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“Excuse me?”
“You left my sight for ten minutes, and you weregone.”
“Ben, this is—”
“I was scared, Lola,” he says, turning me and starting to press me into my door, his body melding to mine. If you’d have asked me, I would have told you that, given everything that happened, this would scare me.
But it’s a comfort.
Protection.
“Ben—”
“Your voice came through the line, and I heard his voice, heard the panic in yours . . . I lost my mind. I’ve never run that fast. Then I see you,my girl, pinned to a car, that fuckwad trying to force you in. Heard when he hit you, heard that it caused you pain, and I swear, Lola, I felt it. True, physical pain knowing I didn’t keep you safe, that you were hurt.” A hand moves to my jaw, gentle and warm, tipping it up until I look at him. “I am not a man who feels fear, Lola. But at that moment? I was terrified.” He keeps staring at me, the look intense and clear, no lie or confusion there.
“And you will not be sleeping in your apartment tonight. You will be coming home with me, staying with me until I’m comfortable with you going back in there.”
I open my mouth to speak, but he cuts in again.
“And even after that, you will not be sleeping in there alone.” My head tries to move back in confusion, but the door stops me, leaving me stuck inches from Ben’s face.
“You don’t have to do this,” I say.
“Do what?” The hallway is silent.
Uncomfortably silent.
I hate it.
I hate even more that I have to fill it.
“Take care of me.” His thick brows furrow.
“What?”
“You don’t have to take care of me. I can do it myself.” I move from looking at him, his eyes burning holes into my skin as I move my eyes to look beyond him at his apartment door across the way.
Strange that I once thought there couldn’t be enough space between us. Now, just a few weeks of there being some form of us, it seems like an ocean between our homes.
“I’ve been doing it since I was fifteen,” I murmur, and regret the words. I don’t want to sound needy or like I want pity. I don’t want to guilt him into anything.
The good part about having a terrifying experience like I did is that it gives you time to think. The downside is that those thoughts, the conclusions you come to, don’t just go away when the panic and danger settle. It just gives you a clearer lens to view your life through.
Ben once told me that my mother was wrong for putting that expectation on me. Wrong for telling me I was responsible for the actions of an adult man, responsible for the actions, poor or wise, she made in her own life. Wrong for making me think it was my job to keep Lilah safe.
At first, I was angry at him for saying that. Because who the fuck was he to say. He didn’t know my mother, didn’t know her life or my life or the circumstances that lead to asking your daughter that on your deathbed.
But the more I thought about it, I realized the truth of what he was saying.
I’ve always known that Dad should never have put me in that position, but I promised my mother I’d keep him safe.
And even more, Ben’s right: that was unfair for my mom to do. I don’t hold it against her, not really, but still—the fact that she knew all along about Dad’s shortcomings, knew he’d use us to further his career, and knew he wouldn’t change his ways?
But Lilah, too.
When she was ten, it was one thing. I kept it hidden. She had enough trauma being a ten-year-old little girl who lost her mother. But as she grew older, she leaned into the act. Leaned into the position of dutiful daughter, sweet Lilah, who went to all of the functions and smiled pretty.
I was the ambitious daughter who got it from her father and started a business in her mother’s name. The one he could show off while signing acts to empower women in business, to gain female voters.
