Ben stands there as several silent seconds tick by, then grabs his phone and wallet off my coffee table and brushes past me without looking back. I slam the door behind him.
Chapter 14
I’m so fired up after he leaves, I end up prowling my apartment like a caged tiger. There’s enough adrenaline coursing through my system to power a tractor-trailer. I’m dropping so many mental f-bombs, someone should call a SWAT team.
I can’t believe I ever thought he was considerate. I can’t believe I let him in myapartment. How could I have been softening toward him? How could I have thought we werefriends? The fact that I contemplated kissing him makes me physically ill.
I spend the rest of the day plotting his demise in a variety of provocative ways. Sending him anthrax-laced mail would be too painless. I imagine firing a poisonous dart across the atrium. Drowning him in the Reflecting Pool. Blinding him with the Mace that, ironically, he’s given me.
I’ve probably been watching too muchScandal.
I’m not exonerating myself—I know I behaved badly—but I also know our fight wasn’t all my fault. Maybe Iwasa sloppy drunk, but he didn’t need to rub my nose in it. Aren’t we all entitled to a bad night? Inthe face of my obvious mortification, he was needlessly cruel. Is that what afriendwould do?
But by Sunday morning, with my temper cooled and the sting of his words faded, shame and regret start to eat away at me. As more of my transgressions come into focus, I’m forced to face an inconvenient truth: I’m in the wrong on this one.
I set off this chain reaction by questioning Ben’s integrity—something he clearly values above all else. So what if he clapped back? Washing out my barf bucket surely earned him a snarky comment or two. He put himself out for me—wayout—and I haven’t exactly shown him the same kindness.
As I lie in bed—my pillow smelling of him in its own twisted form of psychological torture—I remember all the ways he took care of me. The concern in his eyes when he tied my hair back. His compassion when I melted down about my bill. The fact that he made me breakfast—even though he doesn’t cook.
Thatiswhat a friend would do.
I’m the one who owes him an apology this time, but frankly, I’m too chicken to do it. Is there even a socially acceptable way to say,I’m sorry for sexually harassingyou, puking on you, then insulting you?Not sure Emily Post covers this one. I should send him one of those inedible arrangements, those baskets of hard fruit shaped like flowers. They’re terrifying and gross, but since it’s food, he’d probably love it.
Instead, I decide to do... nothing at all, rationalizing that it’s best if we make a clean break and go our separate ways. To assuage my guilt, I come up with a grab bag of excuses for absolving myself: our pseudo-friendship was always headed for a fiery end; the world is too fractured and polarized for bipartisan camaraderie; I’m better off without hismockery and mind games; after our showdown, there’s no way he’s interested in hearing from me anyway.
Ben and I were never meant to be friends in the first place.
And so begins our period of silence. I ignore Ben; he ignores me. I keep my blinds closed, and so does he. It’s almost like we never met, and none of this ever happened.
Almost.
It’s when I’m alone—andonlywhen I’m alone—that I allow myself to wallow in my hurt feelings. I hadn’t realized just how large a space I’d let Ben take up in my head, and his sudden absence makes me feel... I don’t know, bored? Lonely? I can’t quite figure it out.
I suppose our office antics provided a break from the drudgery. Since the election, life’s been pretty dreary for those of us on the losing side. It’s hit after hit with no end in sight. Our mail shenanigans were something silly and fun to look forward to in an otherwise depressing existence. Every opportunity to annoy Ben charged me up like a battery pack. It gave my days some zip, and honestly? He made me see our Republican opponents as human again.
Now the days are back to feeling interminable. Stress is high and I have no outlet. The excited hopefulness of the bill is gone and I’m reminded why hope is my enduring enemy. Hope.Pah.It’s just as offensive as other four-letter words I don’t allow myself to say.
I throw myself into the job, barely coming up for air, but even that doesn’t work like it usually does. Stephen and Tessa know something’s up, though mercifully they don’t force me to discuss it, probably because they’re still eating crow after the LeftField debacle. Besides, what could I even say? I’m still so upset about the bill’s failure that relating the story of my drunken misbehavior is a bridge too far for me right now.
Still, I’m able to convince myself I’m doing fine until Tessa and I walk into a midweek lunch briefing and I immediately spot Ben, across the room and piling his plate with food. I’m so thrown by his presence that I freeze in the doorway—and he chooses that moment to glance up, as if he can feel me watching, feel the weight of my indecision. And somewhere in that flash of recognition, after we lock eyes but before he looks away coolly, I realize something shocking.
Imisshim.
Or maybe it’s our fledgling friendship that I miss. The constant drive to one-up him kept me sharp and engaged at work. Our mail mischief was an entertaining distraction from the daily grind. Our banter-filled runs were way more fun than exercising alone. I finally found a worthy competitor, someone I’d (grudgingly) begun to respect.
I even miss the arguing, of all things. His words from the bar replay in my head on an endless loop:I’d rather argue with you than get along with anyone else.
I think I have Stockholm syndrome.
I need to stop obsessing over this. To snap out of it, I force myself to list all the negative things about him: Politically undesirable. Arrogant. Bossy. Condescending. Physically intimidating. Eyes unfairly pretty.
Even the worst things make my stomach hurt.
Almost a week into our stalemate, I’m home making dinner, glass of wine in hand, an episode ofThe Officeplaying in the background. There’s very little a dose of Michael Scott can’t fix. When my phone dings with a text, I lean over to look at it, my hands covered in chickeny goo.
Stephen: Check out our two favorite people working overtime.
There’s a video attached, and I hitPLAYwith my elbow—but when I see it’s Ben and Corinne, I screech and knock the phone to the floor.
