Page 17 of Becoming Ben

I scrub my hands over my face, simultaneously relieved to have it told and scared of Ben’s reaction. When I finally look at him, I’m not prepared for what I see. Ben is livid. His hands are clenched, his face is red, and his voice shakes when he finally talks.

“Does Mandy know about this?” is the first thing out of his mouth. He keeps going, though, and his voice gets louder with every question. “How could that happen? I don’t see how things could get so out of control. How did it get so bad?”

Every question feels like a blow. This is not the reaction I expected from the kind man I thought I knew. I get up from the table abruptly, needing to escape from the accusations I can hear in his questions.

Ben calls out to me as I stumble out the front door past two very concerned, whining dogs. “Trey, where are you going?” But it doesn’t even slow me down.

I drive for a while, aimlessly, then direct my car to the shelter. If I’m not going to relax, I might as well help someone somehow. I end up on dish and mop duty, and I’m relieved. I don’t have to talk to anyone, and the menial work reminds me of when I first ended up at the shelter. At the end of the day, I’ve settled and grounded if still hurt. I head back to Ben’s late, deliberately missing dinner and the awkwardness that another meal together would surely cause.

Ben is in the living room when I come through the door. I have to steady myself before going over to talk to him. “Look. Ben, I don’t… Now that you know all of that, if you’re uncomfortable having me stay, I get it. I can be packed and out by tomorrow night.”

“Out?” he asks. “That’s not necessary, Trey, unless you’ve found a better place.” He reaches for me, but his hand drops halfway like he can’t bring himself to touch me.

“I haven’t,” I answer. “I didn’t know I needed to, but I can look.”

I’m not sure now which is more painful, the questions about whether Mandy knew, like she must not, if she is friends with me, the implication that I should have done something better to keep myself out of the whole situation, or that he couldn’t bear to touch me. It all served to underscore why I didn’t do relationships. Too much risk and too much pain.

I shower after I get upstairs and get undressed, and if I allow myself a little extra time under the water to wash away some of that hurt, I am not ashamed of it.

I do my meditation app once I am out of the bathroom and dressed in flannel pants and a sleeveless undershirt. The gratitude journal mocks me for a few minutes until I think further back, remembering Dr. Carlton’s praise from last night. It reminds me of how fortunate I am to be getting the experience I’m getting and how I’m actually making a real difference in people’s lives right now.

That lifts my spirits somewhat, and I fall asleep to a visual meditation of a long walk near a stream.

The next morning I head into my paying job and put in my time, then call Mandy on my lunch break. I wavered all morning, but I have to get it out.

“Hello? How’s work?” Mandy asks when she answers the phone.

“It’s fine, it’s been quiet,” I reply, already thinking about how to bring up what I’m calling about, but Mandy beats me to it.

“How was the party with Daddy? Did you have fun?”

“Yeah, it was great, for the most part,” I say.

“For the most part? Did someone say something about your date being a man?” Mandy sounds instantly offended.

“No, everyone was fine with that. There were a few other same-sex couples there. Since it felt like a date, though, I wanted to tell the truth about my past, and that didn’t go very well.”

I can picture the frown. “Didn’t go very well with Daddy?” She sounds like she can’t even imagine that.

“Yeah, with your dad. I gave him the shortest version possible, but he got really mad and asked how that could happen and if you knew.”

“Okay…” Mandy says, drawing the word out.

“So it felt like he was asking if you knew because either you wouldn’t be friends with me if you did or if I was hiding it from you.” I don’t like feeling like a dirty secret.

“Oh, Trey,” Mandy says, her voice laced with sympathy. “You have nothing to be ashamed of. I doubt Daddy meant either of those things, either. He is the least judgemental person I’ve ever met. Look how he took to Mitch and everything.”

I hum. “He seems like the best guy ever. That’s why this hurt so much. On second thought, I don’t know many men who would approve of their little girl getting close to a former drug addict and sex worker.”

Mandy makes a frustrated little huff. “When you say things like that, I want to wash your mouth out with soap.”

I laugh. Normally, I don’t feel shame about my past any longer. I overcame it, and I know I am enough just as I am, and I’m bettering myself every day. Sometimes, though, something makes me question myself, like Ben’s anger. I have a bevy of resources at my disposal that I’ve compiled to keep myself safe and healthy. Mandy can be depended upon to add to it, too, although sometimes her additions take the form of proverbial slaps upside my head.

“The only thing I’ve ever seen my dad get truly angry about is when someone, especially a child, is being mistreated. What did he actually say? Also, I think the most likely reason he would ask you if I knew is to find out if this was something that was between the two of you. He probably didn’t want to break your confidence. When I’d come to him with something, he would always ask me if he could talk to anybody else about it, and the few times it was something that needed to be brought to someone else, he’d tell me that was what had to happen and make sure that I was okay.”

A small voice whispered that, of course, Mandy would defend her father, but having actually spent time with him, I can absolutely believe that Ben would do that. He had absolutely no guile or artifice that I’d seen. If I thought about his questions from the viewpoint of horror and outrage that those horrible things had happened to a literal child and not through a lens of shame, they made perfect sense. Also, the idea that he was working up to asking me if I had told him that in confidence makes sense, much as I hate to admit it. I might have been so nervous about telling him that I saw his reaction in the worst possible light. Then I ran away instead of having a conversation to be sure what he meant. I sigh.

“He may also have wondered if I knew since he knows I’m your best friend, and he hoped that I knew so I could support you,” Mandy continues. Damn, that hadn’t crossed my mind either. Why did she have so many logical explanations?

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