Chapter 9
We're sitting on a blanket across a flat ledge of rock, sand cradled in its cracks, like the ocean once flirted with this place and then got cold feet. The waves below crash slowly and steadily, pounding the rocks below.
No one around. Just us and a couple of houses in the distance that seem more like watercolor than real.
Ben's come well-prepared—strawberries, my favorite salty crackers and two thermoses of coffee.
When I saw my decaf had a pink alien sticker, I couldn't stop grinning.
I'm not overthinking it because he hands it to me like it's nothing, just a friendly gesture like back in the day, but it's a lot of gestures, no?
Anyway...
Heels? Total disaster.
We ditched the car up the hill to hike down, and halfway through, I had to kick them off, praying my ankle would survive without proper traction, which means I'm now massaging blisters the size of little pillows.
"Told you I'd carry you," Ben says, eyeing my bare feet and shaking his head at my stubbornness.
"It's fine. Your arms were full."
Him carrying me barefoot down a hill to a secret beach that looks like a romantic movie set? Yeah, not exactly something I'd survive emotionally intact, or with plausible deniability.
I dig through his bag for the sunscreen. "How do you like being back in San Francisco?"
"It's alright. Some good memories. Some bad." He glances at me, eyes implying he means me in both. "How do you like being back here?"
"Some good memories. Some bad," I say, and his lips curl into a crooked smirk at my tacit answer.
"Didn't you miss the weather?" I ask, coating my arms.
He shrugs off his jacket and raises his arms, cracking his back in one smooth motion. "I'm a New York boy. I like the proper fall in Central Park. Clouds. Rain. Thick hoodies."
"You're hot anyway," I say, then catch myself sounding like an idiot. "I mean, your body temperature. You always run on tropical."
He nods. "True, and true."
"Your ego is still in full bloom, I see." I close the bottle and then finally muster the courage to ask. "Why did you come back if you miss New York?"
That throws him off a little. He presses his lips together and I study him, trying to catch a glimpse of anything that could give away he did move here for me because I doubt he'd say it, but he gives me nothing.
“Long story, actually,” he says finally, shooing a seagull away with an irritated flick, like the bird should know better.
"Thought we had time?"
"Not for this one." He shakes his head, firm. "Let's just enjoy the day."
I frown, hating that we can't share everything the way we used to.
He notices my downcast face and points at the horizon. "I missed this place, though. Came here to spill everything when no one else listened. Sometimes for hours."
"What? We were friends for a year, and you never mentioned this place? Rude," I say with my lips pursed.
"I found it after you left," he explains right away, then locks eyes with me. "And just so you know. I never brought anyone."
"Really?" My voice sounds stupidly hopeful.
He nods and his voice drops. "Really."
I swallow, unsure what to think about it, my mind stupidly blank.
When he catches the way my gaze holds on him, I look away and start fussing with the frills on my skirt, then deflect. "So this place knows all your secrets?"
"All of them," he says, too quickly. Then he lies back on his elbows, hair caught in the ocean wind, and slips his Vans off by the heel, like always. "Stuff you shouldn't want to know."
I tilt my head, watching him. "Maybe I do. For someone whom I once crowned the patron saint of brutal truths, you don't always share second-tier emotions."
"Patron saint of brutal truths," he echoes, with a laugh that makes his eyes crinkle. "I forgot that one. I should put it on my CV."
"I'm sure your colleagues already know that," I say, giving him a look.
My fingers dig in the sand until they catch a shell, pale pink, like it's been waiting for me, and I lift it, cradle it. "Maybe she'll tell me all your secrets."
Ben hums indulgently. "Go on then. Ask nicely."
I press it to my ear, playing along, but there's nothing but the sea in my own body—blood rushing. Louder than I'd like.
"What's it saying?" he asks, studying me.
I wish I could make up some silly story. I should be able to, given I'm an author, but I'm also a terrible liar.
"Honestly? Nothing." I smirk, ready to put it back, but Ben takes it from my hand.
There's a beat in which he just listens, like he's deep in thought.
Then he presses it against my ear, warm from his hand, and his voice comes out rough. "It's saying a lot of things. You just have to listen better."
My eyes flick to his, catching up the multitude of unspoken hints.
"Okay," I mutter and slip the shell into my purse, careful, like it's a treasure. "I'll take it home. Try again."
He nods, face unreadable, and sits up, folding himself over his knees.
I mirror him, closing my eyes, and then we fall silent.
