Chapter 52
Bennett
Seven is whining.
He’s done it before, when Paloma was having a nightmare—so that he could wake me. But that hasn’t happened in a month or so.
And yet—
“Quiet, please,” a voice begs.
Seven whines again, louder, his paws soft on the carpet, but his collar jingles. My eyes open, spotting Paloma standing near the door, trying to shove Seven back so that she can . . . leave?
“Paloma?” She pauses, her face shadowed and hard to read in the darkness of my room. “What—what are you doing?”
“I didn’t want to wake you,” she whispers. “I need to go.”
My brow furrows. “Is everything okay? I can drive you wherever, just tell me what’s—”
“No, Bennett,” she cuts me off, voice harsh. “I’m . . . I can’t do this anymore.”
Shaking my head, I sputter out, “Talk to me. What’s going on? Where are you going?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” she asks. My stomach rolls, cheeks flushing in embarrassment because no, it’s not obvious to me. Maybe she doesn’t mean it that way, but I’ve felt something was off since we left dinner at my mom’s and my brain started spiraling the entire ride home. Something is wrong.
“Explain it to me. Why—what’s happening?”
I try to run through the last twenty-four hours in my head. The dinner with my mom and stepdad. It was awkward, sure—but not more than my usual dinners alone with them. What is going on?
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.” The words feel more like begging than I mean for them to.
Frustrated, she runs a hand through her tangled blond hair, swooping it up into a knot with an elastic from her wrist
“I can’t do this.” She stresses the last word, gesturing between us. I stay seated on the bed, desperate not to alarm her more than something clearly already has. “Us—this weird thing between us? It has to stop.”
“What are you talking about?” My throat hurts, words sharpened like knives against my mouth as I push them out. “I thought . . .”
“Bennett,” Paloma says calmly, though her eyes close, hiding from my gaze. “You don’t know me. Not really. We’ve been friends for barely five months? And we think we know each other well enough to say we love each other?”
My stomach sinks, and I can’t stop the flinch.
“I . . .”
I know everything I need to know and nothing you say will change my mind.
I have told you more about myself than anyone else before.
I love you. End of story. Please . . . don’t go.
Before I can decide on anything to say, she continues.
“This was fun. But the real me? Who I am really? You wouldn’t even recognize her. And you wouldn’t like her.”
“Let me decide,” I plead, my voice cracking. I’m spiraling as I speak, the careful threads of my control unraveling. “I should get to decide that, right? Show me—whoever you think you are—I’m not going anywhere.”
There’s a strange sort of smile on her face before tears spill from her brown eyes. My own bleary sight has just focused in the dim light, and I can’t stop from inspecting her over and over. As if I can see some physical manifestation of whatever this pain is, so I can make it right. Fix it.
“Bennett. We don’t know each other. It’s been five months,” she repeats the words slowly, like I’m a fucking child, and for the first time, I feel anger toward her. Red hot, with warnings flashing in the back of my mind still—wrong, wrong, wrong.
“Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on,” I beg, though there’s a bitter, choked quality to my voice that I loathe. “Five months? That’s enough time—we know each other.”
“Do we?” Her arms grip either side of her, hugging herself. I try to take another calming breath. I’ve never felt this out of control around her before; her presences has always centered me, calmed me. Now . . .
I stand, stepping forward because she’s crying.
She steps back, hitting the door softly, and I freeze.
“I know you feel that way.” Her voice is all placating whispers. “But how much do we actually know? About each other? About what we’ve been through or what we need?”
“Then tell me.” The words are a desperate demand. My feet slip as I fight the urge to step toward her. “We can figure it out, together—”
“Bennett,” she snaps, cutting me off. Her voice fills with a sob. “You don’t get it. You can’t.”
You can’t. My head spins. Wrong, wrong. This is wrong and you know it. I cycle back through the last twenty-four hours—it has to be something that happened.
Your mom. Your dad. Your family.
They think something is wrong with you, they always have. Your mom can barely speak to you without bringing it up—she finally saw the piece of you that you were so desperate to hide.
“Maybe,” she says, and though she’s whispering, her voice feels too loud. “Maybe we aren’t right for each other.”
A sharp twist, like a knife shoved deeper into the center of my chest. “You mean I’m not right for you, yeah?”
“That’s not what I said,” Paloma bites out, anger and frustration parting through the tears. Her face is red, all the softened pieces now angular and sharp. Defensive. But beneath it I can almost see a flicker of guilt.
“You didn’t have to,” I snap back, throat tight.
I’ve never raised my voice at her, I’m desperate not to even now, but I can barely stop myself.
It all hurts too much, and I feel like I’m losing the slipping control I had over this.
Over us. “I get it,” I say, raising my hands toward her in surrender, head ducking to hide the pain I know I’m unable to mask from her. “I’m not normal.”
Can’t hug your mom without flinching?
Can’t leave the arena without your goddamn rituals?
Can’t have sex with her without needing control?
I rake a hand through my hair and squeeze my fists at my side, voice raw and broken.
“I thought you wanted me.”
The words are vulnerable but covered in the sting of my own fury. She flinches, back hitting the door again. Fireworks burst in the background—loud and abrasive against my ears, illuminating Paloma’s face over and over like a spectacle spotlight from my bedroom window.
“Bennett—please—”
“It’s fine,” I cut her off. “It’s too difficult for you, yeah? It’s—I’m—” A frustrated noise leaves my throat “You’re right. Someone like you could never love someone like me, right?”
“Bennett,” she pleads, voice heady and intoxicating.
I want to apologize and beg her to stay—but I can’t do this.
I can’t. It’ll kill me—and I’m not going to get any better.
If anything, my obsession with her has only gotten worse with every day that she’s near me, every strand of her hair over my fingers, every piece of her ingrained in me.
She doesn’t deny the words.
“Just go, Paloma.”
Seven whines, standing between us, like he’s unsure of what to do.
“Go.”
This time, it’s almost a shout, my control slipping.
She does, the door swinging violently shut as she sprints out.
The rush of adrenaline leaves me just as quicky, making my legs shaky and weak. My stomach sinks, my body following as I melt to the floor, back against my bed. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Heart racing and fingers shaking, I reach for my phone and call her. To apologize.
It goes straight to her voicemail.
I call her again. And again. Obsessively, trying over and over to reach her. Fireworks continue on, making me flinch with every burst of noise.
Stop. Stop. Make it stop.
Seven sits almost entirely in my lap, pressing his weight on my thumping heart. A deep well forms in my throat, a sob ready to rip free, but I try to hold it back.
Hours pass. I only know because I see the sunlight stream through my windows. I hear the front door open and slam again as Rhys calls for me.
I don’t answer.
After a long moment, he steps into my doorway, eyes widening. “Ben? Are you all right?”
“F-fine.”
Clearly, I’m not fine. The pain is so intense I almost feel numb.
“What can I do?” Rhys asks. He doesn’t pester me with further questions, doesn’t try to discover what’s wrong. Only sits by my side patiently as I ask him to stay with me.
We call out of practice. He stays with me all day.
“I don’t know,” I manage to push out. My hands feel numb and cold as I flex and curl them, as if it will help. Everything feels glacial and raw.
Rhys nods. “That’s okay.” He hesitates a moment longer, then asks, “Do you want me to hug you?”
I nod, tears slipping down my cheeks as I break in my best friend’s arms, tight around me to slow my erratic heart.
She’s gone.