Authors: Monica Alexander
“I can’t do this, B
en,” I said, through my tears.
Ben reacted to my emotional state by trying to hu
g me
, but I pulled away.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t do this anymore.”
“What do you mean?” Ben ask
ed
, fear flooding his face
as
the
realization hit him
.
“I can’t be with you.
I can’t deal with you kissing some other girl and all the other crap on top of it.”
“What other crap?” Ben asked
in shock
. “What are you talking about?
Em, that kiss didn’t mean any
thing. Please, don’t do this.
I lo
ve you. Please don’t end this.
Please.”
Ben was begging.
I could tell breaking up
was the last thing he wanted or expected, but in that moment, I was
truly
done.
“I’m sorry, B
en,” I said, through my tears.
“I love you, but I just can’
t
do this
.
I’m done.”
That
time, I knew ex
actly what being ‘done’ meant. I was breaking up with Ben.
I watched hi
s face
crumble before I turned away.
I wanted to make a d
ramatic exit, but in order to leave I had to
find Rachel
, hoping she could take me home before she left to hang out with her new boyfriend
.
S
he was presumably sti
ll inside dealing with Ashleigh, so I shot her a text and
marched through the hous
e and out into the front yard.
As soon as I hit the porch, I heard footsteps behind me.
“Ben, don’t,” I said, not even t
urning around.
I didn’t want to look at him
.
I needed to get away from him.
“It’s
not Ben,” Chase said, startling me f
or the second time that night. He came around to face me. He didn’t look angry anymore.
He looked concerned.
Not knowing what I was doing, I threw my arms around my brother’s neck, star
t
ling him in the pro
cess
,
and started crying again.
Chase’s arms tentatively came up around my b
ack as he tried to comfort me.
He didn’t s
ay anything for a few minutes.
He just let me cry.
Then without questioning the
odd exchange that was so out of character for us, he just said, “Come on
, I’ll take you home
.”
Had I been more coherent in the moment, I probably would have noticed him take out his phone and text Rachel, and
I probably would have questioned
why her number was programmed in his phone, but I was so consumed by my own personal drama that it didn’t register with me until much later.
With a heavy heart,
I thought about Ben
as I held the top
I’d worn
the night before
, and looked out my bedroom window
in
the direction of
hi
s house
.
I felt
awful f
or hurting
him, but I knew breaking up
was the right thing to do.
A part of me regretted it
, as I realized I was
single
for the fir
st time since I was seventeen
, but an
other part of me was
kind of
relieved
.
I felt
so
b
ad about what he’d done to me.
How could he
seriously let Ashleigh
kiss him? Was he that stupid?
After I’d just
gone
off on him for
letting her flirt
with him
, what was
he doing even talking to her? He was an idiot.
I angrily
stuffed the soiled clothes in
to my suitcase, not wanting to think about them
, or the night before,
any longer.
“What are
you doing?” came a voice from the
doorway
, pulling
me
back to the present
.
I turned to see
Keely standing there
with her suitcase
, giving me an odd
look
.
“I’m
packing,” I
said, looking down
, so she couldn’t see my face
.
“I’m sorry
about Ben.
That sucks what he did, although props to you for being
so
kick-ass.”
I had to laugh, even though I wasn’t feeling very kick-ass
at the
moment
with a swollen right hand and bruises on my arms from wher
e Chase had
held onto me,
I liked hearing her refer to me as kick-a
ss.
It was a bright spot on a really shitty morning.
“Keels, I feel really bad
,” I said, looking up at her.
She was flipping through the latest issue of
Rolling Stone
th
at Rachel had left on my
dresser
when she’d come over the day before
.
“You should
,” she said
matter-of-factly.
“It was
stupid to break up with Ben.
He’s
like the best guy,
so effing hot
, and you guys have been together forever
. Y
ou know he didn’t really do anything wrong
.
Ashleigh totally surprise-
attacked him. Barrett and Lauren saw the whole thing, and h
e was in pretty bad shape after you left.
”
My stomach dropped. Poor Ben.
I’d really hurt him.
“He’s just going to sleep with her now that he’s not with you,” Keely said, turning my stomach at the idea of Ben and Ashleigh
together
.
“
Shut up, Keely
,” I said, irritated
that
she’d even say that.
“I need to
call him.
”
The urge hit me out of the blue. I was su
d
denly
searching for my phone.
