Notes:
Thank god it’s October. September
has mostly sucked, between the flooding and the plagiarism and being sick. October (despite my man being furloughed—thanks,
Congress! No, why would we need a
paycheck?) has to be better—hell, it already is better! Cambion:
Dark Around The Edges is a finalist in the m/m paranormal romance category
for the 2013 Rainbow Awards! That’s
awesome news. Changing Worlds won second place in the sci fi category last year,
and being a finalist again this year is really heartening. Also, I feel like we’re actually winding down
with Love Letters. I could write as much
as I already have from Ryan’s POV if I really wanted to prolong it, but I just
don’t. I will add some additional scenes
from his POV at the end, though, because it’s only fair to get a look at what’s
going on in his head during all this craziness.
This story…it’s almost 90k words.
It has consumed me. I have Cody
almost ready to go, but this one cries out for justice, so Love Letters, you
take precedence.
PS--on the plagiarism thing…seeing as
how the story copied was free in the first place, you might not think this
hurts me all that much, but if I ever want to remake it into my own ebook and
try to sell it, I now have to add a disclaimer to keep people from feeling like
they’ve been cheated, or calling me
the plagiarist, which happily only one person has. My goal for this year has been to turn The
Captain into an ebook, professionally edited, and sell it myself. Now I’m leery. Anyway.
I thought you guys deserved an update.
Let’s move on. J
Title:
Love Letters
Part Thirty-Three:
It’s Called A Break; Of Course It
Hurts
***
There was nothing fun about moving
on. There was nothing redeeming even in
the words of it; the very phrase offended with its pithy impression of
completeness, like moving on was like moving between houses, or moving to a new
city. “Moving on” as a pop psychology
fad implied not just getting past something but getting over it, and Ben had been
around long enough to know that there were some things you just didn’t get
over. Nevertheless, he was going to have
to try.
It had all been his choice in the end,
the leaving, refusing to take Ryan’s calls, not responding to his texts. Which wasn’t to say that Ben didn’t read
them; he did. The first ten or so, at
least. After that he couldn’t take any
more apologies, so he started deleting them unopened. If it was something important, Jasmine would
let him know.
She’d been a kind of unexpected
ally. Ben had known she’d go down to Concord
to support Ryan, that was the sort of friend Jasmine was: the best kind. He just hadn’t expected her to keep talking
to him. The first righteous snarl of
indignation had ended with her hanging up, Ben fighting a headache and
wondering if he’d have to stay in North Carolina just to take care of the
details. The call back had been
surprising, and the understanding had been downright stunning. It had been a relief to know that he could
count on her, to know that she would make sure Ryan and his family were all
right while Ben handled some of the more material issues. Ben didn’t want them to be hurt. Fuck, he still felt bad that he’d caused them
to be hurt, even though he staunchly believed that he was right.
Ben knew the Kuzniars needed a new
lawyer. That was the first step. She or he could guide them down the right
paths after that, but it had to be someone reliable. Someone who wasn’t going to screw them over,
who didn’t have a connection to Uncle Bill, or at least who had a stronger
connection elsewhere. That was where the
DeWitt side of the family came in.
Ben was almost sure—almost—that his father had a cousin who
was a lawyer in North Carolina. He
seemed to remember that pretty clearly, but then nothing could be absolutely
counted on where his father was concerned.
The only thing to do was to call the man up and make sure Ben wasn’t
delusional. He hadn’t talked to his
father in…god, years. Since he was in
college. Ben hoped the number he had was
still good.
The phone rang three times before being
picked up. “Millander-DeWitt residence,
this is Carly,” a little voice said very carefully into the speaker. “Hello?
H’lo?”
“Sorry,” Ben said after a moment. He hadn’t been expecting one of his
half-siblings to answer the phone. “Sorry,
Carly, my name’s Ben and I’m calling to talk to Charles.”
“Really? That’s my daddy!”
“I thought so,” Ben agreed, a little
charmed despite his nervousness. “Do you
think you could get him for me?”
“Okay.
Daddy!” she yelled. “Phone! It’s Ben!
Ben what?” she asked suddenly, and he scrambled for an answer. Happily the phone was taken away from her
before the silence became too strange.
“Hello?”
“Hi.”
Ben cleared his throat and tried again.
“Hi, Dad.”
“Ben.”
His father sounded floored. As
well he might, Ben supposed. “What…ah,
are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m fine. I’m just calling to get the name of the
lawyer you know in North Carolina. You
have a cousin out there, don’t you?”
“Yeah.
Melissa Carter at Carter and
Associates in Winston-Salem, she took over the firm last year after her
father retired…why do you need a lawyer?”
“It’s for a friend,” Ben told him, not
wanting to get into details. Hell no,
not with his dad. “Mind if I drop your
name when I call her up?”
