On an Edge of Glass (30 page)

             
The door cracks and a sliver of light from the hall slips in.  The face hovering in the doorway is caught in shadow, but I know that it’s Ben.

             
He comes into the room and closes the door behind him.  When he sits on the edge of the bed, I stop breathing.  I. Stop. Breathing.

             
“Ellie?”    

             
“I’m here,” I say to the darkness. 

             
He reaches out with his fingers and finds my arm.  I bite back a shiver.  My heart aches.  It’s so acute that I think if I weren’t already on the bed, I would be falling over from the strain of it. 

             
“Ellie?”  His chest heaves under the stress of breathing properly.  He comes closer, his body pushing the cold away, making my skin pulse with red heat.

             
Ben moves his hand.  He grazes my elbow, my shoulder, my collarbone.  I know when he realizes that I’m not wearing much of anything because his four fingers stop and press into my skin.  Then, at a maddeningly slow pace, they glide over the swell of my breasts and down my body.

             
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, pulling his hand back like he’s just realized that he’s touching something that’s off-limits.  “I know that you were probably sleeping and this is weird, but I couldn’t—” 

             
I don’t wait to hear the rest of what he’s trying to say.  I move quickly.  I kiss him.  I kiss him with so much urgency and bottled up passion that I think that we’re going to ignite.  We will be a raging fire.  Maybe by morning, we’ll be nothing but a pile of ash, and when she wakes up, Ben’s mom will look down at the soot in his old bed and wonder where we went.

             
I’m spinning.  Flying. 

             
Ben is above me.  With his lips, he breathes stars and stirred up words and memories down my body.  He slips lower, pulling at my underwear with his thumbs. 

             
“What you do to me…”  He’s speaking so quietly that I can hardly hear him.  His chin scratches against my ribs.  “You’re like a fire inside of me.”

             
Inside of me,
I think.  But, I don’t talk.  My tongue is too busy tasting his skin.  I shift, using my hip bone to push Ben flat on his back.  I straddle his narrow waist.  I run my fingers up under his shirt, over his smooth chest.  I tug once and the shirt is off, balled up on the floor beside the bed.

             
I trace the hard line of his shoulders, and move my fingers up over the prominent lines of his face.  Now that my eyes have adjusted to the darkness, I can just make out his moon eyes and his exquisite mouth.  I touch his bottom lip.  Then I kiss it.  I touch his top lip.  Then I follow the angle of it with my tongue. 

             
Ben is heaving.  The air is pummeling through him like a storm over water.  I bend down.  My hair falls with me.  It tickles the taut skin of his stomach.  I place one, two, three… ten soft kisses along his body.

             
His pants fall away.  He is gasping now.  We’re on the edge of a cliff and we’re dropping, dropping, dropping, and Ben is gripping my waist like he’s afraid to lose me. 

I’m afraid to lose him.
 

             
I pull him closer, but it’s not close enough.  It feels like nothing will ever be close enough.  Like I could burrow a tunnel under his skin and swim in his veins and still, it won’t be enough. 

             
Enough

             
He closes his eyes.  He opens them.

             
He grasps my face between his palms and looks at me for a long time.  So long that my hands stop moving and my jagged heartbeats find an even rhythm. 

             
“This,” he says quietly—solemnly—like it means something important.  “It isn’t enough.”

             
Before I can shake of the slap of his words and respond in some way, Ben is pinching his clothes under his arms and slipping away from me.  I haven’t said a thing and Ben’s feet are moving and he’s shutting the door to the bedroom.  To my heart.

             
I am on an edge of glass.

             
And it’s breaking.

The morning is a blur of suitcases and cold cereal and robotic thank yous.  It moves fast and it’s all I can do to keep up. 

             
Ben doesn’t look at me.  He won’t.  He keeps his hands at his sides and his eyes trained in the opposite direction.  When we’re in the hall by the front door, his mom pulls him aside and says something to him that’s too low for me to hear.  He blinks and nods his head once as he clasps and unclasps his hands in front of his chest.

             
I look down so that he doesn’t catch me staring.  I chew the inside corner of my lip, and squeeze the handle of my suitcase until I can’t feel my fingers anymore.

Logan and Blake are rese
rved when it comes to goodbye, but Kyle is easier.  He gives me a high-five that turns into a hug.  Asher is next.  Grinning widely and holding me for a beat too long, he slips his cell phone number into the back pocket of my jeans.  When I peek at it, I see that he’s drawn a little sideways smiley face next to his name.  I laugh and shake my head at him. 

Lisa comes up and wraps her arms around my shoulders.  She pulls back a few inches
and searches my face.  There’s so much in her eyes and her creased forehead that I start to wither.  Quickly, like she’s deciding something, she kisses my cheek and pats my shoulder.

             
The front door opens, and almost before I’ve taken a proper breath, we’re in Ben’s car headed back to school.   

What is the protocol for this situation?

              What should I say?

             
Am I supposed to say anything at all?

Or is it best
to keep quiet, and stay drawn together in my seat, staring out the passenger window like none of it matters?  Like my head isn’t falling off my body?

             
The stereo plays music.  The car engine rattles softly.  Ben and I continue to stay silent.

I
look out at the cloudless blue of the sky and think about how I’m growing accustomed to the hollowness inside of me.  It’s almost like it belongs there.

