That's the color of his eyes. Molasses. Warm liquid pools that defy the rest of his cold angularity and removed presence.
Only he wasn't cold and he wasn't seemingly removed even though he was right there, sitting on the step beside me, finishing a cigarette in the freezing cold while I watched the remaining leaves cling desperately to their branches, defying winter to take over their crowning glory of a season, trading color for individual perfect snowflakes.
Last winter we fell in love.
Well, I did. I suspect and have confirmed that I've been the center of Ben's universe since the day I met him and a lot of the time I resent the hell out of that, because sometimes it has felt like a virtual too little, too late copy of how my friendship with Jake progressed and if you think I somehow missed that wallowing in my dark gothic misery, you would be mistaken.
I know all of this.
And I know that this week something became different. Briefly Ben pulled away again from the collective mindset of fix her, a chant that rises above our heads and sticks in our ears until we shut down because it's hopeless, to be strong for her.
Stop drinking, stop running, and stop fighting and just be yourself. For her. For yourself. Be independent. Be the guy she loves and not the ones she's lost. Be yourself. I could see all this on his face and so I asked Ben about it, only I let the words pour out in a huge rush of revelation and they were misordered and so it came out as a accusatory failure when it was meant to be the most touched of open emotion to him.
True to form, he came out swinging his words by their tails, fighting back to protect himself from this sudden and unpredictable blonde fury. Only my hair is dark now. Short and plain and I look like a child who couldn't hurt a fly because the darker hair only serves to magnify the circles underneath my eyes which have come to resemble a stagnant pond somewhere in the woods instead of their once-miraculous green-turquoise. He let the words fall away, bouncing harmlessly off the walls I threw up in defense and then he just stared at me, without a hint of eloquence or charm, every bit the giant unruly and defiant teenager that I know Ben to be when he's beyond pissed and running on feeling instead of good grace.
Why can't you just accept it? why can't we just BE?
I had stood up and his words turned my knees to rubber so I sat back down in a hurry. On his hand.
He didn't move and I slid sideways to let him free and I could hear him as he let out a long slow sigh in the other direction. He turned back to me.
As is, princess.
I know, Benny.
I'm done complicating this.
Me too.
But are you? Are you really?
I have to be. There's no other way.
No, there isn't, is there?
Will it work?
Of course.
How do you know for sure, Ben?
You're everything to me, bee. You're my home and my heart. There is nothing else. We'll be okay, it just takes time.
Do we have time, Ben?
We have all of it, bee. All of it. Together.
Promise?
You really want another promise from me?
Yes.
Are they any good?
You're still here, Ben.
It takes so very little to make you happy, Bridget, you know that? You should really raise your standards.
I did.
Oh.
Out of the corner of my eye I could him smile, then. It wasn't a big smile, but it was there nonetheless.
