“Don’t make your life harder. I’ll just walk home.”
“Walk home? You’re crazy, it’s freezing out there. And baby, getting to see you doesn’t make my life harder, just other parts.” I press my head to the lapel of his winter coat, gripping it in each of my fists and close my eyes as he strokes the back of my arms from the elbow just up to my arm pits and back down, dropping his lips to my forehead through the wisp of messy bangs. I spell Mississippi three times in long format—Mississ-ipp-i—in my head before he lifts his lips and I open my eyes again. Distracting myself with Mississippi is better than letting him go, which is what I do because it’s what he does. “Dinninger—I.” He stops himself, shaking his head. “I’ll see you at four.”
He leaves me standing there watching him walk away, his retreating form slowing the farther down the hall and away from me he gets, until he rounds the corner and I can’t see him anymore.
The room is at capacity when I slip inside. Exactly why I pick a seat so close to the door. A couple of the Hilaries and Kelsies are upward inflecting about something they saw on YouTube over the weekend. Honest to goodness, it doesn’t even register for me what they’re talking about until her voice gets low, which, of course, perks my attention.
“Well, you couldn’t see her face but she was blonde and fat?” The Kelsey gasps, as if she’d said, “she was a corpse,” or “she was a child.” And after he just tried to convince me of how “beautiful” I am? It has me strongly questioning his judgment. Wasn’t it Groucho Marx who said he’d never join a club that would have him as a member? What’s wrong with Ben that would make him want to be with me? Is it something I didn’t see before? Because clearly if being fat can be lumped in with necrophilia, he’s missing a couple screws. “People say he’s researching for a novel he’s writing?” The first Hilary keeps going. “He’s totally method?”
“I don’t know?” the Kelsey adds. “Supposedly they looked pretty comfortable? Like they were really into it?”
“Trust me?” the first Hilary says back to her. “Benton and I used to go out? He does not like the fatties?” I jump, accidentally knocking my backpack off my desk. The thud as the book laden bag hits the floor draws both Hilary and Kelsey’s attention. I bend down to pick it up, avoiding eye contact at all costs, pretending I hadn’t been eavesdropping.
This is not happening. This is not happening. This is totally happening. I grab at my pocket for the phantom pill bottle, once again wishing I could remember the exact weight and feel of the ridges skimming over my fingers and catching at my fingernails. But no matter how hard I try, the memory pulled forward is vague, a shadow of what used to be. I’m on the brink, right now I’m brinking. As I try to push away the budding panic, I replace it with the only other emotion accessible. And it’s anger. I don’t get angry, but the further back I push the panic, the more worked up I get. Like violently worked up. I’ve never had the urge to physically hurt someone else before, but Hilary, I want nothing more than to yank every strand of her French braided hair from her pretty, petite head.
In the middle of my almost panic attack turned vicious internal tirade, pulling out my ritual in the middle of sociology 280, I faintly hear the Hilary ask me a question. A real question. “I said, you’re a writer, right?” she asks again. This time I hear her perfectly.
“Yes.” Long breath in. Longer breath out.
“Do you know Benton Hayes?”
“Um, yeah. We’re…friends.”
“Is he writing a novel?” The Kelsey turns to ask, leaning forward in her seat as if the fate of humanity rests in my answer.
“No. Not yet.”
“Because he’s doing research? I think I’ll call him tonight and ask? Maybe I could help him with research of a different kind?” All the girls around me break into a fit of giggles and pretend swooning. It’s annoying, but not nearly as much as knowing I have to spend the rest of the semester sitting next to a chick who screwed my boyfriend.
The last thing anyone would say about me is that I’m confrontational. But those fissures opened earlier by Kelly and Cricket, they crack wide open and I lose it. She can’t talk about him, about me, about us like we’re, I don’t know, sparrows or something. We aren’t. We’re penguins. Or, at least we’re closer to penguins than sparrows. We have to be, or what are we doing together?