             
After awhile—nearly half the trip—Ben exits the interstate and pulls the car into a gas station.  He doesn’t say anything, just pops the lid of the gas tank and steps out of the parked car.  I go inside, using the opportunity to go to the bathroom and buy some snacks. 

             
The woman behind the counter hands me a chintzy plastic bag and three thin paper napkins along with my change.  I take the bag and shove the change into the inside pocket of my purse.  As I exit the gas station, a man wearing a cowboy hat and scuffed up work boots holds the door for me. 

Hesitantly, I walk up to the
car.  Ben is leaning back against the driver’s side door with one hand resting on the hood and the other in his pocket.  His warm breath is visible in the cold February morning air.  

Like a
peace offering, I hold out a bottle of water and a bag of those pretzel chips that he likes so much.  Ben pauses as he reaches for the bag almost like he’s being careful not to touch my fingers.  He rewards me with a wan smile.

             
We climb into our respective seats and then we’re back on the road and back to the nothingness.

             
Seven long minutes later, when I don’t think I can take one more second of this without pulling my hair out, I speak.  I use a voice that doesn’t sound like mine.  “Do you want to talk about it?”  I ask.

             
Ben starts to shake his head then thinks better of it and stops.  He sucks his bottom lip between his teeth and flicks a sideways look at me.  “I guess so.” 

             
But neither of us says anything.  We drive a few more miles in a strange sort of quiet.

             
“Last night,” he says finally, releasing the tightness in his jaw.  “It was…”

             
I sit up.  “It was—”

             
“Let me finish,” he says rigidly.

             
“Okay…”

             
Ben loosens his muscles.  Absently, he scratches just below his chin and tucks his hair back.  He swallows hard.

             
“It’s just that this is embarrassing, but I need to say it.”  He gives me a sheepish smile.  I take it and return it.  “Last night, I don’t know what I was thinking when I came to see you.  I meant to just talk to you, and—and one thing led to another…  Honestly, I think I had too much to drink when we were at dinner with Scott and Bryant.”  He takes a quick, tight breath and holds it.  “I probably shouldn’t have driven us home and I’m sorry for that. And I’m sorry for everything that came after.  Things never should have gone down like that.”

             
This isn’t the explanation that I expected.  I remember Ben ordering one beer with dinner, but that’s all.  He didn’t seem drunk.  He didn’t smell drunk.  He didn’t taste drunk.  He tasted like toothpaste.

             
“Oh.”  I let my mind wrap around these thoughts.  “I just—I thought…”

             
Wow.  I realize with a sucking clarity that a part of me thought that Ben still harbored some sliver of feeling for me.  That when he said, “
it isn’t enough
,” maybe he meant that he wanted me in more ways than just physically. 

It’s the shame of rejection, so direct and complete, that echoes inside my chest and stings at the backs of my eyes.

              I feel sick.

             
“I think that I had too much to drink also,” I say and look away.

In Spite of Ourselves

“I don’t know why you don’t try talking to him
again.”

             
“Huh?”  My head jerks up. 

Mark is looking at
me.  His eyebrows are pulled together making a deep V in the middle of his forehead.  “I think you would feel a lot better,” he says.  “And I know that I would.”

“What do you mean
?”

             
Mark sits back in the desk chair and pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose.  “Ben. I mean the way that you guys left things hanging after Asheville.  It’s been over two weeks Ellie, and I think that you should talk to him again.”

             
“Mark,” I say, shaking my head and letting the thoughts tumble all over the place.  “Ben and I didn’t leave things hanging.  I told you exactly what happened.  In no uncertain terms, he said that he didn’t want to be with me, so I don’t understand what more you think there is to talk about.” 

             
Mark puts his elbows on his thighs and leans forward.  “See, I don’t think that’s what he said.”

             
I remember Ben’s words in the car clearly.  I remember the way that his golden brown eyes hardened and how my chest constricted. 

A short, sharp laugh escapes me. 
“And you were there?  That’s funny, because I didn’t see you.  Were you in the backseat hiding under an invisibility cloak loaned to you by Harry Potter?”

“Don’t be sarcastic Ellie,” Mark says, all seriousness and
big brother voice.  “I just don’t think Ben was being completely honest about things.  And neither were you.” 

My head drops into my hands.  “
Mark, you’re a good friend.  The best.  But, you don’t need to worry about Ben and me anymore.  That’s over and done with and I don’t want to keep coming back to it.”

“But—”
 

“Do I have to remind you that y
ou’re the one who cautioned me not to become a dweller?”  I glance up and brush my bangs out of my eyes.  “I’m trying my best to follow your advice and now you’re crawling all over me for that.  Asheville was nothing.  Ben took me home with him because of timing, and what happened on that last night was an accident.  It didn’t mean anything and I’ve accepted that.  Why can’t you?”

“Come on Ellie-bear!  You can’t honestly believe that, can you?”
  Mark’s voice is tinged with exasperation.

I throw my hands up. 
“Believe what?”

“That lam
e story he gave you about drinking too much.”  Mark rolls his eyes.  “Wow.  Do I really have to spell this out for you?”

“
Apparently so,” I challenge.

Mark levels his clear gaze at me.
“Ben Hamilton is in love with you.  And you’re in love with him,” he says, punctuating each word like a hammer driving a nail into wood.