Chapter 9
Ben, February 28
I remember the night I almost told her. We were texting because my flatmates were home. It was late, almost midnight, and I didn’t want to wake anyone. I’d been working up the courage for weeks to just come out and say it — to tell her I loved her. But I never did.
Part of me was worried it wasn’t even her on the other end of the phone. She’d mentioned a joke that Matt guy told, said it was hilarious. It wasn’t very funny. Not her kind of humor at all. And that made me wonder — was I even talking to Liz?
Ben: Send me a picture.
The fastest way to assure myself it was, in fact, Liz.
Liz: Why? I’m in my pajamas.
Ben: Babe, I’m alone and it’s late. I want to see you. Send me a picture.
Liz: Not tonight. Can we just say I’ll owe you one?
Why wouldn’t she send one? Unless it wasn’t really Liz.
Ben: Fine. I’m going to bed. Good night.
Liz: Good night.
I set the phone down and lay there in the dark, listening to one of my flatmates shifting in the next room, coughing in his sleep. Every sound reminded me I wasn’t alone, that anyone could overhear me if I slipped. That’s why I hadn’t called her. That’s why I held my tongue.
But I still didn’t sleep. I tossed and turned, phone on the pillow beside me like it might suddenly light up with proof. Deep down I knew it was stupid. Who the hell else would it have been? Of course it was her.
But I clung to the doubt, because doubt was safer than admitting the truth. Safer than risking the words stuck in my throat. If you had asked me that night, I’d have sworn I honestly thought it wasn’t her — that someone else had grabbed her phone, trying to trick me into saying something humiliating.
The truth? I think I just needed the excuse.