Ben got into NYU. We are going to NYU together. The excitement is too much for my body to contain. I continue jumping on the bed while Ben tries to convince me to ‘behave’. I don’t think he understands. We will go to NYU. We will get great jobs. We will get married. We will have kids. We will be together, forever. He should also be jumping.
“Gracie, stop,” he says for the umpteenth time.
I stop long enough for him to carry me into his arms. My lips are on his in seconds, pouring out the words I couldn’t say. I didn’t know he applied to my school. I have the best boyfriend ever.
Something falls out of the torn envelope while I am trying to tuck in his acceptance letter into it. I hold the charm to my eyes and an instant grin breaks out on my lips. Without being told, I know the NYU charm is for my memory bracelet. More memories. We will create new and better memories in NYU.
“What about SAS?” I ask when we are seated. I am seated on his lap because there’s no other place I’ll rather be. This is officially the best birthday ever.
“I got in too.”
“Oh.” The news dampens my mood a little but he places a kiss on my jaw. “Will you go?”
“I’ll go wherever Gracie is going.”
I sweep his hair off his face. His blue eyes are wide open with love for me. “We will go to NYU.”
“We will go to NYU,” he repeats. He stops smiling but my smile is still intact. Nothing can ruin my mood after hearing this great news. “I have to tell you something. You have to like me after you hear it, okay?” The only emotion I can feel for him is love and more love. “Is it okay if I lock the door?”
Mum will be pissed but what he has to say seems so important. The sound of the door locking breaks the silence. He doesn’t carry me when he returns to the bed, we sit cross-legged on the bed and nervousness crawls up on me. Why is Ben fidgety?
The distance between us is little but he seems okay with it. Behind him, I can see the poster on my door. It’s not a fighter this time, it’s my school. NYU.
I hug myself when he clears his throat again. My mind wanders to a lot of places but I can’t figure out why he is acting this way. “Benny?” The amount of pain in his eyes makes me recoil. I am not nervous. I am scared. “Umm, do you want me to hold you?”
“Not yet.”
Tucking my hands between my legs doesn’t help, so I try to count backwards while staring at the walls of my room as Ben gathers his thoughts. They are painted a cream colour with a splash of chocolate.
Ben is still quiet. I push myself closer to him. Our knees touch, it’s just enough contact for him to know I’m here for him. He offers me a half-smile.
“You remember when I punched you the second time?” Ben winces as if asking that causes him pain. I squeeze his hand. It’s in the past now. He fucked up. People fuck up all the time but their actions after is what matters more. “When Champ told me Tessa came to see him, I was scared. I thought it was her.”
“Tessa? Who is her?”
His gaze lowers to his hands clenched on his knees and he resumes talking. “Then you were telling me how to take care of him and I lost it. I’m not a bad brother.” A tear drops to his knees, he releases his breath slowly. “I was going to protect him because I was about that age when she started touching me.”
My heart stops, then it begins pounding. His head is still downcast so I can’t gauge his emotions. He shakes his head to stop me from touching him, it stings but I wave it off.
“So... I thought she went to his school to do the same thing. I didn’t hate you, I just hated the fact you had the same name and you seemed nice. I didn’t want you to be nice. I wanted you to be evil so I could justify the hate.” He raises his head long enough for me to see his bitter smile and tear-filled eyes. “See, all Tessas are supposed to be bad.”
I try again to touch him. My hand reaches for his and he lets me sandwich it between mine. “When Mum remarried, I didn’t like it. I knew something would change but I didn’t expect it to change that much. We were no longer the three musketeers. It became four of us, five of us if you include her. I couldn’t understand it. We encouraged her to go on dates but we didn’t think it would yield anything.”
“At first, I would do the little things. Swap salt for sugar, switch his coffee beans. The goal was pretty simple. Get Josef to kick us out. But he didn’t.” Ben tsks. His grip on my hand tightens and I whimper. “Sorry.” I kiss him to abate his worry and his eyes glaze over as he continues. “She was nice at first.”
“She?” I ask. “Tessa?”
“Yes.” He smiles down at me. “She was in her last year of college. And she would talk so much about how she hated their marriage. I was this tiny kid but she didn’t mind talking to me about it. It made me feel grown up, adult-ish. We would spend the evenings hating it together. She liked to drink too.”
Ben scratches his jeans again, his nails crack and I grab his hands to stop him from injuring himself.
“She would offer me some and I would refuse. One day, I agreed. What can possibly go wrong? She...”
His eyes squeeze shut and tears roll silently down his cheeks. I don’t want to hear anymore of this.
“You don’t have to tell me.”
“No.” His eyes flutter open. “I have to tell you. I don’t want to keep secrets from you.” I hug him to offer him strength, he seems to relax. “She took my penis in her mouth.” His back goes stiff. I feel him detach from me but he doesn’t stop talking. “She said it wasn’t a bad thing but I knew it was bad. Adults are not supposed to touch kids’ privates or force them to go down on them.” A sob escapes him and he inhales sharply. “It was a horrible period.”
My eyes water, I hide my face in his chest because I can’t bear to see the glaring hurt. I’m supposed to be the one consoling him but I am teary-eyed. I give his arms wrapped around me another squeeze and he squeezes it back. He didn’t deserve any of that.
