Forever, Interrupted(35)

As he headed out to the front door, I saw through the window that he checked his phone and it was lit up again. I saw him put the call through to voice mail for the third time in ten minutes, and I grew angry again. Jealousy was so ugly. It made me feel so ugly.

I felt the gust of warm air as he opened the door and came out. When it shut, I went back to being freezing cold again.

“Elsie—” he started to say. I couldn’t read this tone. I didn’t know if he was going to be contrite, defensive, or irritated, so I interrupted him.

“Look,” I said, closing my jacket tighter, raising my voice to be heard above the sounds of car wheels speeding through shallow puddles. “I may not be conducting myself all that well right now, but that’s a hell of a thing to say to me!”

“You can’t just walk out on me in the middle of a goddamn restaurant!” he yelled. I hadn’t seen him yell like that before.

“I can do whatever I—”

“No!” he said. “You can’t. You can’t punish me for something that happened before I met you and you can’t punish me for what Amber—”

“Don’t say her name!”

“This is not a big deal!” he said to me. “If you knew the way I think about you and the way I think about her, this would not be a big deal.” He was choking over his words as the rain snuck into his mouth.

“What does that even mean?” I said. “Don’t you think that if the situation were reversed—”

“I would be jealous, yeah. To think about another guy touching you, or you . . . touching him. Yeah. I’d be jealous.”

“See?”

“But I wouldn’t leave you there in the middle of a restaurant looking like an idiot. I wouldn’t worry you like that.”

“Oh, c’mon. You weren’t worried.”

“Yes, Elsie, yes, I was.”

“What did you think was going to happen?”

“I don’t know!” he said, raising his voice again. I was so cold. The rain was so loud. “I thought maybe that this was . . . ”

“Over?”

“I don’t know!”

“It’s not over,” I said. “Just because I got upset doesn’t mean that I don’t want . . . ” Suddenly, I wanted to hold him and make sure he knew I wasn’t going anywhere. His vulnerability was so tender and touching, I almost couldn’t stand it. I put my hand out and smiled at him. “Besides,” I said. “We can’t break up for another few weeks.”

He wasn’t smiling. “It’s not funny,” he said, his shoulders hunched, combating the rain. “I don’t want to lose you.”

I looked him straight in the eye and I told him what I couldn’t believe he didn’t already know. “Ben Ross, I’m not leaving you.” Before I could even get out the last syllable, he had thrown his body against mine, his lips against my mouth. It was sloppy and imperfect. Our teeth hit, making the side of my lip sting. But it was the moment I knew Ben loved me. I could feel it. I could feel that he loved me in a raw and real way, when it’s not all rainbows and butterflies, when sometimes it’s fear. I could feel his fear in that kiss and I could feel the desperation in his relief. It was intoxicating and it made me feel just a little less alone. The way we felt about each other, it made him do stupid things too.

He pulled away from me, finally, and yet all too soon. I had almost forgotten that we were in public, that we were in the rain. “I’m sorry,” he said, putting his thumb to the blood on his lip.

“No,” I said, taking a tissue out of my jacket and dabbing his lip myself. “I’m sorry.” He put his hand on my wrist and moved my hand away from his lips. He kissed me again, gently.

“You’re very sexy,” he said to me, as he fished his phone out of his jacket pocket. He pressed a few numbers and said finally, “Hi, you’ve reached the voice mail of Ben Ross. Please leave a message and I’ll call you back. If this is about what I’m doing later tonight, I am busy. Don’t bother asking because the answer is that I am busy. From now on, I will always be busy.” He hung up the phone and looked at me.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I said. Ben smiled at me.

“No,” he said, taking the valet ticket out of his pocket. “I really do hope she stops calling. It’s not going to happen. I have a huge crush on someone else.”

I laughed at him as he handed the ticket to the valet.

“It’s you, by the way,” he said plainly, as he pulled his jacket up over my head to protect me from the rain.

“I figured,” I said.

“So are you still starving?” he asked. “Because I am and we certainly can’t go back in there.”





JUNE


Hi, you’ve reached the voice mail of Ben Ross. Please leave a message and I’ll call you back. If this is about what I’m doing later tonight, I am busy. Don’t bother asking because the answer is that I am busy. From now on, I will always be busy.”

“Hi, you’ve reached the voice mail of Ben Ross. Please leave a message and I’ll call you back. If this is about what I’m doing later tonight, I am busy. Don’t bother asking because the answer is that I am busy. From now on, I will always be busy.”