I needed to be sure he was
okay
.
Maybe he was.
Maybe after getting a good night’s sleep, he’d realized breaking up was for the best.
“You don’t have to,” Keely said, not looking up from the magazine. “He’s outside.”
“He is?”
I asked, as my stomach twisted into knots.
“Yeah, he looks all sad and dejected – it’s sort of pathetic
.”
Or, maybe Ben didn’t
realize breaking up was best.
Maybe after sleeping on it, he thought I’d acted out of emotion
,
and he wanted to try to win me back.
“Oh, man,” I muttered, as I got to my feet
, ignoring my sister’s barb
.
I wasn’t s
ure I co
uld face Ben
.
Talking on the phone was one thing, but being face to face,
I wasn’t sure I’d have the will
power to not take him back if he asked
, and it sounded like that’s what he wanted
.
“
Hey,” I said softly, stepping out onto the porch
and closing the door behind me
.
Ben was facing away from the door, but he turned around in a hurry when he heard my voice.
He
looked like hell
.
I would venture to guess he hadn’t slept at all.
“Hey,” he said, taking a step
toward me.
“Are you okay?” I asked, al
ready knowing the answer to my
question.
He shook his head. “My girlfriend, who I love
so much
, broke up with me out of the blue last night, because she thinks I hooked up with someone else. How do you think I feel,” he said dryly.
“
Did
you hook up with her?” I asked, a little more harshly than I’d intended.
“
No,” he said firmly
.
“I didn’t hook up with Ashleigh
.
I would never do that!
We were talking, and she just stopped in mid-sentence and kissed me.
I never saw it coming.”
I f
olded my arms across my chest.
“Ben, were you that drunk or
just that
stupid that you didn’t notice she was flirting with you?” I asked, not
believing that he hadn’t known what was happening
.
He shook
his head, his eyes going wide. “No way.
I didn’t see it.”
Okay, so my boyfriend was obviously not known for his attention to de
tail, but this was ridiculous.
Ashleigh had been all over him.
“Em, I’m sorry.
I’m so, so sorry.
I was up all last night. I couldn’t sleep.
All I could thin
k about was that I’d fucked up.
I was so pissed at myself.
I’m so stupid, and now I’ve lost you.
”
He pounded
the railing, making me wince.
I
stepped forward and
put my hand on his forearm, causing him to stop raging and look at me.
“Em,
this is crazy. We’ve been together for five years. We’ve talked about getting married. You have to know that
I would never do anything t
o jeopardize our relationship. You’re too important to me.
Please don’t do this to us.”
I looked up into
the face I knew s
o well, taking in his sad
eyes and defeated expression.
It felt horrible to be the one who was making him feel that way.
I reached up and put my hand on his cheek, cradling it as he closed his eyes.
When he opened them, they burned with intensity.
“Emily, I want to marry you. You’re the person I see myself spending the rest of my life with. I want you to be the mother of my children. Please don’t end this. I love you.”
Oh, my God.
My heart was literally breaking as he said those words to me, and I couldn’t help crying.
“Why are you crying?” he asked, taking me in his arms and holding me against his chest, his hand rubbing up and down my back.
I inhaled his familiar scent and wrapped my arms around his waist, holding myself against him.
“Please take me back, Emily. I’ll never talk to Ashleigh again if that will make things right between us. You are so much more important to me than she’ll ever be. Please.”
I nodded once, against his chest, powerless to deny him what he was begging me for.
“Did you just nod?” he asked
in shock
, his heart
rate increasing beneath my cheek
.
“Yeah, I did,” I said, not sure
I was making the right decision
but figure
d I was going to be f
ive
hours away
from him for the rest of the summer
, so what would it matter if we were together or not.
I could use our time apart to really consider what I wanted,
which was what I had originally intended to do,
so I could make an informed decision at the end of the summer.
Either way, in that moment, with him right there, letting h
im go was something I couldn’t do
.
Ben
squeezed me so tight
I t
hought I might stop breathing.
“I love you so
much, Em,” he said. “Thank you. I swear I’ll never talk to Ashleigh again.”
I smiled
.
It was a vow he should have made years ago, but
at least he was finally realizing it
.
“Ben, you don’t have to do that,” I said, acting like it wasn’t a necessary gesture
,
when in reality, I wanted nothing else
than
for him to dismiss her from his life
completely
.