Page 54 of Standing Still

“I appreciate that. And thank you for not being mad at me, or blaming me.”

“Like I keep telling you,” I give her a smile. “You’ve given me something precious, Claudia. How can I be mad at you for that?”

We chat some more until it’s time for her to go. I give her a tight hug, telling her to call me any time and reminding her I’ll be spending time in Mystic now. Even though Frankie will be in New York.

For a long time after she’s gone, I sit and stare through the window, watching as the sun sets and the sky darkens, filling with stars. Sometimes I cry, other times I feel optimistic. Then something comes over me and I head into my office and write. The words pour out of me and before I know it, it’s three AM and I’m exhausted. I drag myself to bed.

As I lay in the dark, I think about Ben. It’s crazy to even think that I’ve fallen for him again. After barely being around him for a week, and the anger he’d held towards me at first. But maybe one reason my marriage didn’t work was because a piece of me was always with Ben.

I’d repressed those feelings for years. I don’t know how to get around it now. Whether anything we could have had is ruined by what my father perceived to be good intentions, a way to get us back in the same town together.

I’m really confused. He hasn’t even tried to get in touch since I left. That leaves me feeling as if it’s all one sided. No matter what everyone keeps trying to tell me. It isn’t the same asBentelling me. And putting myself out there terrifies me.

I finally drift off as the sun starts to rise. My heart is both full and heavy at the same time.

Chapter Twenty

“I told you I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Ben, shit come on,” Jared barges his way inside my house. “How many times do I have to apologise? I didn't think anyone was gonna go talking about it where she could hear.”

“You shouldn’t have been talking about it full stop,” I grunt, heading to the kitchen and grabbing a beer out of the fridge. I do not offer Jared one. This is the first time I’ve allowed him to come near me.

“Terri still isn’t talking to me,” he says.

“Boo fucking hoo,” I glare at him.

“Fine, yeah, I’m the asshole. Everyone hates me, but I didn’t set out to fuck things up for you. I thought I was doing you a favour.”

“In what fucked up world did you come to that conclusion, dickhead?”

“Can you stop calling me names?”

I roll my eyes and go into the living room. Jedi hops up on the couch beside me as I drop onto it. He puts his chin on my thigh and his eyebrows rise as he looks up at me. I stroke his head as Jared follows me. He remains standing.

“We all know you never got over her,” Jared says. “You were miserable for years, Ben. You’ve gone through your twenties fucking around, never settling down or having any kind of steady relationship with a woman. You ever think about why that is?”

“It’s horseshit, is what it is,” I say, even though there is a ring of truth to his words. “I haven’t met the right person. Yet.”

He drops onto the chair and clasps his hands between his legs, resting his elbows on his knees. “Acer saw it too.”

I lift my eyes up to look at him.

“Why do you think he did what he did, setting out those terms in his will? If not to get Elle back to Mystic. Fuck, for the last ten years, he’s treated you like his own son.”

“Who are you, and what have you done with my brother?”

“Get your head out of your ass,” Jared says, raising his voice.

Jedi sits up at the tone. There isn’t a single vicious bone in my dog’s body, but he didn’t like that. I rest a hand on his shoulder to settle him.

“Acer tried to give you a second chance. It was fucked up and set you guys up to be at odds with one another, but it’s pretty obvious what he was trying to do with that clusterfuck of a will.”

“She left,” I grit out. “Again.”

“Because she thought you were only after one thing.”

“And whose fucking fault is that?”

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