Chapter 16 #2
Others seated nearby watch and whisper about what’s going down. Across the room, the bartender and another restaurant employee, both wearing fraught expressions, head in our direction. There’s practically zero crime in Iceland but leave it to Americans to bring violence into the country.
Still seething, Tad glances around the bar and then releases Ben’s sweater from his clenched fist. “Whatever. I’m not ruining my trip over some dumb slut.”
There isn’t time to react to how fast Ben lunges at him, barstools falling to the side with a thundering clatter as he pins Tad against the nearest wall and presses his forearm into the guy’s windpipe.
“BEN, NO!” I shout, stumbling forward and pulling at the back of his coat. “What he said doesn’t matter. Let’s just go! Please, let’s just go!”
Without another word, Ben releases him and slings his arm over my shoulder.
Then he leads me out of the restaurant, not slowing until we’ve made our way down the rainbow-painted pavement and stand in front of the Blue Church.
Then he drops his arm from around me, folding at the waist with his hands on his knees.
He pulls air into his lungs and forces it out in restrained measures, as if he’s trying to regain control of himself.
“I’m so sorry,” I plead with him. “I’m so, so, so sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize.”
“Yes, I absolutely do. That was all my fault.” The cold night air does nothing to lessen the heat burning my cheeks. “I brought that on myself. That was so fucking stupid of me.”
Standing upright, Ben moves closer and takes my face between his hands. “That wasn’t your fault. That was his fault. You’re allowed to interact with someone without it leading to anything further.”
Despite his words, Ben’s eyes are filled with a potent combination of hurt and fury, and it might as well be a knife taken to the center of my chest. “But look what I did. Look what I did to you. You’re so angry.”
“I’m not angry at you, Ems.” He strokes my cheek, a gentle, heartbreaking juxtaposition to the tension holding the rest of his body captive.
“That guy was just…and I just…I don’t like losing control of my emotions.
” His hands fall away as his eyes scan me over.
“But that doesn’t matter right now. Are you okay? ”
I’m not, but I nod anyway.
We stand there silently watching each other in the cast-off glow of a streetlight, me having no earthly idea what to say or do.
Before I can come up with anything, Ben pulls me into him, wrapping me up in his arms. I cling to the sides of his sweater and let the closeness of him soothe me as I struggle to keep my emotions from surfacing.
I don’t even know what I’m feeling really.
I just know it hurts. I guess that’s what four vodka sodas will do to a person.
After a long moment, Ben slides his arm back around my shoulder and guides me on the short walk back to our accommodations for the night—a historic schoolhouse renovated into two apartment-style rentals.
Ben’s apartment is on the bottom level, mine on top, but he helps me unlock my door and make my way up the steep, creaky old staircase.
After leading me straight to the bedroom, Ben goes to retrieve a glass of water and some ibuprofen while I slip into the bathroom and get ready for bed.
Splashing cold water on my face, I catch my piteous reflection in the mirror.
Eyes red-rimmed. Cheeks and nose pink with an alcohol-induced flush.
Dark brown hair a frizzy mess. I blink away, unable to face myself.
Back in the bedroom, Ben’s waiting with a full glass of water and some pills, and I take them with a muttered, “Thanks.”
I manage to get my coat off all on my own, then my shoes, before crawling into bed with the rest of my clothing still on. Laying my head on the soft pillow, I close my eyes, only to be hit with a wave of vertigo so nauseating that I force them open again.
“Since you’re settled now, I’ll take off.” Ben’s familiar cadence is my only comfort. The thought of him leaving me right now is unbearable.
“Please don’t go.” I’m desperate when I say it, when I reach out and grasp his arm, but I don’t have the capacity to care currently. “Please stay with me tonight, Ben. Please. I feel so awful right now, but I feel better with you. I always feel better with you.”
He looks me over, eyes soft, any trace of the anger that burned through him at the bar now dissipated. “Okay,” he agrees. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“No.” I emphatically shake my head, which does not help my vertigo. I press the palm that’s not gripping the sleeve of Ben’s coat to my forehead, trying to push away the pain behind my eyes. “Here. With me. Please?”
I hold my breath as Ben considers it, exhaling in relief when he nods down at me, just once.
He moves out of my reach as he slips off his shoes and lays his coat across the chair in the corner, then undoes the clasp on his silver wristwatch and sets it on the nightstand alongside his phone.