“Maybe,” I start in, having no idea where or how far I’ll let my anger lead. “Maybe he actually likes this girl. Maybe he likes a real woman with real curves. Maybe she’s stimulating. Maybe he’s tired of girls who always speak like they’re asking a question? Maybe there’s a million and fifty reasons why she gets to call him Ben and you’re still calling him Benton.” That does it. I watch the wheels spinning. I watch their stunned faces as the answer that has been sitting next to them since the start of the semester clicks in. Oh. My. God. The Kelsey mouths with the Hilary close on her heels. You? She mouths again. And I raise my eyebrows defiantly.
“There is no way?” Hilary demands. “His standards couldn’t have fallen that much? He just needs a reminder that he can get what he wants without extra padding?” She thought she had me there. On any normal day, she would have. Today is no normal day.
“Sorry, honey, what he wants comes with extra padding.”
“Don’t go thinking you’re special just because he’s using you as a dick holder?”
“Well.” I rip out my phone from my pocket firing off a fake text. “Being a dick holder has its perks.” My phone may or may not have tipped, revealing Ben’s name across the screen from an earlier text. “He’s leaving class now. What are you doing with the rest of your morning?”
That’s it. The little bit of spunk I had managed to call up for our altercation, spent. And if she sees, I’ll be her bitch for the rest of the semester. I sling my backpack over my shoulder, tucking my purse and coat under my arm. My body may quiver like gelatin on the inside, but damn if I don’t keep up the last vestiges of confidence on the outside, at least until the door claps shut behind me. Then I run. I run. And hide. In the very last stall of the women’s restroom, giving in to the panic. I won’t call Kelly. Sabrina, I shoot a text. But she won’t be up yet.
I’m not stupid, despite what my mother thinks of me. I know who I should call, but he already came running playing hero. Once per morning is enough, I can’t ask him to do it again in such a short space of time. Hilary wouldn’t be so needy. As the panic starts to ease back, I’m left with an uncomfortable clarity. And I know Ben deserves better. He needs me to make this call.
Collin picks up right away and there’s no point in niceties. Because he won’t like me much when we’re done. “You need to talk him out of seeing me. I don’t have it in me to do it myself.”
“What? Why?”
I hiccup from the crying. I actually hiccup in his ear. “Because I’m selfish,” I tell him, and the crying starts all over again.
“No. Why would I talk him out of seeing you?”
“Because Hilary wouldn’t be as needy.”
“Where are you?”
“Social science building.”
“Don’t. Just don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right over. Meet me at the couches.”
Chapter 22
Elle
He does. True to his word, Collin finds me sitting on the floor next to the couches in the central common area with my face buried against my skinny jeans so the passersby won’t recognize me. From the YouTube video. And for being the world’s worst girlfriend.
“What the hell is going on?” Collin’s manly form falls onto the gray vinyl sofa, and there’s a part of me which can’t help being comforted that he would drag his butt out of bed so early for me. He pulls me up onto his lap, shushing me and petting my hair and letting his shirt cuff scrape delicately along my spine. Calming. Comforting. And just distracting enough. When I snuggle further down against his lap, he continues. “When Ben tore out of the apartment this morning, I thought someone had died. He wouldn’t let me come. But
when he called afterward, I thought things were good.”
His hand keeps moving in those lighter than light touches so fatherly or brotherly I don’t want to ruin the moment by speaking. When I was a little girl, my dad used to hold me like he holds me now. And he lets me get it all out of my system just like my dad used to before he ever nudges me to answer him. If someone would’ve told me two years ago that I’d be a mess of crying angst leaning against Collin Pratt’s wall of determined friendship, I’d have asked them how long they’d been off their meds. Just like Ben, he’s beautiful and talented, a force of nature. But also like Ben, he’s so much more than that, especially to me. Everything about him makes him someone people want to know. And here he is, being my friend.
“Elle?” he prods.
“I know.” Ritual. “But first, I—thank you for coming.” Then I stall a little more, blowing my nose in a napkin I pulled from my backpack.
