Chapter 12-Esme
I follow Benji’s downward gaze, and my heart seizes.
“We didn’t use a condom,” I murmur, the words slipping out before I can stop them.
The realization hits me all at once.
Sharp, sobering, cutting through the haze of everything we just did.
Everything he just did to me.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
That was—okay, it was actually really amazing.
Better than I remember.
My body is still humming, still buzzing with the aftermath. My skin feels too sensitive.
My pulse too fast.
And my mind is struggling to catch up.
“You’re still on birth control, right?” he asks, voice rough, a little unsteady. “Shouldn’t be a—”
“Actually,” I murmur and sit up slowly, the sheet sliding with me as I pull it tight across my chest.
Suddenly, I feel exposed in a way I didn’t a few minutes ago.
“Uh, I haven’t had health insurance until recently, and I-I’ve been on the road a lot. Um, I just haven’t been on birth control in a couple of years.”
The words hang there.
Heavy.
Real.
Benji moves, turning toward me, sitting up fully now, his expression shifting fast—confusion, then surprise, then something deeper I can’t quite name.
“What?” he says. “Why?”
I let out a breath, running a hand through my damp hair.
“Benji, I’ve been sorta without roots,” I say, like that explains everything. “Living out of a van. I haven’t exactly been scheduling appointments or planning my life around this kind of thing. I mean this?”
I gesture vaguely between us.
“I haven’t—well—there hasn’t been anyone since—”
I stop.
Too late.
The words are already out there.
Hanging.
Echoing.
I cringe, my stomach twisting as the full weight of what I just admitted sinks in.
Because I forgot.
Forgot that he still thinks I’m a cheater.
“Oh, shit,” he breathes.
My heart stutters.
I force myself to look at him.
Bracing for it.
The anger.
The disgust.
The accusation.
But it’s not there.
What I see instead?
Confusion.
Shock.
Something almost like guilt.
But that doesn’t make sense.
“I know you don’t believe me but I didn’t sleep with Paul,” I say, the words coming out louder than I intended.
Firmer.
Like I need to stake a claim on the truth before it gets buried again.
“I haven’t slept with anyone since you.”
Silence.
Heavy.
Thick.
Benji drags his hand down his face, his shoulders tightening, his whole body going still in a way that tells me something inside him just shifted.
“Fuck, Ezzy,” he mutters.
Then, quieter, almost to himself, “I think I know that now.”
My chest aches.
“I’m so fucking sorry, Esme.”
The words hit harder than anything else he’s said.
I blink.
He’s not looking at me.
Not at first.
“What?”
Then, he lifts his head, and those crazy dark blue eyes of his are glittering at me like sapphires.
“I’m sorry,” he repeats, looking at me now, really looking. “For all of it. It’s my fault. Everything is all my fucking fault.”
His voice is rough.
Not angry.
Not defensive.
Just worn.
Like the weight of it has finally caught up to him.
“Benji, I don’t—”
“Please, just listen. See, I know I fucked up. I should’ve listened to you,” he says. “Should’ve come home and looked you in the eye and asked you what happened instead of—”
He cuts himself off, jaw tightening.
“Fucking Paul,” he exhales, shaking his head. “That bastard was like my brother.”
Something in his voice cracks.
And I feel it.
“I grew up with nothing,” he continues, quieter now. “You know that. Just me and my mom, scraping by, trying to stay ahead of my old man’s mess. When I enlisted after she died, I didn’t trust anyone. Didn’t need to.”
He huffs out a humorless laugh.
“Then Paul, my old buddy, he comes around. He shows up. Loud, stupid, always in trouble—but he had my back. Or I guess I just fucking thought he did.”
My throat tightens.
“We went through everything together,” he says.
“Training. Deployment. Shit most people don’t walk away from.
He was there for all of it. So when he came to me with those videos?
That fucking sex tape. The happy birthday clip?
When he came to me with a story that you realized you loved him and not me… ”
He swallows hard.
“I believed him.”
There it is.
The truth.
Simple.
Brutal.
“I believed him because I knew I never deserved you, Sweetheart. Someone like me? The bastard son of an even bigger bastard than I am, I knew I didn’t deserve something as good and pure and sweet as you. But I should’ve known better,” he adds, voice dropping. “Should’ve known you better.”
My chest aches so bad I can barely breathe.
“Benji—”
“I fucked up. I let him prey on my insecurities. I trusted the wrong person,” he says. “And I didn’t have the balls to face you—to have you tell it to my face—when that’s the only fucking thing I should’ve done.”
His eyes meet mine then.
And there’s something in them I’ve never seen before.
Regret.
Real, raw, and unguarded.
“Why didn’t you talk to me?” I whisper, tears rolling down my cheeks.
“I fucked up,” he says simply, and then I see them.
A trail of tears spilling from his eyes, too.
The room goes quiet again.
The kind of quiet that settles deep in your bones.
And for a second—for one drawn out moment—I forgive him.
Right here.
Right now.
Because I get it.
Because I see it.
Because part of me never stopped loving him enough to understand.
But then—the hurt comes rushing back in.
All the nights.
All the miles.
All the silence.
“I-I appreciate your apology. And I’m sorrier than you can know about what happened between us. But whatever happens in the future, you need to know that you don’t have to worry about it,” I say, my voice quieter now.
Calmer.
Careful.
Controlled.
His brow furrows.
“What?”
I force a small smile, even though it feels like it’s cracking my face in half.
“The damage is done, isn’t it?” I shrug lightly, like this doesn’t matter. Like my heart isn’t beating too fast. “I mean, this was just a trip down memory lane. Any consequences of this, well, they’re mine. You don’t need to worry.”
The words taste like ash.
“And even if the lawyer comes back and says we messed up the divorce,” I go on, keeping my tone steady, “we can just sign the papers and I’ll go. No harm, no foul.”
Lie.
Such a fucking lie.
Because there’s harm everywhere.
All over this room.
All over me.
All over him.
But I say it anyway.
Because I don’t know what else to do.
Because I don’t know how to be here, naked in every sense of the word, and admit that I still love him.
That I never stopped loving him.
And that, more than anything, I wish with all my torn up little heart that he still loved me, too.
Benji sits there. Stunned.
Then, he just nods.
Once.
Tight.
Like he’s locking something down inside himself.
And that—that hurts more than anything else.
“I’m gonna—” I gesture toward the bathroom. “Just need to use the restroom.”
He doesn’t stop me.
Doesn’t say anything.
I slip out of the bed, wrapping the sheet tighter around me as I head into the bathroom, closing the door behind me.
The second it shuts, I sag against it.
“God,” I whisper.
My reflection stares back at me, eyes too bright, lips still swollen, skin flushed.
I look like a woman who just got everything she ever wanted.
And lost it again.
I take a breath.
Then another.
Pull myself together the best I can.
By the time I step back out into the room—he’s gone.
The bed is rumpled.
The air still warm with him.
But he’s gone.
There’s a note on the pillow.
Went to check on Alex. Keep the door locked.
I stare at it for a long second.
Then crawl back into the bed, pulling the sheet around me like armor.
The exhaustion hits fast.
Heavy.
Bone-deep.
And before I can think too hard about what just happened—or what it means—I fall asleep.
Alone.
And I don’t hear him come back in.