Page 114 of Let Me Love You (Excess All Areas 5)

Her father looked so sad; it took her breath away.

“Mr. Tobias,” Ben said, filling the silence for her. “We wondered if we could talk with you.”

Her father eyed him uncomfortably. “No, Ben. There isn’t any point.”

She didn’t know why she couldn’t find her voice.

“There is. And I’d really appreciate it if, for Chaya’s sake, you’d sit down with us for a few minutes. She’s hurting, and I hate that. Can’t we try to find some common ground?”

“I don’t want you in my house. You’ve broken up a happy relationship that gave everyone a lot of joy.”

A neighbour appeared by the wall, eavesdropping with no shame.

Chaya took a breath and found her feet. “Wouldn’t it be better if we discussed this inside, so the world isn’t hearing our business, Dad?”

He eyed her warily. “The right thing would have been for him to leave you alone, Chaya.”

“I don’t want to go through the rest of my life with this being the only type of communication between us.”

Ben shoved his hands into his pockets. “I tried to leave her alone for a good number of years. But please. Can we talk, even if all we do is air our grievances, so we know what needs fixing?”

Finally, her father ran his hand through his thick beard and stepped back, allowing them into her family home.

“Sit,” he said, gesturing to the sofa where they both took a seat. “Your mother is at your sister’s house.”

She’d thought about what she was going to say a lot over the last couple of days. “I want a relationship with you, Dad. The kind we had before, as a family. I understand your pain and fear for me. I’ve had to work through my own fears for myself too. But you’re a human being and my father. And I’m a human being and your daughter. I wondered if we could just start there.”

Her father paused for a moment. “It’s devastating to me to see you disregard your faith this way. It’s like watching a car crash happen and not being able to stop it. Even though you know your daughter is in the driver’s seat.”

“You have friends who aren’t Jewish. You don’t ignore them or hate them because they have no part in our race or faith. Would it really be so awful to offer me the same courtesy?”

This seemed to stump her father for a moment. A long pause followed. “I would struggle to sit and watch him with you. I can’t witness that mistake.”

“I don’t need to be there, if it helps,” Ben said, reaching for her hand. “While I would appreciate the opportunity to build a relationship with you, I understand if it’s too much to ask. I’ve loved your daughter in lots of different ways. From when I first met her as a scrawny little kid, to now, as the woman I hope to marry with your blessing, one day. I just want her to be happy, and that means fixing this with you however we need to.”

“You were going to have sex with a girl that day.”

“Dad, we’ve been through this,” Chaya said, trying to remain calm.

Ben sighed. “I was fifteen and a half years old. My girlfriend was nearly seventeen. I have no idea what I honestly thought we were going to do that day. Make out, cop a feel, have sex. I have no idea.”

“It’s loose morals,” her father replied.

“Maybe it was. Or maybe I was just a teenage boy with an angry dad who worked on the oil rigs, trying to earn enough money to keep our head above water. Maybe I was just a fifteen-year-old who had nothing much else going on in my life and yearned for something different, or better. Perhaps a girlfriend was it. Perhaps sex was it. It took me a while to figure out fixing things was it, as a mechanicandas a person. And that music was it because there is a freedom to playing I don’t experience anywhere else except when I’m on stage.”

“You were predatory.”

“He was not.” Chaya edged forward on the sofa, and she felt Ben’s calming hand on her back. “You always thought that, and I don’t know why.”

“He abandoned his girlfriend to save you, Chaya. He should have looked out for you both because that monster was still around.”

Ben’s eyes went wide with shock. “That really isn’t how it all went down. My phone had died earlier so I told Lucy to call for help. There was no signal inside the warehouse. It was all concrete and steel. I gave her a rusted piece of metal from the floor to use as a weapon if she had to and told her to head closer to the door where I prayed the signal would be better. Then, I stayed, trying to free Chaya while protecting her from him if he came back. I had a choice to make. Protect an older, capable, uninjured girl, or protect a younger, traumatised, tied-up one.”

“But why didn’t you leave her alone afterwards? She was eleven. You groomed her.”

Chaya shook her head, anger bubbling inside. “That really didn’t happen.”

“He should have let you just come home to us.”

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