And, God, his gaze is so painfully earnest, as if he hates that I believed that of him, that seeing it stings.
Of course. The alternative was too painful.
“What else was I meant to think? You didn’t tell me anything.”
“Fuck. The only people I’ve seen in the last twelve months have been therapists.”
Oh.
I know I asked for it, but this honesty might be more than I can bear. He’s leaving himself so open, and all I want to do is hold him.
“You needed a team of them?”
The joke lands. “Apparently, they’d never seen someone so dire before.”
My heart drops. “Was it …”
“No, no.” His mouth works over a few failed starts.
This can’t be easy for him, so I decide it’s time to offer my own secret.
“Do you know I’ve always wanted to come here?” I flatten the drawing of him out on the table and trace my finger over a lopsided ear. “They opened a year ago.” Because life is nothing if not a satire. “As soon as I heard about it, I bookmarked it. Even asked Skye to come with me because I needed a partner, but it’s not really her kind of thing, and … I don’t know … I just … liked it better as a romantic kind of date.”
“I can see why. It’s very revealing.”
“I don’t suppose there is much arts and crafts in therapy.”
He huffs a laugh, a crack in the tension under his skin. He rolls his shoulders and seems to loosen up. “No, but I’ll be suggesting it at my next session.”
Another secret. I’m not used to it from him, and it makes me greedy for more. “Why did you move here from Springfield? I mean, originally. You never said.”
The old Benji—my Benji—would only ever shrug when I asked.
“I never really planned it, but California State University accepted me, and I wanted to figure life out on my own terms, away from everyone else. I moved home for a bit after I graduated, but it wasn’t the same. I knew I wanted to be back on the coast, but LA was never going to happen. So, yeah …”
“Do you regret it?”
“Not even a little.” He’s staring at me.
Ask him,my heart begs. “Is that why you came back?”
He reaches over and tucks a lock of hair behind my ear. “You know why I came back, Paige.”
I want it to be for me, and it’s not hard to see that’s what he’s implying, but there’s still a tiny voice in the back of my mind, telling me I could be wrong. So, I change the subject. “It must seem silly to you that I’ve never left San Diego.”
“Nothing you do is silly to me. Do you want to be somewhere else?”
“No.”
“Then nothing else matters.”
A chair squeals to our right, and we both seem to realize at the same time that we’re the last to leave. I stand, and Benji catches my elbow.
“I have another confession,” he says. “I wasn’t stood up today. I never had a date with Carla. I didn’t even match with her.”
“But …”
He gets to his feet, his hand sliding down to mine and squeezing. “I didn’t match with anyone that night. The only person I wanted, the only person I’ll ever want, is you.”
