Just worn.
Like the weight of it has finally caught up to him.
“Benji, I don’t?—”
“Please, just listen. See, I know I fucked up. I should’ve listened to you,” he says. “Should’ve come home and looked you in the eye and asked you what happened instead of?—”
He cuts himself off, jaw tightening.
“Fucking Paul,” he exhales, shaking his head. “That bastard was like my brother.”
Something in his voice cracks.
And I feel it.
“I grew up with nothing,” he continues, quieter now. “You know that. Just me and my mom, scraping by, trying to stay ahead of my old man’s mess. When I enlisted after she died, I didn’t trust anyone. Didn’t need to.”
He huffs out a humorless laugh.
“Then Paul, my old buddy, he comes around. He shows up. Loud, stupid, always in trouble—but he had my back. Or I guess I just fucking thought he did.”
My throat tightens.
“We went through everything together,” he says. “Training. Deployment. Shit most people don’t walk away from. He was there for all of it. So when he came to me with those videos? That fucking sex tape. The happy birthday clip? When he came to me with a story that you realized you loved him and not me…”
He swallows hard.
“I believed him.”
There it is.
The truth.
Simple.
Brutal.
“I believed him because I knew I never deserved you, Sweetheart. Someone like me? The bastard son of an even bigger bastard than I am, I knew I didn’t deserve something as good and pure and sweet as you. But I should’ve known better,” he adds, voice dropping. “Should’ve known you better.”
My chest aches so bad I can barely breathe.
“Benji—”
“I fucked up. I let him prey on my insecurities. I trusted the wrong person,” he says. “And I didn’t have the balls to face you—to have you tell it to my face—when that’s the only fucking thing I should’ve done.”
His eyes meet mine then.
And there’s something in them I’ve never seen before.
Regret.
Real, raw, and unguarded.
“Why didn’t you talk to me?” I whisper, tears rolling down my cheeks.
“I fucked up,” he says simply, and then I see them.
A trail of tears spilling from his eyes, too.
