“Hey,” you say.
“Not quite the way our night was supposed to end, huh?” He attempts to lift his lips into a smile but he grimaces and moves his hand to his face.
“Hurts bad?” you ask.
“Kind of.”
“I can’t believe … I just … I’m so…” You bite your bottom lip to keep it from quivering.
“Don’t say it. None of this is your fault. Your brother’s just … Well, I might not even say he’s a total asshole. You know, I have little sisters. So I might be protective of them too.”
“What?”
“He’s worried about you.”
You sit on the edge of the hospital bed and look at his face.
“You got stitches too?” you ask, when you see dark threaded lines crisscrossing the corner of his mouth.
“Just three.”
“But on your lip?”
“You can kiss it and make me feel better,” Ben says.
You lean toward him and look closer at his gorgeous face, the face of the boy who loves you.
You touch his lips lightly with yours, just soft enough, just carefully enough so that you don’t hurt him.
You don’t pull away, you are still lips to lips, but you ask, “Is that better?”
“It’s perfect,” he says. “You’re perfect.”
59
When you open the doors to go back to the waiting room you’re surprised to see your dad standing there, hands in his pockets, with a concerned look on his face. You’re expecting him to be pissed at you for basically running away from home, but then he reaches his arms out to you.
You run to him and he puts his arms around you and you begin to sob like a seven-year-old who just fell off her bike and tore open her knees.
“It’s okay, Pea. Everything will be okay. I promise.”
“Dad, Todd beat him up.”
He holds you while you cry. It’s soothing and also strange, this feeling of your dad holding you, protecting you, taking care of you. It’s been so long since he’s shown affection toward you, you don’t know what to make of it.
But it feels really comforting.
When you’re finished crying, you wipe your nose on your dad’s sleeve and you both sort of laugh at the weirdness of it all.
“How’s he doing?”
“I think he hurts pretty bad.”
“How are you doing?” your dad asks you.
“Not too good.” You see that Jae showed up and is sitting with Ben’s mom.
“I just wanted to make sure that you were okay. Your mom and I are so worried about you. She stayed home in case you decided to come back. I first went to Jae’s house and her parents told me I’d find you here. I just needed to make sure you were okay.”
You try to hold in your tears but you begin to whimper. When you think of everything that you’ve been through, and now Ben being hurt, it’s just too much to take.
“I’m so sorry, honey, that you’re dealing with all this,” your dad says to you. “I know I’m not the best at this emotional stuff.”
“Thanks, Dad.” It’s what you needed to hear from your father and you hug him again and smile. Your dad is doing exactly what you need him to do.
Ben’s mom comes over then. Your dad says they talked while you were in with Ben, and even though you know Mrs. Hansworth would never be mean, it feels weird to think that your boyfriend’s mother is talking to the dad of the guy who beat him up.
Your dad continues to apologize for what Todd did and tells Mrs. Hansworth that he will be punished. While they talk, you go sit by Jae.
“This is some effed-up shit,” Jae says. She asks if you’re going home with your dad.
“No way. I mean, it’s great that he came to the hospital and all, but I can’t deal with being at home right now. And I definitely don’t want to see Todd.”
When your dad and Mrs. Hansworth are done talking, they come over to you and Jae and you ask your dad if you can still stay with Jae and he says yes.
“Mrs. Hansworth, can I say bye to Ben really quick?” He looked so banged up in there, and you need to see him one more time before you leave for the night.
“I don’t see why not, just check with the nurse first.”
You say goodbye to your dad and even give him one more hug, then check with the nurse and she says you can see Ben. You feel so much better now than you did when you first got to the hospital. It seems like there was a small breakthrough with your dad. It felt weird but also real, for the first time in a long while, like chipping away at a huge, solid ice block. You think that ice eventually has to melt. You’re glad your dad came to the hospital, and relieved that Mrs. Hansworth doesn’t hate him.
When you get to Ben’s room, you pull the curtain and see that he’s sleeping. You move to the bed and watch his chest rise and fall.
You can’t believe he’s a part of your life.
You can’t believe he loves you so much.
You can’t believe your brother beat him up.
You can’t believe this is your crazy life.
But it is.
You don’t want to wake him and you wish more than anything that you could curl up next to him, to be here when he wakes up, to tell him once again that you love him and you’re so sorry your brother did this. But you’ll tell him all of this later, and so much more. You want to tell him everything you think of.
You want to tell him every thought you have.
You move a bit closer and search his sleeping face. His eyelids flutter but don’t open. His eyelashes—how could you never have noticed how long they are, how feathery light and perfect? You get close enough to see tiny sprinkles of veins in his eyelids and you’re certain he can feel your breath on his face, even though he is sound asleep.
You don’t want to wake this boy you love.
You kiss one eyelid and then the other.
“I love you, Ben. I love you.”
60
You wake Sunday morning alone in Jae’s room. You feel like you slept for sixteen hours straight. It seems like a lifetime since you slept so peacefully and you don’t remember the last time you woke with such a clear head.
The first thing you do is call Ben to see how he’s doing. His mother answers his phone, and you’re instantly freaked out that something is wrong.
“Where’s Ben? Is everything okay?” you ask.
“Everything’s fine,” Mrs. Hansworth says. “We got home from the hospital at two in the morning, and he’s still sleeping. I’ll tell him you called.”
You thank her and hang up, grateful to know Ben is okay.
Next, you figure out your plan for going home to face your family. You’ve decided you want Shayna with you because you feel she’s the only one who can mediate this mess. She’s the only one who can make sense of the craziness of your family. So you call her and leave a message, telling her it’s not an emergency but it is important.
When Shayna calls you back an hour later, she says she got your message from Friday and the one you left earlier.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call you back yet. How come you got out of St. Joe’s early?”