Chapter Sixty-One
‘So let me get this right,’ I say as we’re sitting on my sofa half an hour later.
All thoughts of me eating dinner were replaced by the need to understand something crucial that I’ve totally missed and that has been kept a secret from me.
Ben looks so embarrassed, and Toby looks as if he’s been caught in the crossfire. ‘This has been going on for how long?’
Ben doesn’t answer, so I look at Toby.
‘About eighteen months. Off and on.’
‘Oh my God! Eighteen months! What? How …? How?’
‘It just happened,’ Toby says and then Ben looks up, but he can’t meet my gaze.
‘It didn’t just happen,’ Ben replies, looking anywhere but at me. ‘It took a long time for it to happen,’ he says sadly. ‘It was a very slow start.’
All I’ve got in the flat is a bottle of sparkling water, which is absolutely not hitting the spot at a moment like this. Ben’s nursing his, but Toby is sipping delicately, politely, and trying not to make a face.
‘Are you angry?’ Ben asks, and finally he looks in my direction.
‘Angry? What? No! Why do you think I’d be angry?’
‘I don’t know,’ Ben says. ‘You look angry.’
‘She looks shocked,’ Toby points out. ‘And probably rightly so.’
‘Well, obviously,’ I reply. ‘Tell me what to do – what to say. I don’t want to say the wrong thing.’
‘You could never say the wrong thing,’ Ben mutters. ‘But I appreciate you tiptoeing on eggshells for me. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. For the longest time I wanted to tell you in particular, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t tell anyone. No one knows.’
‘No one?’
Ben shakes his head.
‘Not even Ollie?’
‘No. My parents … Liv – no one. I wanted to know what was going on with me first. I’ve never … been in a relationship before. Like this, you know?’
‘I’ve known you a long time, Ben, so I’m going to risk causing offence here when I ask: how long have you been gay?’
‘I don’t know,’ Ben answers helplessly. ‘I just don’t know.
All I know is that Toby and I struck up a friendship after your house-warming party a few years ago, and slowly …
’ Toby gives him a loving smile and Ben continues, ‘slowly, over the past eighteen months – I didn’t realise what I was feeling, what was happening to me, I don’t think. Toby spotted it. He knew.’
I think back to my house-warming party a few years ago: Toby mentioning that he thought Ben was gay, and being so confused when I flat-out told him he wasn’t. Was he? Has Ben always been?
Ben continues, ‘At first we just met up for coffee or a run. Toby was a good ear when I was feeling down. And I didn’t know why I was down.
Why I couldn’t hold down a job. Why I couldn’t keep a woman.
Why I was so depressed all the time and couldn’t stop drinking.
It’s a jumble, but he’s taken everything slowly and he let me discover things about myself I didn’t know.
I started to look forward to seeing Toby in the same kind of way I used to look forward to seeing you.
We started to make sense together, and I couldn’t work out why I was so incredibly happy with him, especially because I didn’t dare think I was anything other than straight.
But … that feeling of knowing I wasn’t a straight man kept niggling away at me. ’
Toby rests his hand lovingly on Ben’s leg.
Ben gives Toby an affectionate look. ‘And the more I started to recognise that I might not be straight, the less I drank. The more I hung out with Toby, the better I felt about myself. As if it all made sense, suddenly. The puzzle-pieces of my life fit together neatly now, whereas before I was trying to stick it all together with hopes of a life I didn’t really want. ’
Ben’s been so lost for so long. There’s a certain part of this that makes sense. And so much of it that’s going to take me a long time to get my head around.
‘Then I’m happy for you.’
‘Really?’
‘Honestly. I understand why you didn’t tell me.’
‘And I wanted to,’ Ben says, leaning forward. ‘I wanted to tell you. I’m pleased it’s you who saw us. Not Liv. Not Ollie. You’re special to me, Aurora. You know that, don’t you? You always will be.’
I move towards him, kneel in front of him and wrap him in a hug.
He shuffles forward and then wraps his arms around me, and that sense of familiarity – of holding Ben and having been in love with him so long ago – comes back, although there’s nothing but friendship here now. It’s such a different kind of love.
‘Ollie said you’d been out so much lately. I don’t know how he doesn’t suspect.’
‘How would anyone suspect this?’ Ben says. ‘I’ve covered my tracks very well. Until today.’
