“All right, then,” he says, grinning. “Guess that’s a yes.”
Once again, I’m struck by how oddly comfortable I am, being around Ben. We don’t need to talk much as we drive to the nearest department store, and it’s easy to browse the aisles with him, picking out a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, a new bra and underwear, and a pair of sandals. The funniest part is when he opts to wait in the main aisle rather than going into the lingerie department with me. I pay for the items and change in the bathroom, call grandpa real quick and let him know I’m fine and not to worry about me, and then we’re off again, heading across town to a greasy spoon my high school friends and I used to go to all the time.
And it was just that easy. We sit and drink cup after cup of deliciously shitty coffee while we wait for our food, talking about movies and music and anything and everything. I can almost forget why I’m back in San Antonio.
Eventually, there’s nothing left to do but pay the bill, and Ben insists on paying for it. Which is cool. The last date I went on, the guy not only didn’t offer to pay for mine, but he didn’t even pay for his half, so I picked up the tab and blocked his number in my phone when I got home. I don’t expect chivalry or whatever, but it sure is nice when it happens.
“So, you got anything to do?” I ask. “After this, I mean?”
He shrugs. “Not really. I need to find a gym at some point, because I’ve still gotta work out my knee.”
It takes a lot for me to sound casual. “Mom was your therapist. I’d almost forgotten.” I tap at the table with a spoon. “There’s a good clinic near the hospital, Mom knows—knew, I mean—a couple of the therapists there. I can take you, if you want.”
“Fuck. I’m sorry, Echo.” He closes his eyes and rubs at the bridge of his nose with the knuckle of his forefinger. “I should’ve just kept my mouth shut.”
“It’s fine.” My voice catches, though, and I’m dangerously close to coming apart right here in the diner. “I need to—I need some air.”
I slide out of the booth and hurry outside, around the corner of the building. I breathe deeply and try to keep the tears at bay, try to keep it in, keep it down. But I can’t. My knees give out, and I slide down the wall until I’m sitting on the concrete. Ben finds me there, face in my hands, tears wetting my cheeks. He lowers himself to the ground, extending his leg out straight. His arm extends behind me, and it’s the most natural thing in the world for me to lean into him.
“I’m fine for a few minutes, an hour or two, and then it hits me all over again,” I tell him, when I can breathe and speak again. “It’s like…I forget, and then I remember. And…part of me likes it when I forget, because it doesn’t hurt as bad. But then I hate myself for wanting to forget, you know? Because she…she’s my mom. And she’s—she’s gone.”
Ben’s arms tighten around me. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t try to tell me it’s okay or offer any meaningless explanations. After a few minutes, I stand up and wipe at my eyes, then breathe and try push down the emotions.
“I have an idea,” Ben says.
“What’s that?”
“Let’s go to a movie.” He stands up too, near me but not too close. “We can just stay there all day, watch movie after movie. Eat too much popcorn and drink too much Coke.”
“Sounds perfect,” I say, grateful that he’s not ready to part ways just yet.
“That’s how I used to spend the long summer days when there wasn’t much to do. Me and…a friend. We’d just stay in the theater all day. Eventually our parents discovered what we were doing and they made us start buying tickets for every movie we saw.”
Something in the way he hesitated a bit tells a story, but I’m not sure I know him well enough to ask about it.
So that’s what we do. We buy a ticket to an action movie, and when it’s over we slip into the next theater and watch a romantic comedy. The hours pass, and it’s easy to spend them all sitting next to Ben. He’s laid back, he doesn’t treat me like I’m as fragile as I really am, but he’s always mindful of what he says, careful not to say anything that would break the spell.
Eventually it’s evening, and we’re both hungry, so I drive us to a bar-and-grill near the cinema. We drink beer and eat burgers, and the conversation stays light and easy. There are as many comfortable silences between us as there are conversations.
And then it’s night, the clock inching closer and closer to midnight, and we’re parked at his apartment building, just sitting outside on a bench in a courtyard behind his building, drinking a beer from his fridge and talking about the movies we watched, which ones we liked and which ones we didn’t.
Silence floats between us, and I know that he’s thinking about something…or someone. I want to ask but I don’t intrude.
“Thanks for today, Ben,” I say.
“It’s been one of the best days I’ve ever had,” he says. “I just wish we’d met under better circumstances.”
“Me, too,” I tell him, trying not to notice how, over the course of the minutes we’ve spent on this bench, we’ve somehow inched closer to each other, until our thighs and knees and hips touch, and how I tingle all over at his proximity. And then I feel guilty for feeling something good so soon. “You don’t know what it’s meant to me, though. You really don’t. I don’t know how I’d have dealt with this, if I’d been alone today.”
“You don’t have to be alone.”
“I would be, though. My grandparents…I love them, but being around them right now would be impossible. We’d all be crying and crying, and I just…I just can’t handle that. I can’t let myself start crying. I mean, sometimes I just can’t help it, but…” I lean forward, elbows on my knees, head hanging. “And at school, my friends wouldn’t know what to say. It’d be awkward, and I’d just want to be alone, but the thing is, I don’t want to be alone. I don’t know how else to explain it.”
“You don’t have to explain it. I get it.” He lets out a breath. “And you know, if you need to—talk about it. Or just…let go, you know? You can. If you need to cry, I mean. I don’t know what I’m saying, just…I’m here, if you need to—talk, I guess.”