Chapter 17
N ell woke up with the covers rumpled on one side of the bed and no memory of Ben leaving last night. She must have fallen asleep, and hadn’t woken up when he’d left. She’d slept hard for eight hours, and it was after 7:00 already.
She stopped dead at the bottom of the staircase. Ben and Marco sat at the dining room table, Marco eating a waffle and watching a documentary on his tablet. The waffle had been cut into little squares, the same way she normally did it for her son.
Ben was watching the show, too, but he jumped up from the table when Nell came in, a guilty look on his face.
“I’m sorry,” he blurted.
Marco glanced up from the show. “Mom, Ben accidentally fell asleep on the couch last night. So he made me breakfast while you slept.”
Nell looked back and forth between Ben and her son, then turned on her heel and walked out of the room, heart racing. She placed a hand on her chest, rubbing the center of it.
Ben followed close behind her.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I woke up at 6:00 and tried to sneak out the door, but he came downstairs. I was on the couch putting on my shoes, and I made up an excuse. You’re upset, I can tell.”
“I’m not upset.” Was there a word for how she felt right now? Terrified. That was a word. “Did you stay here overnight on purpose? After I fell asleep?”
“I didn’t think about it too long. I was sleepy, and I—”
“You let yourself stay here.” When he knew she wasn’t ready. Her heart refused to slow, pounding against her ribcage.
“Not on purpose. I wouldn’t do that. But after our conversation last night, I did … I hoped things were changing. We’d decided to keep seeing each other. I know you didn’t want Marco to find out about us yet. I don’t think he knows.”
“No.” She folded her arms tightly across her chest. “I don’t think he realizes, either.”
“I know we didn’t talk about this part last night. I’m sorry.”
Nell studied his face, the earnest, pleading eyes. She did believe him. He’d never been anything but honest with her.
“It’s okay. I don’t blame you.”
She shut her eyes, reaching for calm. Beyond her initial shocked reaction to seeing Ben in her kitchen this morning, there’d been something else. A rush of longing that had almost knocked her over. This morning was dangerously close to what she’d always wished for, and it would be too easy to believe it was real.
Her feelings for Ben were complicated, and she wasn’t ready to put a name on them. She definitely hadn’t been ready for him to make Marco’s breakfast.
“Tell me what you want me to do. Should I go now?” Ben’s voice was soft, but it held a thread of worry.
“No. You can stay.” She shook her head to clear it. “Like you said, he doesn’t suspect anything. Do you want some coffee?”
“Okay.” He gave her a long look. “If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure. I was surprised, that’s all. I wasn’t ready to see you here in the morning.”
“I understand. Next time, we’ll plan it. Whenever you want it to happen.”
“Of course.” Nell fixed a smile on her face. “Maybe after we both have coffee, this will seem more normal.”
“Coffee always helps,” he said. Still, he seemed to be analyzing her, and she turned her face away from his probing gaze.
“I’ll only stay a few minutes,” he added. “I have to leave to get ready for work anyway.”
“And I have to get Marco out the door in forty-five minutes.”
In the kitchen, Nell scooped coffee grounds into the coffee maker. Marco had finished his breakfast, and he paused his video to launch himself into a conversation with Ben about the show he’d been watching. He gestured wildly, almost knocking his plate to the ground. Ben caught it at the last minute and slid it away from his flailing elbows, then looked up and winked at Nell.
Nell turned her back on them both for a minute, facing the counter. She needed to pull herself together, but tears stung her eyes and her throat burned.
So it felt like Ben belonged here. So he was perfect with her son, and perfect in bed, and perfect for her.
Last night, they’d agreed to keep dating. She should be ecstatic things were working out in a way she’d never dared to hope. So why was she shaking all over? It was too much, too good. It couldn’t be real, that was the problem with it.
She took a steadying breath and reached above her head to the cabinet to get mugs, setting them on the counter one by one with care. She poured the coffee with a shaking hand.
“How do you take your coffee?” she asked. She’d never seen him at breakfast, so she didn’t know. There were so many things she still didn’t know about him, all different ways things could go wrong.
“Black is fine.” His dark eyes met hers, seeing through her, like always. He stood and crossed the kitchen to her.
“Thank you for the coffee,” he said softly. “But I should get going. Let you get ready for your day.”
A buzzing sound interrupted him, and he frowned and pulled his phone out of his pocket. The frown deepened when he scanned the screen for the caller’s name.
“I need to take this.”
He strode out of the kitchen, answering the call in a low voice as he walked into the front entryway. He paced back and forth as he talked to whoever was on the other end. She could hear his side of the conversation, but it was all one-word answers given in a clipped tone of voice. Maybe another patient emergency.
Nell opened her own phone and scanned through her messages. Her email inbox contained several junk messages. And one reply, from her job application for the manager position at the plant nursery—a polite rejection letter, saying she didn’t have the necessary qualifications for the job, but to please consider them for future applications.
She clicked her phone off and set it on the counter. She hadn’t expected an interview. It had been a very long shot, and she hadn’t gotten it. Just one more rejection to move past. It was a good thing she hadn’t told Ben, because now she wouldn’t have to explain.
When Ben didn’t return to the kitchen after a few more minutes, she poked her head out the door to check on him.
He was leaning against the wall by her front door, one hand on the middle of his chest. His breathing was short, labored, his face a pale gray color. She rushed over to him.
“Ben, is it a panic attack? Can you sit down for a minute?”
His head whipped around. “I’m fine. Go back to Marco.”
“Marco will be okay without me for a minute. Please, sit. I don’t want you to pass out.” She reached out to put a hand on his upper arm, but he jerked away from her. A moment later, he slid down the wall, knees bent up to his chest. His head dropped forward, but his breath didn’t slow, continuing to puff out of him as if he’d run a mile. She’d never seen him this bad.
