You both sit up and he pulls his shirt off quickly and tosses it to the floor. You press your palms against his smooth chest. His skin is warm and you feel his heart beating all the way through to your fingertips.
He lifts your shirt from your arms and removes it from your shoulders and over your head, but he doesn’t take your bra off. You don’t know what you should do, if you should take your bra off or not. So you wait.
Ben looks at you.
Although it’s dark out, there’s enough glow from the moon that he can see you.
You know that on the first day you met, and just under a week ago at the lake, he saw you in less clothing than you have on now, but this, this is different.
The boy you love is still looking at you.
You don’t know what to do with your hands, and you feel exposed. You don’t want to feel this way with someone you love so much. But then Ben takes his hands and places them on your shoulders and moves them up and down slowly along the sides of your arms, as if to warm you. He looks into your eyes, not at your chest, not greedily, just like a boy who loves you for who you are.
“I’m so sorry for everything,” he says.
He places his hand over your heart.
Your heart is thumping louder than it ever has before. It might explode.
“I do love you, so much, you know that,” he says.
“I know.”
He kisses you and you know for certain that this is real.
He lowers you back down onto the seat and you kiss some more, and now you are practically skin to skin. It feels so good, his warm body covering your body, this is absolutely perfect and right. You are safe and bathed in the moon’s glow. You know that Ben has always had your best interests at heart.
From the very first day you met.
So you kiss and you kiss and he touches you softly and you let him do this. He kisses your skin all over and you kiss his chest and his neck and his arms. You touch each other, memorizing the moments, his breath, this night. You are learning about each other and loving each other, and there’s absolutely, positively nothing wrong with that.
It’s all completely beautiful.
Ben is beautiful.
The two of you together are beautiful.
58
You pull up to your house and Ben barely has a chance to put his car into Park when you see a shadow at his door. It flies open and someone pulls him out of the driver’s seat. It’s your brother, and he’s shouting and grabbing at Ben.
It happens so fast, you aren’t sure what’s going on but there’s yelling and punching and you jump out of the car and start screaming at Todd to stop and you try to pull Todd from Ben but not before he gets a good punch to Ben’s face.
“Stay away from my sister, you asshole!”
Then there’s blood spurting from Ben’s nose and Todd grabs you by the forearm, hard.
“Come with me!” he yells, and pulls you toward the house.
Ben is bent over, holding his nose, and blood is pouring from his face and you’re crying and screaming at Todd as he drags you away.
“What the fuck! What are you doing? Ben! Ben!”
The front light comes on and your parents rush out to the porch. Your mom is wearing green silk lounge pants and a sleep T-shirt, and she’s holding a half-empty glass of wine. Your dad looks like he has been sleeping in front of the TV, and his hair is sticking up all over the place.
“What’s going on out here!” your dad shouts.
“Ben came and got her. She didn’t go out with Jae to a movie!” Todd accuses.
Your dad glares at you.
“Pea, get in the house,” he orders. “Now.”
You turn to look at Ben, and now you’re crying uncontrollably. Ben has taken his shirt off and holds it up to his nose to try to stop the bleeding. The shirt has turned bright red with his blood.
“Don’t you touch me ever again!” you scream at Todd as you rip his hold from your arm. “I hate you!”
You rush past your parents and as you do, you say to them, “I hate you both too. I hate this whole fucking family.”
*
You lock yourself in your room and think about what you’re going to do. There’s no way you’re staying here with these crazies. No way, you think. You can’t believe your brother, your fucking brother, who never says two words to you, who hasn’t even acted like he cared about you in the past God knows how many years, just beat up your boyfriend. For what reason? To show off? It’s not like he loves you. He totally doesn’t.
You’re livid and you need to get away from your family. And you need to make sure Ben is okay.
You heard Ben drive off when you ran into the house and you hope he went straight to the hospital because you’re pretty sure Todd broke his nose. You send a text to him and then you throw some clothes into an overnight bag and text Jae: I need ur help. Come get me now. Emergency!
On my way!
*
Someone knocks on your door but you scream from the other side, “Don’t! I’m not coming out, so don’t try to talk to me!”
“Honey, please,” your mom says.
“No!”
She tries again to talk to you and then you hear your dad’s voice outside your room too.
“Pea, we’ve got to talk about this.”
“I’m not talking to anyone right now,” you shout back. “I’m going to sleep. Maybe I’ll talk to you both tomorrow!”
After a few more attempts to get you to open your door, your parents give up and you hear them walk down the stairs.
When Jae texts you that she’s at your house you sneak out your bedroom window like you did the last time, and you don’t care if you get caught. Because fuck it, look what your brother did to your boyfriend, and your parents just had you holed up in a psych ward for almost a week, so what’s the worst that can happen? You do decide to text your parents to let them know you’re going to stay at Jae’s, that you need some space and some time to think. You don’t say it nicely though, but you’ll deal with them later.
You hop into Jae’s car and she hugs you hard. You fight back tears when you tell her what happened. She drives you to the hospital, because Ben texted you that that’s where he went. When you arrive, Jae drops you at Emergency while she parks. You rush in and see Ben’s mom.
“Honey, Ben told me you were coming. He wanted me to make sure to find you,” Mrs. Hansworth says as she hugs you.
The tears come.
Why can’t your mom be more like her, you think.
“Is he okay?” you ask.
“Broken nose, split lip,” Mrs. Hansworth says.
“My brother did it to him. I have no idea why,” you say between tears.
She hugs you again and rubs your back. “He’ll be okay. Families can do crazy things, you know. He wants to see you though.”
“Can I?”
“Yes, through those double doors and second curtain on the right.”
“My friend Jae is parking her car, she’s got a blue hoodie on…”
“I’ll tell her where you are when she comes in.”
“Thank you.”
“Go,” Mrs. Hansworth says, and points to the doors.
When you get to the room, you pull the curtain and try not to look shocked. Ben’s face is not too pretty. His nose, his beautiful nose is lopsided on his face, and even though they cleaned up all the blood, there is still redness and swelling and bruises are forming underneath his eyes. You take a tentative step toward the bed.