Even angels have their wicked schemesI'm telling you Ben is different. You're not listening.
And you take that to new extremes
But you’ll always be my hero
Even though you've lost your mind
Jake always refused to indulge Lochlan. Jacob met Lochlan and based on what I told him about each and every friend, Jacob refused to buy shares in history and instead kept his savings invested in the present, painstakingly reminding me to live for now, because the past is just that, the past.
I failed.
I failed spectacularly, elisting Lochlan to pay Jacob back. I've had Lochlan pay back everyone who's ever wronged me and yet I'm pretty sure I drove them all to madness because of Lochlan in the first place. Rather than be outraged, you should be used to this. This is the way things are and that's one of the most amazing things about Benjamin. He wrote me a free pass and I became his boomerang girl and it works and I'm happy (in relative terms) and things are good.
Oddly Jacob believed in Ben. And Ben was a spectacular mess in the Jacob-days. Spectacular with a capital B. Holy fuck. Jacob must have been one hell of a visionary to see past what Ben presented to the world as himself.
Ben is the polar opposite of everyone. Every single one of them. They say white, he says black. They say light, he says dark, they say steaks, he says lipgloss. They tell him to be quiet, he'll blow the roof off. They tell him to relax, oh, Jesus, don't ever tell Ben to relax. He'll revolt. Implode. Break things. But only when you tell him to calm down. He's lost the most here and he wears it on the outside.
But they can't push Ben the way Jake got pushed around, second-guessed and ignored. Ben has nowhere to go but up, he's got nothing to lose by rebelling against the entire collective and they learned a long time ago he's going to do what he wants and no one's going to be able to stop him anyway.
Not sure if it's the constant exchange of bodily fluids or some sort of marriage-osmosis but it seems to be contagious. Healthy emotional cooties we've been sharing now for years. Hey bee, what do YOU want? Do that, and don't worry about what they say.
That's why I quit. I took a page from Ben's big book of Personal Anarchy for Dummies and I said enough. I said I was never fucking going back and I was rude and unladylike and I may or may not have thrown a BlackBerry (not mine, do I look like an idiot to you?) and I made a bit of a scene in the lobby when Caleb had the completely scary and unexpected nerve to chase after me when I left.
As usual, Caleb refused to accept my resignation. As usual he blamed everything on Lochlan because in case you didn't notice, they don't interact with each other. As usual Ben feigns disinterest in everything EXCEPT my bodily fluids. As usual Bridget spent the day having a tantrum. As usual it accomplished nothing.
As usual Lochlan is throwing down his customary ultimatums and as usual they're not going to last long enough to take hold. Ask Ben. I'll be in the library chewing on pages, choking on words. Call me when he comes home.
***
Ben came home two hours later, throwing the front doors open wide, his giant boots tracking wet leaves all the way across the foyer. I felt the vibrations of his footsteps from where I sat on the floor in the library. He threw the doors to that room open too, switched on the lights, took one look at me and crossed to where I sat against the glass, my back turned against the evening's black skies. He stopped when he reached me, crouching down in front of my face. He smelled like leather and forbidden cigarettes. He lifted up my chin and smiled at me. Gently and not like a monster. Not like everybody else.
You decide what you want to do.
No ultimatums, just letting me figure it out. Not because he's spineless, not because he's a pushover (God, sometimes I hate you, Internet), but because he watches. He watches fucking everything, and he's smarter than the rest of you by far. I have to figure this out and he knows it. I am not his child, I'm an adult. As depraved as he is, I am a grownup in this relationship too. An equal.
A match.
Ben reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, and then plugged his headphones into it and put them in my ears. Then he pressed play, put the phone in my hands, and kissed my forehead hard. Then when the music started he stood up, turned around and left, shutting off the lights and pulling the doors closed behind him. He knew what I needed. No one else ever does.