked.

  Run away with me. Fight with me. Die with me, if it comes to that.

  But I just shrugged. “I don’t know. Nothing I guess.”

  There wasn’t any noise. I wished for anything, a ticking clock, the whistle of the teakettle, anything to break the silence, to make the moment seem normal. I hated the way the air seemed so heavy. I hated the broken angle of Robbin’s shoulders. I hated the sound of my voice, so full of bitterness.

  “When I saw him on the porch….” Robbin said. He shook his head, as if the memory was too painful and he was trying to force it too loosen its grip. I saw his shoulders twitch and knew that it wouldn’t.

  “I always knew he’d come for you eventually and that when he did I would have to give you up. I’ve been looking over my shoulder since the first time we kissed. I knew you weren’t mine, not really. But I thought I was okay with it. That’s stupid right? It is – it’s stupid.

  “I shouldn’t have come to the World with you in the first place. But he was worried about you and I knew I could keep you safe for him. We were as close as brothers, Alexander and me, and I owed him. I owed him big. This was me doing him a favor. At first, I told myself that I was only doing what he asked me to do, helping him, protecting you by being close to you. Then after awhile, I just tried not to think about him. And you know what? I almost never did. That’s why when I saw him there on the porch it took everything I had not to throw you in the truck and run with you. If I had thought we had even a small chance, like one in a million even, to get through the gates and out of here, I would have tried. How stupid is that?

  “When you …” He stopped and looked at me, his anger as clear and bright as the sun. “It was hard to see you react like that to meeting him. I’ve spent the last ten years of my life wanting to hold you that way and you had your legs wrapped around him within minutes. You know what I was doing while you were making out with him? I was wishing I could trade places with him, so I could kiss you like that; touch you like that; like it was my right. And then the other night I came here with your ring and you were all disheveled and unbuttoned and I knew that you’d been in here with him…”

  He took a shaky breath before continuing, “Alexander will make you happy. He’s very brave and very loyal; he’ll take care of you and give you the life you were meant to have. You’ll be good together after a while and you won’t even think of me.”

  I raised my hand to surrender, wordlessly asking him to stop. I didn’t think I could listen to another word without falling apart. He had every right to be angry with me. I deserved it. But I couldn’t bear it.

  “Yeah, okay. I guess we’ve both had enough,” he said, setting his key on the coffee table. “I’ll tell Bennett we broke up. That’ll cheer him up, right?” I nodded, wiping the tears from my eyes as I did. “You’re not crying, are you?” I shook my head and said no even though it was clear that I was, in fact, crying.

  In a second he was there, pulling me into his arms, holding me close.

  “Please don’t cry,” he said. “You know I hate it when you cry.”

  I looked up into his chocolate brown eyes and my heart skipped a beat. The electricity between us was entirely natural, nothing magical about it. It sparked and crackled between us. My heart started pounding in my chest when he leaned over and brushed his lips against mine. He drew in a sharp breath of air and then he did it again.

  “I want to show you something,” I said as I reached for the zipper of my hoodie.

  “Don’t,” he said quickly, his eyes darting from the window to the door.

  “It’s ok,” I replied. I lowered the zipper to show him my engagement ring, the ring he’d given me, laying against the swell of my breasts. “I couldn’t bring myself to take it off.”

  He reached out to touch me but then lowered his hand, shaking his head.

  “I can’t.” But this time I understood why he hesitated and that made me brave. I took his hand, kissed the palm, and placed in on my breast. He closed his eyes and sat absolutely still.

  “Look at me,” I said. The look in his eyes when he opened them was wild, full of pain and desire. The brown and gold and flecks of green of his iris turned together at a dizzying speed. “If you’re still mine, then show me that you are,” I whispered.

  He looked so beautiful and so confused; I could almost hear him deciding between his obligation and his need. He hesitated for just for a split second before he crushed his mouth down on mine. He kissed me hard and hot and long. He kissed me and kissed me and kissed me. He unzipped my hoodie and slid it off my shoulders. He pulled my yoga pants off with one tug. I lifted his shirt over his head and let my hands discover him slowly, caressing him and kissing him where ever I could reach. His skin was so hot, the muscle beneath it so smooth and strong. I felt him getting hard where his body pressed into mine. I wrapped my legs around him, pushing myself against him, sending a spark of something desperate through me. His fingers toyed with the waistband of my panties, still deciding.

  I decided for him, sliding my hand between us, popping the button of his jeans so I could touch him, skin to skin.

  “You’re killing me,” he said when my fingers closed around him, as my hand moved slowly over the hard length of him. He sounded like he didn’t really mind.

  His finger had just slipped inside my panties when he froze on top of me. “I can’t do this.” By the time I was fully aware of what was happening, he was on his feet, pulling his shirt on. “If I don’t leave right now I won’t be able to leave.” He looked down at me with a strange expression on his face. “I’ll wait outside until you get someone else to come down here. Ask them to hurry.”

  For a second I was too stunned and mortified to move. Too angry. Then I called George. In spite of being lightly stunned I knew he was my best bet as far as replacements were concerned. He answered his cell phone on the 10,000th ring. I could hear a woman giggling in the background.

  “This had better be important,” he said.

  “I need you to come over here right now. Please. Please come here right now.”

  “Are you in trouble?” he asked, suddenly on red alert.

  “Robbin is here and we practically virtually almost just had sex. Now he’s out on the front porch and he won’t leave until someone else comes here to take his shift. I can’t call Francis.”

  “Obviously not,” George said.

  “And Matthew hates me.”

  “And calling Alexander will most likely end in bloodshed,” he concluded helpfully.

  “So you see my predicament?”

  “You are a full time job, Princess,” he said through a sigh. “All right—I’ll come. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Tell lover boy to sit tight.”

  It wasn’t even that long before I heard him in the driveway. I watched from the window as he kissed the expensive looking blond who’d driven him home and bounded up onto the porch. Robbin was sitting in a rocking chair with a look of genuine misery on his face.

  “Turnbough, Turnbough, Turnbough; what are we going to do with you?” The ‘tsk tsk tsk’ was implied, not stated.

  “I’m not in the mood,” Robbin warned.

  “That’s not what I heard.”

  I instantly regretted telling George the truth about what had happened.

  “Seriously Waverly, don’t start.”

  “Don’t start? You’re so lucky it’s me standing here ‘starting’ with you and not Francis. Or Alexander. Under the circumstances I doubt you could take the beating either of them would’ve been only too happy to give you.”

  “Yeah? Well even under the circumstances I can still kick your ass.”

  “Why don’t you limp over here and give it a try?”

  Robbin groaned as he slowly got to his feet. “I’m gonna pass if it’s all the same to you, brother.”

  George chuckled. “It’s pretty bad, huh?”


  “I’ve taken worse,” Robbin replied seriously. “And it was worth it.”

  “Get out of here before I am honor bound to kick your ass,” George said. “And don’t forget Court in the morning.”

  Robbin sort of hobbled down the stairs and over to his truck, like an old man with very bad arthritis.

  “Good luck getting in,” George called out.

  “Go to hell,” Robbin replied amicably.

  I watched from the window as he climbed up into the cab of the truck. Even from across the yard it looked like it hurt worse than a stick in the eye.