There’s something so intimate about the process, about his movements as he pulls his sweater off, leaving his white undershirt in place, and ensures there’s a triangle of light trickling in from the hallway before shutting off the lamp and slipping into bed beside me.
Visions descend upon me of Ben doing this every night, of the two of us in bed together in my apartment back home, and the longing that fills me floods my eyes with tears and makes me grateful for the semidarkness.
Undoubtedly because my inhibitions left my body as I downed my second drink of the night, when Ben settles in the sheets beside me, I roll toward him and rest my cheek on his chest. Just above his heartbeat. Just like I used to. “Thanks for staying.”
“You’re welcome.”
We lie in silence for a long time, the tips of his fingers stroking up and down my upper arm in slow, soothing motions.
“I’m sorry again for the way I acted tonight,” I eventually say. “It was immature and childish, and I wasn’t ever interested in—”
“It’s okay,” he cuts me off. “I understand why you did what you did. I’m sorry I hurt you last night. It wasn’t my intention. It’s never my intention.”
His fresh cotton scent pulls me closer, and I snuggle against his neck and let my fingers trace his collar.
But my mind struggles against the alcohol haze to piece together the reaction I saw in him tonight.
It isn’t so much the anger that doesn’t sit right with me, the truth is the Tad/Todd asshole had it coming, but instead I’m haunted by the reaction Ben had to that anger afterward in the street.
He was shaken. As if he was afraid of himself.
The night we had dinner in Reykjavík, he told me things had been bad at home all those years ago, and the more I ruminate on my past—our past—throughout this trip, the more I’m starting to remember things that didn’t necessarily stand out to me then that maybe should have.
As close as Ben and my brothers were, why weren’t they ever at his house?
And when I think back on all those soccer games Ben actually hated, why is it that I recall only my parents cheering whenever he scored a goal, taking him out for pizza with us afterward and then always back to our house?
Where were his parents? And why can’t I remember Ben’s father’s face at all?
As unease expands in my chest, bits of a new memory spring to mind.
Me as a teenager watching some Cameron Diaz rom-com on TV.
Whispered voices coming from the kitchen.
Peeking around the corner and seeing Ben in his navy Boathouse T-shirt with his red plaid flannel tied at his waist. My mother speaking to him in hushed tones, her hands on his shoulders as if comforting him.
Then she hugged him. And now guilt fills me as I recall my only thought at the time being, Mom even pays more attention to Ben than she does me.
I swallow hard, ashamed of my younger self.
Equally ashamed of my older self tonight.
“Ben?” I whisper into the quiet room. His hand is still at the small of my back. “Are you still awake?”
“Yeah, I’m awake.”
“You want to trade secrets? Like we used to.”
A long pause.
“Please?”
“What do you want to know?” he finally asks.
Probably because I’m still drunk is how I summon the courage to say, “Exactly how bad were things for you at home? You know, back then.”
Because my hand is on his chest, I feel his breaths pause. And because my forehead is tucked against his neck, I feel the movements of his throat as he swallows before replying, “It was…really bad.”
The sorrow that hits me in that moment is like nothing I’ve ever felt before.
All I want is to make it better for him, then and now, even if that’s something I can’t possibly achieve.
So I do what I can to offer comfort by sliding my arm around his waist and squeezing him tight.
“Will you talk to me about it sometime? I mean, only if you want.”
He shifts against me, presses his lips to my forehead in a kiss that makes me ache as equally as it soothes. “Yeah, we’ll talk about it sometime. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
“You want to know one of my secrets?” I whisper, needing to give something of myself back to him.
“Always.”
“You’re the only person in the world that makes me feel this safe.
” It’s a confession I’ll probably regret tomorrow.
But tonight, in the near dark, it feels like unloading a burden.
I close my eyes, exhaustion setting in, and the room is finally still.
“But don’t tell anyone else that. Pinky-promise? ”
A soft chuckle bounces his chest. “I promise.” He twists his pinky around mine, leaves our fingers entwined over his heart. Another moment passes, and then, “Hey, Ems?”
“Hmm?” My body is heavy now, sleep only a few breaths away.
“Why are you so afraid to let me be in your life again? If you say you trust me?”
“Because I trust you with my life, Ben. But I’m not sure I trust you with my heart.”