Chapter 49
THEN: Freshman Year, December
Paloma
Bennett is silent for the first fifteen minutes of our drive to his dad’s house. He plays his usual slow indie music and I try to relax, but I can’t stop glancing over at him out of the corner of my eye, trying to gauge his frustration.
At me? Or at my lie?
Seven, on the other hand, sits in the backseat, his head between our seats resting on the center console, big brown eyes watching me too knowingly.
Finally, as we pull off the exit into downtown Boston, I ask, “Are you mad at me?”
“Yes,” he huffs. My stomach sinks, but I nod. “I’m mad you lied to me. I’m mad you weren’t going to tell me that you were alone for the holidays.”
My head is already shaking, fingers biting into the soft leather of my seat. “It’s fine. I don’t mind it.”
“It’s not fine to me,” he says, the words clipped and frustrated. He’s angry but he seems like he’s trying desperately not to be. Or at least, not to be loud or angry toward me. “You being alone isn’t fine to me.”
I’m quiet, unsure of what to do or what to say. As much as I haven’t experienced romance, I’ve seen anger. I’ve been taught multiple lessons in yelling or condescending speeches. I know when to keep my mouth shut.
Only . . . it seems to have the opposite effect.
Bennett looks over at me as soon as he’s parked in the driveway. His face looks almost sick.
“I’m sorry,” he says, and my eyes shoot wide.
“I’m just—I hate thinking of you alone. I hate it and I’m—I think I let my thoughts get away from me when I heard the alarm and realized you weren’t going to tell me—” He stops, as if his throat closed up suddenly.
Shaking his head, he rubs his hand over his thigh repeatedly, a self-soothing motion that’s almost aggressive.
“Next time, please, Paloma. Tell me,” he begs.
The words stick in my mouth, desperate to get out and stay in all the same. Thank you. For caring about me. For wanting me not to be so alone.
“I will,” I finally manage to say. “Promise.”
I stick out my pinky, a peace offering, however childish. But it works like a charm, Bennett’s intoxicating half-grin etching briefly across his features. He links his pinky with mine and shakes it.
After telling me to stay put, he gets out and rounds the car, letting out Seven and grabbing my backpack from the back before opening my door.
There’s a part of me that’s still clenched tight over him holding it, a desperation to take it myself and keep it close, but I trust Bennett.
And that trust and deep feeling of safety has only grown.
“I’m really happy you’re here, P,” he says, and my entire body relaxes into the strong feel of his hand on my lower back.
Inside the Beacon Hill house, Adam Reiner is seated on the white couch. A twinge of anxiety rolls through my stomach at the memory of the strained moment we shared months ago. At the clear, frustrating understanding apparent even now in his blue eyes so like his son’s.
“Paloma,” Bennett’s dad greets me first. “Happy you could join us.”
I nod with a soft smile. “Thank you for having me.”
Bennett kisses my temple with a quickly muttered, “I’m going to get you something to drink,” before disappearing toward the kitchen. I stare quietly back at the larger-than-life man observing me, feeling somewhat wrong and out of place.
I bite down on my lip. “Um . . .”
“You’re okay, Paloma?” he asks. His voice is low and calm. There’s a slight beseeching look in his eyes.
I tense but give a quick nod before stepping toward the tree like I’m admiring it. He’s too intensely observant, and I don’t like the way it feels like he’s seeing something I’m not showing. It definitely doesn’t help that Seven is trailing me, watching me keenly.
“All good?” Bennett asks, stepping up beside me with a warm mug of hot chocolate, marshmallows covering the top so I can’t see through the white, pillowy fluff.
“All good.”
Bennett eyes me a moment longer before wrapping his arm around me. “I think we’ll head to bed early. Dad?”
“Sounds good.” His dad smiles back. “I think I’ll head to Max and Anna’s for a bit, all right?”
Bennett nods and takes my hand to pull me up the stairs, leaving his dog behind with his dad.
He lays me on his bed, the lamplight warm, the sight of his well-loved poetry books a comfort. I pull him on top of me, fingers pressed into his sweater-covered shoulders as I kiss him. He tastes like sparkling grape juice and sugar cookies. And mine, mine, mine.
“I need to tell you something,” he says, pulling back slightly, just enough that his forehead is pressed to mine and I can only watch his lips move—turning up into a half smile before he says, “I love you, Paloma. So much. So deeply.”
My stomach rocks. My eyes glimmer with unshed tears as the genuine care in his words washes over me. It feels the same as it did when I fell into the pool as a kid, awash in cold water and something new on the other side.
Something better.