“I’ll always come, you know that. But knowing you’re about ready to break his heart, I had no choice. Hasn’t he been good to you?”
“Of course! That’s why.”
“I don’t get it, then. You need to give me something to work with here.”
“Look at me Col, I’m a mess. My head is a mess. You should have heard them in class, heard her. The way she talked about me before she knew. People think I’m research for a book.”
“Does it really matter?” he asks. “What people think?”
Yes it matters. Anyone who says they don’t care what other people think of them is straight up lying. What degree we care varies, but everyone cares. It’s human nature to care. The freshman hiding in the corner of the common area listening to Collin and me, she cares. That’s why she’s hiding. Staying under the radar. I remember those days, and they weren’t that long ago. The chick in the tight skirt barely covering her ass, with her tongue down some dude’s throat in a very PDA sesh, she cares too. Hell, the guy she’s PDAing with definitely cares. That’s how reps are built, right? Being seen with the right people. I tell Collin as much.
“He’s been popular with the ladies. It is what it is.”
“That’s not—you still aren’t getting it. You should see Hilary. What the hell is he doing with me when he had an ex like—?”
“I don’t remember a Hilary. She wasn’t that chick from the coffee shop?”
“No. She’s beautiful and speaks with an upward inflection,” I tell him, but he shrugs as if he has no idea who I’m referring to. “That was Emily. I’m talking about Hilary, his ex-girlfriend.”
“Is that what she told you? Because I’m here to set you straight. They might have gone out once, maybe even twice, but she was never his girlfriend no matter how she tried to package herself. And if you stopped to think about it, you’d know I’m right. We’ve all been friends too long, don’t you think?”
Hmm.
“Ben stopped doing the girlfriend thing probably eleventh grade. Just made things easier for him, well, until now.”
“So he didn’t tell you about her, but he told you about me?”
“God, I love you. But for a smart girl, sometimes you can be so thickheaded. She was a date. You’re ‘the one.’” Collin actually uses air quotes to stress ‘the one.’ “With all the women he’s had, you’re his first. So quit being difficult. Keep being the friend he fell for, just with kissing.”
“But when do I get to be the girl that has people saying, ‘wow, Ben sure is lucky to have her’?”
“Wow, Ben sure is lucky to have you.”
“Ha, ha.”
“I’m done with the nonsense. No more freak outs, got me? Ben is my best friend. He saved my life. You make him happy. Happier than I’ve seen in years, but I’m not above shutting the two of you down if I thought you were wrong for him. Thing is, you—I haven’t met anyone more right for him. So do us a favor and don’t give up on him so fast.”
“Okay, tell me, how do I get through the rest of the semester with her?”
“You get through by knowing she’s inconsequential. You get through with a smug smile on your face because she knows she was a fuck and you are the girlfriend.”
“I am the girlfriend,” I whisper.
“Now you know there wouldn’t be any issue if you had taken writing classes. Ben likes to keep his worlds separate. Until you. Who wants to stare at a booty call for fifteen weeks? Just another way you can be sure he doesn’t want you going anywhere.”
“Thank you.” I lace my arms around his neck, squeezing my hug so he knows how serious I am.
“Hey, you’re one of us, and we take care of us.”
“So what now?”
“We’ll come up with something. If it’s one thing us are good at, it’s somethings.”
Chapter 23
Ben
“This is becoming habit.” She’s waiting for me by the couches in the main common of the social science building. Her beautiful smile reaches me eons before her hug. A sweet hug on her part, a greedy one on mine. The kind where I pull her taut against my chest. The kind where I’m able to bury my nose against the peaches and cream skin of her neck. “I’m so sorry,” I say. She looks shocked or confused, so I clarify. “Collin texted me.”
“Oh, of course he did.”
“Are you angry?”
She shoves me, my shoulder. “Be serious. He’s your best friend. I guess…I guess I got a little rattled.” Her shoulders slump. She’s pulling away. Oh, Brontë, you are more than a little rattled. Dealing with more than just a run in with some old hookup. More than the confrontation with Kelly or the phone call from Cricket. There’s one part of me that wants to grab her by the arms and shake her, shake some sense into that brain of hers. Then there’s another part that wants to demand she knock off the bullshit and really let me in. I need her to tell me where all this stems from. Why is she still so guarded?