She lowered herself to the floor next to him, not touching him, but sitting cross-legged by his side.
“I wish … you would go.” He squeezed his eyes shut. Sweat had broken out across his forehead.
She shook her head. “I won’t leave you alone like this. Can I put a hand on your back?”
After a pause, he nodded. She placed a hand between his shoulder blades, resting it there. His heart galloped under her palm.
“I need … to go home.” He made a move to stand, and she stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“Not yet. Ben, you can’t drive like this. I know you want to be in your own space. I can drive you, if you want me to. But don’t get in your car like this.”
“I hate this.” He squeezed his eyes shut.
“I know. I hate it for you.”
With her free hand, she caught his hand and laced her fingers between his. He squeezed her with surprising force, shut his eyes, and started taking deep breaths, slowing his exhales with a breathing exercise. After a minute, his heart rate slowed under her hand.
Marco chose that moment to come out of the kitchen. He stopped in his tracks when he saw them on the floor together.
“Mom? Is Ben s-sick?” he asked, his voice high with uncertainty.
Ben looked up at her, and she drew back at the expression of anguish on his face.
“Get him out of here. Please. I don’t want to scare him.”
She gave a quick nod, got up from her spot on the floor, and went to her son.
“Ben isn’t feeling good, but he’s going to be okay. We need to leave him alone for a minute, so he can have some privacy.”
Marco’s face screwed up with confusion. “We shouldn’t leave someone alone when they need help.”
“Sometimes, people need to be by themselves. I promise he’ll be okay.” She tried to usher Marco back toward the kitchen, but he slipped past her and ran upstairs. His bedroom door banged shut.
Ben struggled to his feet. He was unsteady, but better than he had been a few minutes ago.
“I need to go.” He scanned around the entryway for his jacket, found it, and yanked one sleeve on, then the other.
“Ben, please wait a few more minutes, until you’re more calm.”
“I’m fine.” He wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“What happened? Is something going on at work? Do you need help?”
He drew in an unsteady inhale. “I guess you’ll end up seeing this anyway.” He thumbed open his phone and handed it to her.
The screen showed an article from the city newspaper’s weekend magazine. The headline read: “Local Doctor Back in Office, and in Bloom.”
Nell scanned the first few sentences.
Flowers are good for your mental health. Just ask local psychologist Ben Friedman, who is taking in-person appointments again following an extended absence. Social media posts showing patients with their flower arrangements brought a new focus on the clinic, which has been nominated for a national award in mental health care. Clinic patients were surprised and delighted by the floral deliveries, and the return of their doctor.
The article went on for a few more paragraphs—a feel-good piece about the clinic that would no doubt bring a lot of new patients in. And it had devastated Ben.
Nell looked up at him, eyes widening with realization. “Your patients didn’t know. About you being gone.”
“No.” He shook his head. “I mean, individually, they knew they hadn’t seen me in person for a while. But I think most of them hadn’t made the connection that I’d been absent. Until the flowers.”
“But the article doesn’t say why you were gone. It doesn’t reveal any personal information.”
“I know. But people talk. They’ll know something’s wrong with me.” His head dropped. “I thought I had the situation under control. That I was back to normal, or at least close to it. But I’m not.”
“You don’t have to tell them anything.” A surge of protective anger washed through her. He’d fought so hard for the progress he’d made.
“I’m not better, though. Look what just happened.”
“You are better,” she said fiercely. “I’ve seen it with my own eyes, even if I’m the only person who knew what you were going through.”
His expression softened, looking at her with a wistful sadness. “You were the only person who knew, until recently. And you were so supportive.”
She didn’t like him using the past tense in that sentence. “And I’ll keep supporting you. You’ll get past this.”
He shook his head. “I should have known I wasn’t ready for a relationship. It was wishful thinking on my part. I just … wanted you so much. But I need to keep working on myself, until I’m all the way better.”
He let out a short, bitter laugh. “When I suggested the three-week trial run for us dating, I thought it was because you needed time to be sure, to be ready. I should have known it would be me who couldn’t do it.”
Nell’s hand flew to her throat. “Are you saying—”
She was interrupted by Marco running down the stairs. He was too quick for her, dodging past her legs and running up to Ben. He slipped something into Ben’s jacket pocket and ran back upstairs.
“I’m sorry about that,” she said. “What did he put in there?”
Ben’s face twisted as he pulled Marco’s geode, the first one he’d found, out of his pocket. The clear crystal caught the morning sunlight coming in the window.
“I can’t take this from him.” Ben placed the rock on the end table by the front door. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for disappointing him. Both of you.”
He turned away from her and reached for the door handle.
“You’re really breaking up with me.” Nell’s voice sounded wooden, hollow. Earlier in the morning, she’d been on the verge of tears, but now she felt nothing. No feelings at all.
Ben paused, his hand on the door. “I guess, technically, we were never dating.” His voice was tight, clipped. “It was a test. And it didn’t work out, because I’m not well. I’m sorry.”
Ben straightened his spine, drew his shoulders back. The rigid stranger she’d met four weeks ago was back. No sign of the kind, sensitive man she’d gotten to know and maybe could have even loved.
He didn’t love her.
And she wasn’t in love with him. She wasn’t sad, or angry, or anything else as Ben pulled open her front door and walked out of it. The door shut behind him with a click, ending things between them. All things had to end, but especially good things, the things you’d pinned some hopes on.
She bolted the lock and didn’t linger by the door. It was time to get Marco ready for school, and she had dishes to do before she got dressed. A full slate of deliveries to go out this morning. Nothing like routine to keep you on track, and she wouldn’t be late today.