“I tried to tell my mum but she thought it was one of those lies I made up to get out of the house. So, she continued. No one would believe me anyway.”
I believe him. His mum should have believed him too. It begins to make sense. The resentment he holds for his mother and the overprotectiveness of Asher. He wanted SAS for Asher, not himself.
“And she knew that, so she used it to her advantage. At some point, I stopped trying to fight it. I will just sit and wait for her in the dark. If I didn’t struggle, it would end faster. Maybe that’s when she broke me. It became constant. From once a month to once a week and almost every night. It was awful, Gracie.”
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.
He cups my face and swipes his hand under my eyes. “Don’t be sorry, it’s over now. It won’t happen again. She will never touch me again,” he says with so much hate and vengeance that I shiver. Tears roll down my cheeks. “Don’t cry. It’s not your fault.”
“I know. I wish I could help.”
“You helped,” he replies with a kiss to my nose, another to my lips. “I know now that all Tessas are not evil and I love you with all my heart, Grace Mower.”
Using the hem of my shirt to wipe his wet cheeks, I murmur, “I love you too with all my heart and my soul, Benjamin Carter. You are the best.”
“I’m sorry I broke your heart, Gracie.” His eyes moisten again. “I just thought that since I couldn’t save myself, I could save Olivia or at least try to help her. But I guess I was wrong. You should have been my first priority. Olivia wasn’t exactly a saint.”
My laughter sounds hollow to my ears. “She wasn’t. But it’s okay. It’s good you stepped in.” My arms wrap around his neck, our eyes meet. “You did good, Benny. I’m sorry all that happened to you.”
“What are you thinking?” he asks minutes later. I shake out of my reverie. There are so many things going on in my mind. A sob tunnels out of my throat as I replay his words. His childhood reality hit me so much; harder than the first time and I can’t control the tears that roll down my cheeks. “Hey. Hey, look at me. Don’t cry. It’s over now.”
“How did you cope?” My gaze is fixated on his. He’s the one who was molested as a kid and I’m the one tearing up. As a kid, I never had to worry about pedophiles. I worried about travels and gifts. “Why didn’t you tell anyone? Why didn’t you tell Josef or someone else? They might have believed you.”
“I don’t know. I guess I felt like if my mother didn’t believe me, why would he? She’s his daughter after all. He might want to protect her first.” My heart breaks again. It is a different kind of hurt I feel for him. I want to be angry on his behalf. He sniffs my neck and exhales. “Gracie. I’m fine now, okay?”
Is he really okay if he can’t handle the mention of that name? My head bobs. I don’t know how he dealt with those moments but I’m proud of him.
“Last year, I binge-watched a show and the counsellor said something about keeping journals or writing letters to address the hurt. I started writing letters. Letters I would never send. Some of them were addressed to my mum. Some to Josef. I forgot one of them in the library and someone replied.”
A ball of jealousy unfurls inside me. I’ll never say it out loud but I wish I was the one who found his letter. “Who?”
“Maria.”
“My Maria?”
Ben chuckles. “Yes. I didn’t know who it was at first but we happened to be at the library at the same time and she figured it out.” He bops my nose and I manage to smile. “It made sense. In her letters, she talked about her best friend and I figured it was you. Was a bit surprised when she said she had never been to a party. She’s so lively, you know?”
Parties are Maria’s thing. She’s the life of the party. She loves parties. I disengage from him and he groans in protest. Sieving through his story, I pause. It’s just like Noah’s story. Noah also used the words: Three musketeers. Maybe it is a boys thing.
“Benny, do you still have the letters?”
“At home? Yes. I carry them everywhere I go. It’s my therapy.” I march to my wardrobe and Ben tails behind me. “Gracie, come back. What’s going on?”
Crossing my legs at the foot of my wardrobe, I take out my shoebox filled with the letters. It might be a coincidence. Noah has a younger brother and an oler stepsister from his mother’s second marriage.
“Did Maria say anything about putting your letters in a shoebox?” Ben nods. “Did you call Asher AJ in your letters?” Another nod. My heart is beating too fast. “Umm. Did you wish for Tessa to choke on her smoothies?”
Ben crosses his arms, his brow is so high it’s nearly touching his hairline. “Babe, how do you know this?” His tone is different, almost accusing. “Did Maria give you my letters?”
I tilt the shoebox and the content pours out. I spread them on the floor. “No. I got letters too. I used to reply these.” I hold one of the crumpled letters to his face. He frowns. “I thought they were from Noah.”
“Noah?” Ben laughs. “Why would you think that? That boy hates anything to do with writing, babe.”
“He was at the library. I saw him there. Then I asked you later, remember?” His brows draw together, he’s cute when he’s confused. “You told me Noah has a stepsister and a younger brother.”
“Yeah, I remember. You have never been to a party. You liked a boy. You liked me, Gracie.” I nod. “I told you to ask him out,” he says with a laugh.
Ben runs his hand over his face. I do the same. My heart flutters again. I loved him even before he officially became mine. I push myself up on his lap.
“I’m your letter girl, Benny.”
Ben smiles. “You’re my soulmate, Gracie.”