I listen to sand shifting in the wind, the ocean, but mostly to the steady rhythm of his breath. The way it drags in through his nose, how it hums low in his chest, and then carries the faint sweetness of mints into the air between us.
The moment swells. Tender. Almost unbearably perfect.
Until he says, "Emma?"
Only Ben ever calls me Emma. I've always been Em to everyone else. My parents. My friends. Richard. Half a name, half a person.
With Ben, I was always Emma, always whole, even when I felt most broken. And I missed that—missed being someone's whole thought.
"Yeah?"
"Do you ever think about what would've happened if you came back?"
I almost smile because of course he timed it perfectly, when my nervous system lulled, and I won't fire up. I had a hunch he'd go there eventually—unlike me, Ben faces things head-on.
A part of me wonders if he brought me here for exactly this, so I couldn't escape the conversation.
"I have," I admit, eyes closed. "But maybe everything happens for a reason. I had to stop making the same mistakes."
I feel his body shift next to me. Peek one eye open and see that his face has gone completely blank.
"What mistakes?" His stare pins me, face instantly overheating. Then—sharp exhale. "Forget it. I don't even care anymore."
My eyes widen, then narrow even faster. He doesn't care anymore?
"Okay," I bite out. Me neither.
He backtracks immediately, his voice flattening like he's trying to keep it neutral, but his jaw is tensed. "But I do. Not because I want to be with you. I don't—"
"Ben." I glare a warning, Don't you dare finish that sentence.
He's unloading anyway, angling his whole body toward me. "Don't look at me like that. We almost slept together. If you weren't on your period—"
I lurch back, mortified he'd say that. Then force my chin up and start firing too. "So what? We should've also spent New Year's together. You never showed."
"I was back in a few days—"
"You said you were staying there—"
"Of course, I wasn't staying there." His voice rises, his look saying I'm absurd. "I went back. You didn't. You stayed in Seattle. Started dating—"
"Someone mature," I cut in, springing to my feet, ready to walk away, even though I'm not sure where. My hand slices the air in front of him. "While you were auditioning for Bachelor of the Year. Posting photos with some random chick."
He shoots up too, instantly ruffled as the vein on his neck pulses. "It was one damn photo! Of an old friend! Between twenty others with family!"
"Okay." I cross my arms, face calm. Too calm. "So. Did you sleep with her?"
The second I ask, he jolts—not just a flicker, but a whole-body wince. Opens his mouth. Shuts it.
Because he knows.
"Did you fuck her, Ben?!" The words rip out of me, making my throat hoarse.
He drags in a breath and his head drops down. "Yeah, but—wait—!"
"No!" I spin, stomping the rage flat beneath my feet while sprinting away. He can keep his explanations. I will keep my pride in pieces.
"Unbelievable. I should've never even kissed you!"
His hand snags my wrist, spins me back to him, his face urgent. "I didn't sleep with her when we were anything. It was before us. Way before. I swear."
"Right. Great. That makes me feel so much better." I yank free, blinking back the sting in my eyes before that asshole sees it. "So you sleep with all your female friends, except me. What a privilege!"
"Emma! We had a deal." He grabs me again, tighter now, eyes imploring me. "You were the one who said I couldn't kiss you. Remember?"
"Maybe I wanted you to kiss me anyway!" The confession explodes out of me with no permission, straight from some reckless corner of my heart.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Too late to reel it back.
Ben staggers back like I've fired a shot and his eyes hold mine for a beat before his head tips skyward, and he mutters: "Dio mio." More to himself but I hear it and stomp.
"What?!"
"Nothing!" he snaps, his jaw grinding. "Just trying to pray the damn commandments back into my skull."
I laugh bitterly, right in his face. "Perfect. Go do that."
His eyes blaze hotter and he stabs a finger at me. "This. This is what you did. Drove me insane. Said we should be friends. Every goddamn day. And every time I touched you or tried anything, you pulled back. 'Gentleman, you should be a gentleman,' you said, and I fucking listened—"
"I didn't—" I cut in, then instantly bite my lip to stop myself.
"You didn't?!" he shouts. His eyes narrow. "Lie to me again."
I don't. Won't. It was fear, it was pride. I don't fucking know. Maybe it was the devil on my shoulder whispering, let him cross the line, no questions asked, like I dreamed he would.
I just really wanted him to want me.
But somehow Ben conveniently edits himself out—the whole worship of staying single-sane-unattached. How he treated me like I was his bro at times. Every promise. Every flake.