But I won’t do either of those, because either one would be like signing the death certificate on our relationship. What I do, do—wait. For her to be ready to tell me something. Anything. I don’t move and neither does she. Please, Brontë. Please do this. I will her to make a move to speak some truth for me to hold onto. Something to prove we’re going in the same direction. And I don’t know if it’s the willing or if it’s her, but she opens her mouth and real honesty flows.
“You know, this is going to scare you off.” Her voice trembles enough for the both of us this time. Maybe I don’t want the truth after all. When I search her face, the furthest I get is those eyes. Deep. Soulful. Guarded. It’s that damn light bulb moment. The one that screams I don’t give a fuck what she has to say. Whatever it is, we’ll deal, together.
And it’s clear she doesn’t expect me, holding her closer instead of pushing her away. We dance. Standing in the middle of the common, I press down against her hips to get her to move, swaying. Swaying without music. Her head moves to rest against my chest. Swaying.
“I’m kind of a lost cause,” she finally continues. I don’t think I’ve heard anything more heartbreaking. My heart is breaking. If I listen closely, I can hear the shattering of hearts all over campus, Michigan, North America—however far her voice travels. But she’s not finished with me yet. “I don’t take rejection well. I’m so afraid—” That’s it. No more. My lips come down on hers hard, harder than I mean them to. Pleading, searching, and bruising from corner to corner. She doesn’t push me away, gripping my shirt in her fist, every reaction bringing us closer together until there’s no telling where one of us ends and the other begins.
Not until a wind kicks up and the temperature in the room drops, so I know someone walked in, not even when students started filing out of class, no, the chilled wind is what finally breaks us. “I’m here, not rejecting you. I’ll never reject you. Please, if you trust anything, trust that. You…that is, I…oh god. Who would’ve thought I’d be so bad at expressing myself?” Her face sparkles from my humiliation. If humiliation is what it takes for her to believe me, then so be it. Finally I breat
he out, close my eyes, and say it. “You affect me, Dinninger.” That’s not how it was supposed to come out. “What I mean is, I affection you.”
Shit.
I hate emotions, and she’s gotten more of them out of me than anyone since, well, it seems like a lifetime now. I feel splayed open just waiting for scavengers to pick me clean. Or maybe I’m not waiting, maybe I’m inviting them.
“I affection you,” I say again. It needs to stop. She’s staring at me. Maybe I shouldn’t have picked those words. Maybe that little tidbit should’ve gone to my grave, but it’s out there now, floating in the space between us, because the words haven’t been absorbed yet. Because she’s still staring. Dumbfounded.
And then there are tears. Hers or mine. They shouldn’t be mine. But I realize they’re from the both of us, for the both of us. “I…I affection you too,” she whispers. She affections me too? Fuck, if hearing those words aren’t better than every Christmas and birthday I’ve ever had, lumped together. Funny, with all my writing skill, all I can muster up in response is, “Good.”
“Good,” she says back.
We lean our foreheads together. “Good,” I say again.
“You just said that.”
“Good.”
Chapter 24
Elle
High winds rock his Jeep, crazy rock it. We’re in a car not a cradle, and I grip his hand until my knuckles turn white. The polar vortex, making our drive home treacherous. Not that it deters Ben in any way, rubbing soft circles on the fleshy part of my hand with his thumb to calm my nerves. Every so often he glances at me and mouths good. It is good.
Even better when he stops off at The Brew and runs in. Watching him run from the cold, oddly, it’s Kelly I think about. I’m here now because of her betrayal. He’s here now because of her betrayal. Thank you forms on my lips. She’ll never hear those words in person. But they’re there. A private pact between us she’ll never know.
Other Side of Beautiful (A Beautifully Disturbed #1) Page 12