Page 32 of How We Began

I just snuck out of my room and along the hallway to the next door. Opening it slowly, I crept inside. It was pretty dark in there with the curtains closed.

The door banged shut behind me, which I didn’t intend to happen. The noise woke Ben, who lifted his head to look at me with an expression of shock across his face.

Probably not as shocked as the look on my own face, because there next to him on the bed was Barbie Girl, and she appeared to only be wearing her bra and knickers.

PLASTIC BARBIE WAS IN BEN’S BED, DRESSED ONLY IN KNICKERS.

If I look at that line enough, I may believe it to be true.

FUCK.

I’m hyperventilating. I can’t breathe.

I didn’t see this coming.

I think I’m going to throw up.

Ben is banging on my door, but there is not a chance I am opening it to him. Not now, not ever.

What the hell just happened?

Oh God.

I should have known this was too good to last.

I should have known he was too good for me to keep. I’ve been a complete idiot. And there I was telling Mum and Dad how perfect we were, and that I knew this was a forever thing… and he was with her.

He’s been banging on the door and shouting through it for a good five minutes. He sounds pretty desperate.

I feel like I can’t breathe. There is no air left for me to catch hold of.

(Another ten minutes of hell later)

I answered the door.

Eventually I got up and unlocked the door for Ben to march through, slamming it back against the wall, his hair dishevelled and slept on (but not slept on with me), his blue eyes flashing. He ran an agitated hand through his wild hair, making it stand up even more.

“Lilah, please let me just tell you what happened. It isn’t what you think at all.”

“Really?” I didn’t want to have to state the painfully obvious, but thought I should just in case he genuinely didn’t see her. “There’s a naked girl in your room.”

“Yes, there is, but nothing happened.” So he had seen her… almost naked. Which brought me to my next point.

“Why is she naked then?”

“Because she was trying it on, then she passed out. It’s the truth. I promise!”

I’m not sure if that was meant to make it better. It didn’t. It didn’t at all.

“Oh, well that makes me feel much better, that she was just trying it on.” The words all sounded wrong coming out of my mouth. These were words I was never meant to have to say to Ben, in an argument that I maybe naively didn’t think we would ever have. Now it was happening though, I wanted it done properly. “Exactly how far did she get? Far enough for her to get her clothes off without you stopping her? Why the fuck was she in your room anyway?” Then I thought of the clanger in the argument. “Or why didn’t you just leave her there and come to find me?” My screaming voice broke a little on “me.”

He opened his mouth but all I could see in his eyes were the lies he might tell me. I couldn’t listen to it. He’d just taken every fear I’d ever had about him, about us, and made it a reality.

“Don’t bother, Ben.” I held my hand up. “I’m not interested. Clearly, we’ve have been having some fun the last couple of months, but it’s over now, so let’s just leave it at that, shall we? It’s all cool, let’s just pretend none of it ever happened.” (Said no sane person ever in the middle of a break-up. Everyone knows I’m not sane though, so I guess it doesn’t really matter)

His face fell with shock, like I’d punched him. “Fun! You think I have just been having fun with you? I am in insanely in love with you, Lilah. Irrationally and uncontrollably, and yeah, unexpectedly in love with you.’

His words just hammered into the splintering pain in my heart, making the final smash that much quicker and harder.