Chapter 23 Ella
“Ithink you should go home,” Ben said after his parents left.
We stood on opposite sides of the kitchen island.
I leaned my hips against it and tried to process his words, placing my hands on the massive slab of butcher block we nearly broke our backs installing.
Beneath my fingers, the wood was as smooth as butter.
I’d seasoned it myself a few days after the installation, rubbing food-grade mineral oil into its surface with painstaking care while Ben started on the herringbone tile kitchen backsplash.
I had wanted this countertop to be perfect.
I had wanted him to look on the job I had done with pride, see my usefulness, and decide to let me hang around a little while longer.
Now he was pushing me away.
“Did I do something wrong?” I asked.
“No,” he told me. “I don’t have the words to thank you for being here the past few days. I may never have them. But this,” he said, motioning between us, “this is starting to feel unhealthy.”
Calm. Stay calm.
“How so?”
He leaned against the counter, mirroring my posture.
“All I do is take from you. I’ve been reliant on your humor and your energy to keep me distracted and act as a crutch when my mood went to shit.
You’ve had to lie, either outright or by omission, to nearly everyone in your life since we met.
I’ve kept you here, as free manual labor, working on my home reno when you could have been hanging out with your family or friends, living your life. ”
“Those were all my choices to make,” I said.
He barreled on as if I hadn’t spoken. “And now you’ve dropped your entire life to come help me. You’re losing money, maybe even clients. You can’t deny that. You can’t ignore the way our relationship is negatively impacting you, at least financially.”
I dug my fingernails into the countertop, willing myself to keep my tone level.
“I took care of my clients before I came here, and I have my phone in case anything important pops up. It was my decision to make you my priority. Did you ever stop to think about why I chose to help you with the reno? That maybe you were distracting me too?”
He frowned.
I took a deep breath before responding. Sofia told me he might do something like this – try to end things between us because he either couldn’t handle anything romantic right now, or because he was trying to “save me” from himself.
If this was motivated by the former, there was nothing I could do but respect his wishes, but if it was the latter, I might be able to make him see reason.
Please, please let it be the latter.
“I spent so much time here because I really like you,” I said.
“You’re fun. You’re funny. You are really nice to look at.
Your parents inflate the hell out of my ego with their compliments.
You inflate the hell out of my ego with your terrible cribbage play.
I like working with my hands. It is literally what I do for a living, Ben.
Give me a home improvement project, and I will gladly offer up my free labor because I get so much out of seeing a dream or an idea become a reality that being part of bringing it to life is payment enough for me. But aside from that –”
I had to pause for a moment to get my tone back under control.
Anger had started to corrupt it. “I’m sorry.
I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at myself,” I told him.
“You think you haven’t been treating me fairly?
Well, I haven’t been treating you right either.
I’ve been hiding things. Tamping down on any negative emotion around you because I wanted to be this shiny, happy part of your life to balance out all the bullshit you have to deal with simply by being famous and outspoken about things that matter.
“Winters are hard for me, Ben. I’m actually not losing that much money by being here. Business slows to a crawl at the end of January, picks up a little around Valentine’s Day, and then drops off again until spring. I have to save all year just to make it through.”
He straightened, eyes wide in surprise. “I’m sorry Ella. I didn’t know. But doesn’t that prove my point about how one-sided this relationship has been? How much I’ve been taking advantage of you?”
I shook my head. “Not really. All it proves is that I’m as complicit in this as you are.”
“What?” he asked, deadpan.
“I didn’t tell you any of this because I was…” I ran a hand through my hair, trying to think of how to phrase this. “I don’t know, babying you isn’t the right term here, but I was definitely trying to shield you from anything negative.”
His expression hardened. “I’m a grown-ass man, Ella.”
“I know you are. I’m sorry for what I did.
Trust me.” My laugh was a bitter thing. “And it wasn’t just that motivating my actions.
