Mom nodded. “We do. Thank you, sweetie.”
Sweetie. That was twice now she’d called her that. Mom only used pet names and endearments with people she considered to be part of her inner circle. Which meant she was already attached to Ella.
I glanced over at Dad. He smiled at Ella in a way that reflected Mom’s feelings toward her. It would be terrible if a few days from now Ella realized this was all too goddamn much for her and bailed. For them, and for me.
As we said goodbye to my parents, I resolved myself to have a hard conversation with her. One that might end with her in full understanding of what she’d be getting herself into if she stayed, or with her walking out of the door and out of my life forever.
Chapter 23: Ella
“Ithink you should go home,” Ben said after his parents left.
We stood on opposite sides of the kitchen island. I leaned my hips against it and tried to process his words, placing my hands on the massive slab of butcher block we nearly broke our backs installing. Beneath my fingers, the wood was as smooth as butter. I’d seasoned it myself a few days after the installation, rubbing food-grade mineral oil into its surface with painstaking care while Ben started on the herringbone tile kitchen backsplash. I had wanted this countertop to be perfect. I had wanted him to look on the job I had done with pride, see my usefulness, and decide to let me hang around a little while longer.
Now he was pushing me away.
“Did I do something wrong?” I asked.
“No,” he told me. “I don’t have the words to thank you for being here the past few days. I may never have them. But this,” he said, motioning between us, “this is starting to feel unhealthy.”
Calm. Stay calm.
“How so?”
He leaned against the counter, mirroring my posture. “All I do is take from you. I’ve been reliant on your humor and your energy tokeep me distracted and act as a crutch when my mood went to shit. You’ve had to lie, either outright or by omission, to nearly everyone in your life since we met. I’ve kept you here, as free manual labor, working on my home reno when you could have been hanging out with your family or friends, living your life.”
“Those were all my choices to make,” I said.
He barreled on as if I hadn’t spoken. “And now you’ve dropped your entire life to come help me. You’re losing money, maybe even clients. You can’t deny that. You can’t ignore the way our relationship is negatively impacting you, at least financially.”
I dug my fingernails into the countertop, willing myself to keep my tone level. “I took care of my clients before I came here, and I have my phone in case anything important pops up. It was my decision to make you my priority. Did you ever stop to think about why I chose to help you with the reno? That maybe you were distracting me too?”
He frowned.
I took a deep breath before responding. Sofia told me he might do something like this – try to end things between us because he either couldn’t handle anything romantic right now, or because he was trying to “save me” from himself. If this was motivated by the former, there was nothing I could do but respect his wishes, but if it was the latter, I might be able to make him see reason.
Please, please let it be the latter.
“I spent so much time here because I really like you,” I said. “You’re fun. You’re funny. You are really nice to look at. Your parents inflate the hell out of my ego with their compliments. You inflate the hell out of my ego with your terrible cribbage play. I like working with my hands. It is literally what I do for a living, Ben. Give me a home improvement project, and I will gladly offer up my free labor because I get so much out of seeing a dream or an idea become a reality thatbeing part of bringing it to life is payment enough for me. But aside from that –”
I had to pause for a moment to get my tone back under control. Anger had started to corrupt it. “I’m sorry. I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at myself,” I told him. “You think you haven’t been treating me fairly? Well, I haven’t been treating you right either. I’ve been hiding things. Tamping down on any negative emotion around you because I wanted to be this shiny, happy part of your life to balance out all the bullshit you have to deal with simply by being famous and outspoken about things that matter.
“Winters are hard for me, Ben. I’m actually not losing that much money by being here. Business slows to a crawl at the end of January, picks up a little around Valentine’s Day, and then drops off again until spring. I have to save all year just to make it through.”
He straightened, eyes wide in surprise. “I’m sorry Ella. I didn’t know. But doesn’t that prove my point about how one-sided this relationship has been? How much I’ve been taking advantage of you?”
I shook my head. “Not really. All it proves is that I’m as complicit in this as you are.”
“What?” he asked, deadpan.
“I didn’t tell you any of this because I was…” I ran a hand through my hair, trying to think of how to phrase this. “I don’t know, babying you isn’t the right term here, but I was definitely trying to shield you from anything negative.”
His expression hardened. “I’m a grown-ass man, Ella.”
“I know you are. I’m sorry for what I did. Trust me.” My laugh was a bitter thing. “And it wasn’t just that motivating my actions. Part of why I didn’t say anything was because, really, what’s a few months of tight living compared to all the hate you receive on Twitter? What are my problemscompared to yours?”
Ben crossed his heavy arms over his chest. “Just because our problems are different, it doesn’t mean yours don’t matter.”
“I know that now,” I said. “My sister-in-law helped me to see that. Whatyouneed to see is that this imbalance between us isn’t entirely your fault.”