“Of course not.” He heard his father shift, a faint catch of
breath between one aborted statement and the next. “So you’re really doing all right then?”
“Yes.”
Ben felt a little bad for being so terse, but honestly, he had no idea
what to say to this man. Charles DeWitt
had ceased to have any interest in parenting Ben after the divorce, and if Ben
remembered correctly Carly was the youngest of five in his new family.
“I heard about your book on the
radio. Sounds interesting,” Charles said
after a moment.
“I think so,” Ben replied.
“That’s good, that’s good. Are you working on anything new?”
“I’m always working on something,” Ben
said, squeezing his eyes shut. He’d just
gotten back to Denver an hour ago, and he felt way more tired than he
should. “Look, I’ve got to go. Thanks for the help.”
“Oh sure, sure. No problem.
Feel free to call again, any time.”
Because I’m not going to call you,
Ben heard in the hesitation.
Ben only had the energy to deal with
one dysfunctional family today, and it wasn’t his own. “Thanks.
Bye.” He hung up and exhaled
slowly, then headed into his bathroom.
Shower, bed, and then before he knew it the morning would be here and he’d
have to start dealing with this all over again.
Thankfully, Melissa Carter was both
understanding and very employable; she was still rebuilding her clientele after
her father’s departure. Ben had more
than enough money to keep her going on freeing the Kuzniars from their state of
dependency, and he let her know that.
She responded by knocking an extra twenty percent off her fees. “Because you’re family,” she told him. Ben just thanked her.
Of course, Michael and Heather both
reached out. Explaining things to them
was tricky, since Ben didn’t have the greatest grasp on what was going on
himself. Michael was easier to put off;
a bit of flippancy about all things ending, a few remarks about how much work
he needed to get done (and no lies, Ben had a lot of writing to do if he was
going to keep making deadlines) and Michael was sad for him but not
suspicious. Heather, who was less content
to do things over the phone, wasn’t so easy to put off.
“Beer,” she said when he opened the
door three days later, thrusting a six-pack at him. “Pizza.”
She hefted the box in her other hand.
“Time for some face-to-face happy drunk time and commiseration, my man.”
“Six beers aren’t enough to get drunk
on,” Ben protested as Heather pushed past him into the house.
“You’ve also got a bottle of completely
toxic vodka in your fridge that I left here last time—remember? That’s more than enough to get us drunk on,
and I’ve gotta say, I’m a little offended you thought I’d buy any of that last
voicemail.”
“What was wrong with my voicemail?” Ben
asked as he watched Heather bustle around his kitchen, pulling out plates they’d
barely use and tearing off paper towels for napkins.
“Oh, please. ‘I’m going to be really
busy for a while so don’t worry if you don’t hear from me,’ blah blah blah,
yack yack—all of which tells me that you’re setting yourself up for a die-hard
angsting session and you want to be alone for it, which means it’s gonna be
painful and you probably shouldn’t be
alone for it, but you’re not going to take that first step because you’ve got
weird ideas about friends. So here I am.” She handed him a plate and a bottle. “Because I know how much it sucks to break up
with someone you really like.”
“We haven’t broken up.” Not technically; Ben still wasn’t reading any
of Ryan’s messages.
Heather just arched her eyebrows. “Dude…just eat. Drink.”
After the first beers and a couple
slices of pizza they moved to the living room, where Heather played Howl’s
Moving Castle on her iPad. About the
time he started in on his third beer, Ben started talking. He told Heather about Maydays, about the
Kuzniar clan and their awful, impossible patriarch, about the fight and about
what he was doing to mend things the only way he knew how.
“Way to go above and beyond,” was all
Heather said when Ben was finished. He
snorted, but she persisted. “No,
seriously, that’s really nice of you.
Who knew you were so kind?” She batted her eyelashes as she said it, like
it was a cartoon and baby animals would be crowding around them any minute,
delighting in Ben’s kindness. “But you haven’t pulled the trigger yet?”
“I…no.”
“Huh.”
She drained the rest of her beer.
“I’d say don’t draw it out, because relationship uncertainty sucks, but
are you sure ending things is what you want to do?”
Ben thought about it for a moment. He didn’t want to end things with Ryan, no,
but there was no way they could make any sort of relationship work right
now. It wasn’t fair to ask Ryan to split
his focus, and frankly, it wasn’t fair for Ben to compromise himself to keep
Ryan happy. “I think I have to,” Ben
said at last.
“Then do it fast. And, y’know, if you’re having trouble getting
over him you can always come to Africa with me.”
“I still can’t believe you’re going
through with that.” Heather had decided
to use the money she’d saved for the trip after all, but more for the sake of
the adventure than anything else. “Are
you sure you’ll be okay?”
She shrugged. “I’m going to English-speaking countries, for
the most part. I should be fine.”
