Page 63 of How We Began

Dinner was cold in the end and served naked. Which in my new opinion is how the best meals are dished up.

Our feet were tangled, both of us holding a glass of wine. “Thank you.” He pecked a kiss on my temple.

“I haven’t actually done anything. I’m sorry I didn’t know it was your birthday. It’s kind of embarrassing. I totally suck.”

“Why? It’s not like I did anything for yours.” He met my gaze but I couldn’t hold it, hated the shadows and truths and the pain that I found there.

Staring at his duvet (#mature) I mulled his statement. It wasn’t like I even gave him a chance to do anything for my birthday. I think back to that month of hell and hate myself for making it so much worse. I know he did things that made me angry, but the way I reacted, that was all on me. I’m not proud of it. Of what I did. How I behaved.

“It wasn’t your fault, Ben,” I said and my chest ached with heaviness.

“Well, yeah, it kind of was. Let’s not forget what started the whole row in the first place.”

Like I was ever going to forget. And to think I’d been naïve enough to think our first row was about my bad haircut and subsequent hiding—oh no, that was a picnic compared to what I served up in November.

“This is nice, isn’t it? The whole day together thing?” I said, trying to change the subject as I shoved a potato into my mouth.

“Yeah, it is.” His voice softened and his eyes danced in the candlelight as he brushed his hand across mine. “I wish it didn’t have to end.” I grabbed his wine and slopped the red on the bedside table as I put the both our glasses down.

“Who said anything about it ending? We’ve got hours left yet.”

We didn’t. The day had slipped away, but no one could blame me for extending the truth.

(Later)

We were lying together in silence. There wasn’t much to say. Our day really was over and we both knew it. I sat up, pulling him up with me. Then I reached down under the bed and slid out his present.

Just in case I might ever wonder what Ben would have looked like as a little boy on Christmas Day, I was pretty sure I now knew.

His face lit up like the Blackpool illuminations as he stared at the box in his hands. I hadn’t bothered to wrap it. Let’s be real, I didn’t have time, or wrapping paper or Sellotape.

“There is no way I can accept this.” His stared down, his voice very low.

With my pulse bashing in my veins, I tilted his chin up with my fingertips, surprised to find tears glittering along his eyelashes.

“Yes, you can. You have to. I can’t take it back. Big Baz was planning a holiday.”

He smiled a little at this. “It is way too much, Lilah.”

He said my name so low, so intimate, like it was a treasured word, something sacred and intangible. My stomach stabbed with longing.

“Well, look at it this way.” I forced my tone to be lighter. “When you make that amazing album later this year, you’ll be able to think of me while you’re doing it.”

He stared at me. “I’d have been thinking of you anyway.”

Then gently he placed the guitar on the floor and reached for me again, hands just as gentle with me as they were with the guitar.

It looks like we will need that breakfast tomorrow after all.

Taylor is crooning “Safe and Sound.” And that is kind of how I feel as I sit here watching him sleep. Safe and Sound. It’s not real, I know that, but it feels good all the same.

Also noting: Ben’s birthday 13th January.

14th January

“Give me one more day.” Ben started the day with some early morning begging. It was an indecent hour and I knew not to look at my phone to check the time. Once you’ve looked, you can’t undo knowing the information and your brain wakes up. I did not want my brain to be awake.

“Mmm, that’s not what we agreed. And stop talking, I’m sleeping.”