I pull back and turn to Toby. ‘But you,’ I accuse. ‘You’re so indiscreet. And you and Ben were together when we were on that job in Antigua. And you didn’t say.’
‘I wasn’t allowed to. Ben was very clear.
It was so new. I’d only just got him to feel he could trust me with his heart.
I love him, and I knew I loved him back then, even so shortly into it.
I wasn’t going to mess it up and let slip so that you and I could have a natter.
’ Then he adds darkly, ‘Or compare experiences.’
‘Toby!’ both Ben and I say.
‘If I remember rightly, compare-and-contrast is Ben’s least favourite game when it comes to relationships,’ I point out.
‘It still is,’ Ben says and then adopts an angry tone. ‘I don’t know how you’re not thoroughly pissed off about Sam and Liv getting together. Liv dating your ex. Who’s a celebrity, no less. It’s all so public,’ he continues with a shudder. ‘I’m pissed off on your behalf.’
‘I’m not bothered because I don’t love Sam. I never did. It was just fun. And I’m OK with it because I love Liv and want her to be happy. And Sam’s a nice guy. He simply wasn’t the one for me.’
Someone else is the one for me. It will always be Ollie. It probably always was.
I get brave. Because if I can’t say it now, after all this, then I’ll never be able to do it. ‘Ben … I need to tell you something, and I don’t want you to be angry.’
‘Go on,’ he replies warily.
I take a deep breath. ‘I’m in love with Ollie.’
Toby gasps, but Ben remains still, so still.
‘Did you know?’
‘Yeah,’ Ben says slowly. ‘I suspected back then.’
‘You suspected wrongly back then,’ I reply gently. ‘We were just friends. When you and I were together, that’s all it was. I promise you.’
‘But now?’ Ben asks.
‘Now I can’t stop loving him. I don’t know how it happened.
I don’t know where it came from, or when.
But at some point, after you … I fell in love with Ollie, and I haven’t done anything about it.
And I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t have hurt you.
I don’t know what it would have done to you back then. You were in such a terrible place—’
‘I was,’ he cuts in. ‘But I’m not now. But back then, thinking about you and Ollie, believing you were breaking up with me so you could get with him—’
‘I wasn’t. I didn’t.’
‘I know,’ he says. ‘But thinking that nearly killed me. It nearly killed Liv.’
‘What do you mean?’
Ben pauses, looking angry with himself that he’s said this. I’m dreading his next few words.
‘The night I crashed the car,’ he starts slowly.
‘I didn’t know how it happened. I wasn’t drunk.
I hadn’t even been drinking. One second I was talking to Liv.
The next second I’d crashed into the car in front.
I couldn’t work it out. But I was in such a bad place and then Liv wouldn’t talk to me any more.
And when we met at your house-warming party, she took me aside and we cleared the air.
She told me at the party what happened, why I crashed. ’
‘Why did you crash?’ I ask with sadness in my heart.
Ben shakes his head. ‘She could see that Ollie loved you. She’d known it for ages.
And she suspected you loved him too. She said she could see it in both your eyes.
But she didn’t want to lose you as a friend.
She was desperate not to lose you. And she understood that you couldn’t help how you felt.
Back then she was so hurt by Ollie that the thought of you two being together would have broken her.
She knew she’d lose you if that happened.
She was waiting to find out it had happened – dreading it, knowing that the two of you were texting each other after you left.
And I was in the car with her while she was telling me this, a second person confirming all my suspicions, my worst fears.
And that’s when it happened. I didn’t see the lights change.
I went into the back of the guy in front and I nearly killed Liv.
I was distracted. I was angry, upset, imagining a world in which you and Ollie were getting together – imagining a world in which you weren’t mine – and I couldn’t take it.
Liv was broken. I was broken. And then I nearly broke us both completely.
I could have killed her. She couldn’t forgive me.
But at the same time she told me she was so angry with all of us, she needed to get away. ’
Ben’s eyes fill with tears and he wipes them away with his sleeve. ‘Sorry,’ he says.
‘You don’t need to apologise,’ Toby consoles him, looking at me for encouragement.
I give Ben’s arm a gentle squeeze. Toby doesn’t look surprised by this story and I’m pleased for Ben that he’s found someone he can be himself with, tell his story to.
