"I guess I did. But that's different. Those were just my complaints, my plans. Not something life-altering like a pregnancy."
"Different scale, same principle," Ben said, finishing his hot chocolate. "We all decide what to share and what to keep private, even with the people closest to us."
“What have you kept secret?”
She didn’t have a clue why she’d asked the question. If he hadn’t told anyone else, he wasn’t going to tell her.
“If you really want to know, I haven’t told my parents that my business closed,” he replied after a long silence.
“You mentioned that.”
Kind of. He certainly hadn’t given any details, but to be fair, she hadn’t sought them out. It wasn’t any of her business.
“They would have been fine about it,” Ben explained. “But they would have had questions, and I don’t have any answers right now. I don’t want to have to admit that to them.”
“Will they think less of you?”
While Ben hadn’t told her lots of things about his parents, what she’d heard didn’t sound judgmental at all.
“No, but I think less of myself. They’re going to ask me what I’m going to do now, and I don’t know yet. Maybe that’s how Lori felt, too. She knew you would have questions, and she didn’t have any answers.”
“I would have helped her find the answers.”
“I know, and my parents would help me. But when you’re that young, you sometimes don’t know that it’s okay not to have those answers.”
“Ben, it’s okay not to have those answers.”
It felt important to say it to him.
“My business is gone. One day it was there, and then the next it wasn’t. I feel…I feel a little bit like a failure, even though I didn’t do anything to close the business. One of my partnersdecided to join a commune. So we closed the business. It wasn’t my fault, but damn, it sure feels like one. Lori may have felt like she failed. That’s a hard thing to admit.”
Kelly's mug was nearly empty, the rich chocolate leaving a comforting warmth in her chest despite the uncomfortable conversation.
“Thank you for telling me that. You didn’t have to, but I think I might understand why she did it a bit more.”
Ben rinsed out his cup before nodding toward the living room.
"Want to sit somewhere more comfortable?" he suggested. "I'm wide awake now, and I'm guessing you are too."
Kelly nodded, placing her cup with his and then following him to the living room.
Ben switched on a small lamp, casting a soft glow over the space along with the television. Kelly settled onto one end of the couch, tucking her feet beneath her, while Ben took the other end.
"What if she didn't trust me?"
The question burst from Kelly before she could stop it, all her fears condensing into six painful words.
"I’m guessing she trusted you, but perhaps she didn’t trust herself."
"I would have helped her. I would have been there for her, no matter what she decided to do."
"Maybe she was still deciding," Ben suggested. "Maybe she needed time to process it herself before sharing it with anyone else."
One thing didn’t make sense about all of this.
"Cal said they fought about marriage, and then she dropped it. If she were pregnant, wouldn't she have used that to convince him?"
"Not necessarily," Ben replied. "Maybe after he made it clear he wasn't ready for marriage, she realized she needed to figure out her options on her own."