“You’re brave,” Ben told her, never
more honest than he was right now. “To
go even though you know you’re going alone.
How long will you be gone?”
“I think I can stay for three
months. Maybe more if I budget like a
mad fiend.”
“I’ll miss you.”
“Aww,” she teased, nudging Ben with her
elbow. “Really? Will you stare out your window and sigh? Will you cry into your widdle pillow?”
Ben hit her with a cushion instead. It pretty much meant the same thing.
Heather was right about getting it over
with fast, Ben knew that, but he still couldn’t quite bring himself to take
that next step with Ryan until he’d heard from both Jasmine and Melissa that
the quagmire of his life was slowly coming under control. One week after Maydays, when Ryan called
early that afternoon, like he did every day, Ben accepted the call.
“Hi.”
There was a moment of complete silence. “Ben?” Ryan asked at last, and his voice was
so small that Ben instantly felt guilt pour over his head and down his spine
like a wave.
“Yeah.
Sorry it took me so long to pick up.”
Agh, don’t start with an apology,
you’re not sorry, he yelled at his mind, but Ryan took it in stride.
“Are you kidding me? Don’t be sorry, none of this was your
fault. Thanks for talking to me.”
“I thought we should.”
“Right.”
These awkward silences were going to be
the death of Ben. Fast, like a Band-Aid. “Ryan,
I think we need to…” End things, call it quits, cut this off, “Take
a break.” Oh. It wasn’t what he’d been meaning to say, but it
felt all right.
Ryan inhaled sharply. “Ben, wait, I’m sorry. I really am, I made a—I should never have
asked you to come here, I know this place drove you crazy, I know I drove you crazy, but—”
“It isn’t just what happened over
Maydays,” Ben said, and that was sort of true.
It was only mostly what had
happened. “You need to be an uncle and a
son and a brother right now, and I need to focus on my book. There isn’t a lot of room in there for
anything else at the moment, especially not with you in Concord and me in
Denver.”
“I can multitask,” Ryan said
immediately. “I can do it, I swear, I’m
not going to fuck us up again.”
“Ryan…”
“I love you.” Ryan’s voice was so soft Ben could barely
hear him. “I really do, I love you. I don’t want it to end like this.”
“It’s a break, we’re not burning the
fields and salting the earth,” Ben explained gently. “Later, once things have settled, we can talk
again. If we both still want to. But for right now, I need some space, and I
think you do too.”
“I don’t think so.” Ben was about to reply when Ryan continued, “But
I get it. If this is what you need, then
this is what we’ll do. I’ll stop calling
and texting. You can…you can get in
touch with me whenever you feel like the break is over.”
“I’ll do that,” Ben said. His chest felt tight and strange, his voice a
little hoarse.
“Okay, good, that’s…good. Um…”
Ryan sniffed, and Ben squeezed his eyes shut reflexively, as though by
not seeing he could unhear things as well.
“Okay. I love you, Ben.”
“I love you too,” he managed before
ending the call. His face was hot and
his eyes burned and his chest was so constricted it felt like he was tied into
a corset. He set down the phone and
buried the yell that was just aching to get out.
Where the fuck was that vodka, again?
Ow, my heart. Poor babies, but hopefully they will be stronger in the end. How many more chapters do you have planned for this?
ReplyDeleteNot many, hon. Possibly just one or two, even, depending on the note I want to strike with the finish. I haven't quite decided yet, but regardless there will be an epilogue/some Ryan POVs to flesh things out.
DeleteI LOVE the chapter title, think "I need some space" is one of the crappiest sentences in the English language, am curious about Ben's dad, and sad that this is coming to an end.
ReplyDeleteOh! And sorry about the plagiarizing bastard effing up your publishing life. He'll get his. Karma is a bitch.
DeleteBen's dad, not entirely useless! Woot! Glad you liked the title, I had to think about that one:) I'm a bit sad it's coming to an end as well, but also really excited to get on to Cody's thing, so...*sigh*
DeleteI believe in karma, I do. This guy is going to get it.
I loved it! I was in a weepy mood the whole night and this was the best finish they could reach in th moment. I hope Ryan get his things sorted and I hope Ben is not too hurt. Thanks for putting a free story up although so much has happend with your free stuff.
ReplyDeleteAw, thank you darlin! It's all going to get sorted, I promise. And yeah...free stuff. Still thinking about that.
DeleteI also love the title. I agree with Ben that they need a break. Their relationship was too new and too fragile to handle the stresses. They both need to consider where they want to go before getting back together. I hope things work out for the family and the uncle gets what's coming to him.
ReplyDeleteHi Avid!
DeleteKarma shall be meted out to all, just wait. I love a good wrap-up, and Ryan's got a plan to get himself back in Ben's good graces. Soon, darlin. Soooon:)