“Bennett—”
“I’m not saying these words to hear them back,” he says, pulling his head back farther to lock his ocean eyes on mine. “I’m saying them because I need you to know. To make sure you know.”
I want to say them. I feel them; it’s the only time I’ve ever felt them, really.
My mouth opens, ready for the intense, terrifying confession. Just say it. Say it. Three words.
Only I’ve said the words before. I love you.
I was sixteen and desperate for the scraps of affection that had been offered to me. Instead of being strong, of finding it in myself, I’d burrowed deep, lodging myself into the only person who seemed to want me, like that might make them love me.
We’d had sex, laid in his bed afterward, and I’d whispered to him those three words, eyes glittering, face red.
And he’d smirked, lips pulling so sharp I thought he might laugh. “Sweet girl. Already in love with me?” He’d tsked, before shaking his head and petting one blond curl back behind my ear. The affectionate move was so at war with the words, making my stomach toss and bounce until I felt nauseous.
“So touch deprived,” he’d chuckled. “Don’t worry, I’m gonna take care of you now.”
It was easy, once he said that, to trick myself into thinking that was his I love you. That he cared for me.
Tears well in my eyes as I look at Bennett. He’s so handsome, skin flushed and eyes glinting—the depths of the ocean there, my peace. My comfort. Home.
“I’m sorry,” I say, wiping at my eyes. “I don’t know why I’m crying.”
He shakes his head with a saddened smile. “It’s okay, P.”
It’s not. He takes me into his embrace, a tight grip that calms my body.
“I do, too,” I whisper into the safety of his arms. “I love you.”
“Yeah?” he asks, and I can feel his grin against my hair.
“So much. So deeply.” More than you’ll ever know or understand.
I stay with Bennett and his dad through Christmas and it’s just as magical and perfect as I’d imagined it might be.
Time passes slow and fast all at once, like stars winking out against the inky sky, and I can’t quell my desperation to keep this memory close and unmarred, to make this moment last forever.
Bennett gifts me a complete set of Mary Oliver books from his own collection, littered with his black pen script from years of reading. It’s like holding a piece of him.
The days bleed together until it’s the day before New Years and we’re drinking expensive champagne and sparkling grape juice, dancing to music off the stereo in the main room—celebrating the holiday early as his dad insists on.
I step over to the CD player, flipping through the selection in their “favorites” basket. My fingers ghost over a few familiar ones before settling on one I love.
“That’s a good one,” Adam Reiner says, stepping up behind me slowly. He’s always overly cautious now, as if that moment in the kitchen has stuck with him. I wish he’d forget it.
“You have a thing for CDs?”
He nods with a smile, taking it from my hands to insert it into the old system.
Stepping away and back toward Bennett, I observe him for a long moment in the silence before the music starts up again.
“Sky Blue and Black” plays, the gentle piano adding cadence to my steps back toward where Bennett is watching me.
“Want to dance?” he asks. We’ve all been dancing and singing along to music all night, at Adam Reiner’s suggestion. Where Bennett is stoic and calm, his dad is openly affectionate toward him and a slight goofball.
As much as I don’t want to admit it to myself, Adam Reiner is exactly the father I dreamed up for myself in my quiet moments alone, when things were bad enough that I’d imagine my dad was somewhere out there, trying desperately to find me.
That he hadn’t meant to leave and that at any moment he’d burst through the door to our trailer home and pick me up. Take me away from it all.
Adam ruffles his son’s curls as he passes us and quietly excuses himself for the evening.
I raise my left hand to the swell of Bennett’s shoulder, my right hand held gently in his grip as we start to dance. My head rests on his chest and he hums, low and soft beneath his breath. I can feel the vibrations more than I can hear his voice.
Bennett and I dance, slow and careful as the CD plays. It feels like magic. It feels like love.
My heartbeat thumps in time with his—him, him, him.
Later that night, he makes love to me in the bed I once read to him from. He asks me again as he cares for me afterward what poem I’m reminded of when we have sex. I tell him I don’t know. He recites a line from a sonnet I’ve never heard of and kisses a pathway down my spine through each word.
“I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair,” he says, his fingers obsessively caught in the strands I know he adores.
“Your mouth,” he says as he presses a kiss to my lips.
“Your voice,” he says, kissing down my throat.
“Your hair,” he says, pressing a kiss to my forehead at the edge of my hairline. “Your hair.” He repeats as he presses me back into the mattress, intent to take me again.
I look into his ocean eyes as he pushes gently into me and my heart learns to beat at his command, reaching for him from my chest.
Even if I don’t get to keep him, I will never love anyone the way I love him.