Page 25 of Indirect Attack
I sat up, taking the sheet with me and holding it against my chest like some kind of armor. The words were threatening to come out, had to come out. I needed this for myself, for the heart that I’d managed to piece together but could easily shatter again.
Concern melting to worry, Ben followed me upright. “Jasmine? What’s wrong?”
He didn’t understand my sudden change in mood, especially given our evening together and what had just happened. But this couldn’t wait—it was too important.
I took a deep breath, stumbled on the words, and took one more before I spoke. “Is this for real, Ben?”
His brow furrowed again. “Is what real?”
“This.” I waved my hand between us. “Us. Is there an us?”
“We haven’t talked about it—” Ben’s words trailed off, uncertain where this conversation would take him and unsure he wanted to know.
“Ben, I”—I was messing this all up, tripping over my words and my purpose in ways I hadn’t since I was a teenager—“I need to know. Is this for real? Because I can’t have my heart broken again. I can’t do this with you, want this with you, want everything with you, only to have you leave again because you don’t want me to get hurt or whatever lame excuse you used the first time you left.”
Ben’s eyes widened at the harshness of the words and their message, and I tried not to feel regret. But they had to be said, had been swirling around the cracks in my heart for a long time, and I wasn’t going to go forward without the truth. I was not going to let myself fall only to be hurt yet again.
“What was I supposed to do? How was I supposed to know you were going to break up with Greg?” Ben’s words were defensive, and I felt my anger flare. I sat up on my knees, heat of a different kind coursing through me.
“That was your fault, you know that? If you hadn’t been such a coward and actually tried a long-distance relationship, none of that would have happened. I wouldn’t have met Greg because I was so desperate to forget you. It’s your damn fault, so don’t try to turn this around. You were the one who didn’t want the relationship, you were the one who kept coming home and loving me and leaving, breaking my heart over and over again.You were the one who would always leave again, not me. I was there, waiting. But one day, you randomly show up, deciding you wanted to be there? Without even telling me? Without talking to me? And you didn’t even have the courtesy of letting me explain what was happening.”
Blue eyes narrowed at the onslaught, but I wasn’t finished. When Ben had walked back into my life that morning, I had felt entirely grateful and hopeful. But with those feelings had come the pain of loss and the fear of feeling despair to those depths again. Because the man in front of me might have hurt, but he didn’t know how badly he’d hurt me. And if we were going to move forward with whatever this was, I was damn well going to make sure he knew where I stood.
“You didn’t want me to leave? Why didn’t you tell me then? If I remember correctly, you agreed with me.” Ben’s words came out as a growl, but I also saw the perplexed twist of his mouth as though he was still trying to digest the information.
“Because I was eighteen, and I had no idea how to be in a relationship and ask for what I wanted. I thought it was the only way I could keep you in my life, and maybe if you liked me enough, you’d come back. We’d just gotten into that argument about you joining the Marines, and you hadn’t talked to me for three days, and I was afraid I’d never get to talk to you again if I made you angry. Even though I should have said exactly what was on my mind, damn you, because all I wanted was to have you in my life, and you shouldn’t have made my choice for me or tried to tell me what was best for me.”
The words rang through the room, words that I couldn’t take back. Words I knew had the power to ruin everything. But I wasn’t going to build a relationship by stuffing myself down again. I knew where that road led, and I wasn’t going to follow it.
Still, anxiety crept into my mind, tendrils spiraling through my determination, finding and widening the cracks until I feltdoubt. And when Ben didn’t speak at first, I felt the first prickles of dread.
But then he sighed, his shoulders dropping. He hung his head for a moment, running his hand forward and back over his hair before looking back at me. I was surprised not to see anger in his eyes, only regret and something softer.
“You’re right, and that’s something I’ve been thinking about lately. I was young, I was stupid, and I was scared. I was stuck and didn’t know how to stand up to my father. I didn’t know how to handle my emotions or yours. I should have picked up the phone, and I should have read your texts, and I shouldn’t have been so”—he had to search for the word—“dramatic. I was an idiot, and believe me, I’ve regretted it ever since.”
Shocked to silence at the words, I could only huff a laugh. “You were a dramatic idiot.”
A bark of a surprised laugh escaped, and Ben shook his head because he couldn’t deny it. “Yeah, I was.”
“That’s what too much reading does to you.” A smirk curled at one corner of my mouth, a matching glimmer in my eye to take the sting from my words. Words his father had repeated far too often growing up, but the elder Rusev had always been serious.
Then Ben took my hand, his gaze brushing the knuckles before he kissed each one then looked up to meet my eyes.
“I’m sorry I hurt you, Jasmine. I’m so sorry. But I’m not the same kid I was, and I won’t make the same mistake again. This, whatever this is, what I feel, is for real. I’m not going anywhere.”
Ben drew me into his arms as tears prickled at the backs of my eyes. I had to take deep breaths through my mouth to push them back, the scent of sweat and his skin in my nostrils.
With his apology and reassurance, I knew this had to be meant for me. Why else would I run into my next-door neighbor,my first kiss, my first love, my first and only everything, halfway around the world?
We stayed in bed together until the bells tolled the hour between midnight and dawn, the darkest hour, when Ben told me he had to get back to base. He had to be on a shift in a couple of hours.
This time, he left his number, and I gave him mine. We shared a sweet, soft kiss, no hint of desperation because I knew I would see him again.
Ben had barely been gone for ten minutes when I texted him, telling him goodnight. He replied with a goodnight back, and I fell asleep, still smelling his cologne on the pillow beside mine.
When I woke up in the morning, only a few hours later, the sun was streaming through my window, falling on my phone and a new text from Ben. It had no words, only a drawing of the two of us curled in bed together.
It was beautiful, blurring as tears filled my eyes.