Part of why I didn’t say anything was because, really, what’s a few months of tight living compared to all the hate you receive on Twitter?
What are my problems compared to yours?”
Ben crossed his heavy arms over his chest. “Just because our problems are different, it doesn’t mean yours don’t matter.”
“I know that now,” I said. “My sister-in-law helped me to see that. What you need to see is that this imbalance between us isn’t entirely your fault.”
Ben tried to respond, but I barreled over him, having held so much in for so long that I couldn’t seem to shut the floodgates now that they’d burst open.
“Look, you want the whole truth, this is it. We spend so much time snowed in up here that I rarely see my friends during the winter. As for my family, my mother’s depression spikes after the holidays.
She ignores everyone’s advice and self-medicates with pot instead of taking the pills Dad prescribes her.
It’s really hard for me to be around her when she’s like this.
That might be shitty for me to say, but it’s the truth.
“I stress out for the entire month of January when Jacob is in Somalia. It’s so dangerous over there, and he’s already had several close calls.
When he gets home, he and my dad are flat-out at the practice with flu season.
Sofia is flat-out at hers too. Mental illness is really common up here, and so is addiction, both of which seem to get worse this time of year.
Megan and Stacey are in Boston, Charlie is back at college, and Anabel is busy with school and sports and friends.
Most winters that leaves me with my dogs, Jack, Jane, Dave, and Willow.
You know how outgoing I am, how social. Having you here has been just as much of a distraction from my own shit as I’ve been for you. ”
Ben scrubbed his hands over his face. “Is that supposed to help? You telling me all of this now? Because it only makes me feel worse for not knowing any of it.”
“And that’s my fault,” I said. “I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you. I should have known you could handle it.”
He sighed. “I’m sorry too. For not asking.”
“It’s okay. How could you have known?”
We fell quiet. I stared across the island at him, taking in his expression, noting the way he still seemed to be fighting some sort of battle with himself.
“But you still want me to go home,” I said.
He nodded.
My heart started to break. “Why?”
“Because I’m afraid that if you stay, I’ll use you as a crutch.
That when I’m sad, instead of examining why and trying to find a way out of it for myself, I’ll cling to you, as I have been.
When I feel like I’m fucking dying, I’ll turn to sex with you to remind myself I’m still alive.
If I continuously use you as a coping mechanism, I’ll never give myself time to grieve or process. ”
“That makes sense,” I forced myself to say.
“And I want you to go because I think you need time to process this. I think you’ve been so caught up in helping me that you might not have given yourself any time to really think this through.”
I turned on my heel and marched out of the kitchen.
“Where are you going?” he called after me.
“To get my e-reader!”
I grabbed it from his room and pulled up my library of e-books on the way back down. “Here,” I said, shoving it across the counter toward him.
“What is this?”
“This is four books on the study of the human brain, three on head injuries, two on effective strategies for combatting depression and anxiety, two filled with memory exercises, three self-help books for dealing with grief, one on dealing with loss, three more on coping with chronic illness, and I don’t know how many others that I just can’t remember right now,” I told him.
“While you’ve been asleep, I’ve been reading.
I’ve been doing research. I’ve been strategizing ways to help you. Trust me, I’ve thought this through.”
He pushed my e-reader away. “Planning is all well and good, but it might do nothing to prepare you for the reality.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?” he asked, voice rising. “They said my anger flashpoints are lower than they should be. It’s taking everything in me not to yell right now. What if it gets worse? What if I snap? What if I end up becoming violent?”
“I’ll start taking self-defense classes and keep taking them until I can kick your ass,” I said. It was a struggle not to match his elevated tone.
“I outweigh you by a hundred pounds, Ella!”
He was trying to scare me. Push me away. It wouldn’t work. I planted my fists on the countertop and leaned forward, feeling desperate now. “Then I’ll fight dirty.”
His expression was full of disbelief. “You’re too nice to fight dirty.”