‘I felt like I was really grieving you – in that moment, those final seconds before I crashed. I was grieving you when, after you broke up with me the night before, I hadn’t.
Because I held out hope that you and I would get back together at some point.
It’s what got me through the day. That it wasn’t the end for us.
Then Liv made me realise I was wrong. That we’d already had our ending.
And I just didn’t realise it. And then I woke up in hospital and the world was a blur.
And Liv hated me. I’d nearly killed her.
And I didn’t know what had happened or why.
But I had to get Liv’s forgiveness. We hadn’t seen each other for so long.
She told me what we’d been talking about when I crashed.
I didn’t know. Or rather I didn’t remember. ’
I don’t know what to say, so I hold Ben’s hands. ‘I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you.’
‘I was lost and confused. About myself. About you. About so many things. But I’m not confused any more. It took a long time. I’m sorry you got caught in the middle of whatever was going on with me. I loved you, you know. You’re one of my best friends.’
‘Likewise,’ I say, with tears in my eyes.
‘I do think you and Ollie being together back then would have sent me over the edge. And probably not that long ago, either. But it’s OK now. It is, I promise you. Do you want to be with Ollie?’
‘Yes,’ I reply and I’m sure I sound desperate now. ‘I love him. I promise you I didn’t back then. But I do now. I love him.’
Toby jumps in with, ‘Does he love you?’
‘He did when I told him a few months ago.’
‘You told him months ago?’ Ben asks. ‘But you’re not together. Because of me?’
‘Because of you,’ I confirm as gently as I can.
‘You don’t have to worry about me any more,’ Ben says. ‘Honestly. I’m fine now. I’m fine with myself. And I’m OK with you and Ollie being together now. If that’s what you both want.’
‘It is,’ I say. ‘It was last time I checked.’
‘Then why are you still here?’ Ben goes on, the sadness leaving his eyes, to be replaced by a look of encouragement. ‘You’ve already lost so much time together. Go and get your man.’
I don’t know what to do with this information. For so long I’ve not allowed myself to envisage a world in which Ollie and I could be together. Could this really happen? I hold Ben’s hands and clasp them tightly. ‘Thank you. Thank you.’
‘I’m really pleased we had the relationship we had,’ Ben says. ‘It was good. Until it wasn’t. But now I think we both know why.’
I nod, move forward and kiss him on his cheek. ‘I’m glad we had what we had too. I love you, Ben.’
‘I love you too,’ he says.
I reach out and hold Toby’s hand too. ‘My two friends are in love and happy. This has made me very happy. Do you think, in time, you’ll be able to tell Liv and Ollie?’
‘Call it cowardice, but I don’t think I can go through that level of shock with them.’ He gives me a pointed look. ‘Can you do it? Can you tell them?’
‘I can,’ I say slowly. ‘If you’d like me to?’
‘Yes, please. I can talk about it with them later on, but for now just telling you to your face has been hard enough. And I wasn’t ready. I don’t know when I’d have been ready, but you seeing us forced my hand,’ he explains.
‘I get it,’ I reply. ‘Do you think you’ll be able to tell your parents?’
‘No,’ Ben says immediately. ‘They can never, ever know.’
‘Ever?’ I question, eyes wide. Then a dark thought enters my mind. ‘Can I tell them too? I would absolutely love to see the look on their faces.’
Toby bursts out laughing.
‘No, you bloody well can’t,’ Ben says.
‘Oh, go on,’ I plead. ‘Please let me.’
Ben’s trying not to laugh as he says in a warning tone, ‘Aurora!’
‘OK, OK,’ I say. ‘But you know, when the time does come to tell them, you should start off by saying you’re marrying me, that I’m pregnant and that we’re going to live in a commune together and raise our children off-grid.
Because they dislike me so much, they’ll cry.
At that point you get to pick them up off the floor with the real news that you’re gay and happy with your well-connected, rich fashion-photographer boyfriend, and they’ll be so grateful I’m not really back in your life that they’ll welcome Toby into the family with open arms.
‘Oh God,’ Toby guffaws. ‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘No, no,’ Ben says sagely. ‘I think it’s a brilliant plan. They really don’t like Aurora. When I tell them I’m gay, I’m doing it exactly the way she just suggested.’