Tears Fall Into The Sea | Ben Florian Beast

Chapter 5

"Mal!"

"Hey, Ben!"

He looks to the other VKs surrounding her and says, "Can I talk to you in private?"

"Okay." The VKs share each other 'knowing looks' as Ben and Mal start walking to a secluded area. "You know, I didn't see you after the Tourney game. Congratulations, by the way."

"Thank you." Ben pauses before saying, "I actually wanted to talk to you about what happened before that."

"Oh?"

"Yeah." He looks around to make sure no one is listening in and says, "I'm flattered you have a crush on me, but I am disappointed that you love spelled my cookie."

"Technically it's a love potion-" Mal realizes her mistake. "Wait, what? H-how did you know?"

"It doesn't matter how." Ben runs his hands through his hair in frustration. "I won't tell anyone because you don't need another reason for people not to trust you.

"I brought you here to Auradon Prep because I believe in you. Don't blow it."

Ben walks away from Mal. She stares after him with doe eyes and a frown on her face.

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Ursa is used to stares following her, first because of her status as coming from the Isle, but now the stares got worse with Ben next to her. After the Tourney game, Ben stopped hanging out with Chad and Audrey and instead hung out with her. Audrey was seen kissing Chad and them being all romantic together, so it was clear to everyone that Baudrey was no more.

They're chatting about their plans for the weekend during lunch (Lonnie is busy finishing her homework that is due today in the library.) when Ursa says, "I still don't get it."

Ben furrows his eyebrows. "About what?" He takes another bite of his food.

"Why-why are you hanging out with me? Why eat lunch with me, when you haven't before? Why are you walking me to class when you can?"

He takes a moment to mull over his thoughts before saying, "I'm sorry for leaving you to sit alone during lunch every time Lonnie couldn't sit with you. Au-My previous friends didn't exactly want to... sit with anyone else. But now, I don't want to sit with them anymore after what they've done to you and after what I've seen them do to other people they think are subordinate to them.

"As for the other questions, you just have to accept that I like talking to you." He gives Ursa an unreadable smile again. "And we're friends, aren't we?"

"We are?"

"I-if you want to." Ben's suddenly nervous.

Ursa never had a friend outside of Lost Revenge and Dizzy. She doesn't know if Lonnie counts either. "I-I would like that," she says while giving him a shy smile.

The smile returns to his face brighter than ever.

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Ursa's reading a book she borrowed from the library (which she is fixated on) when Lonnie comes in, out of breath, and sits next to her. "I'm so sorry again for leaving you to sit alone during lunch, it's just that I can't work somewhere noisy and with a high chance of getting food on my homework. Again, I'm so sorry."

Lonnie is finally settled in her seat when Ursa says, "It's okay, I sat with Ben."

"With Audrey and Chad?"

"Hell no, it was just us..." Ursa adds, "He's not really talking to the two of them anymore."

"Finally, he's too good for the two of them," says Lonnie. "But why?"

"He," Ursa mulls over what to say, "finally got tired of how they treat other people."

Lonnie's smiling at her like she knows something Ursa doesn't.

Ursa asks, "What?"

"How was it?"

"It was... fine?"

"Just fine?"

"What else am I supposed to say?"

"The truth!"

Ursa smiles, remembering their time together. "It was... nice." With a smile on her face she's trying to smother, Ursa pushes Lonnie and urges her to look forward.

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Ursa's dreading her therapy session. It's been going good. She's been getting medicine, which made going through her days easier. Her therapist, Miss Hope (which is just what Ursa needed, as she's always felt hopeless), managed to rat out all her trauma from being on the Isle and all the horrible memories she had that led to who she is now. They've been meeting once every week, and Miss Hope has been teaching her better coping mechanisms than the ones Ursa had been accustomed to using.

But, as Ursa has been realizing, having better coping mechanisms and learning to reframe her thoughts, means that Ursa has to learn how to live her life, which she hasn't learned before because all she's been doing is surviving, which she was already bad at (on account of her suicidal thoughts). Other than learning about how to survive her thoughts and feelings, she realized she also has to learn how to transcend her depression. She has to learn to live, as in expecting the future and preparing for it, gaining friends and being good to others, managing her time properly and compartmentalizing, practicing self-regulation, and all the other life skills she hasn't learned before.

Part of Ursa wants to revert to her old, extremely depressed self because she's afraid of failing to live her life, which she hasn't felt in a while. Now that she cares about her life, now that she's found hope for the future, she has to learn how to live. She's afraid of living because she knows her depression set her back, which means she has to try harder to do so. To Ursa, it seems like being well and being ill both give her hardships to face.

To someone other than herself, she knows it may sound silly or strange, but this has been brewing in her heart into a big problem. Which is why she's dreading her therapy session.

So when Ben walks with her (something he has been making a habit of) to the Guidance Office of Auradon Prep, he notices the dilemma brewing in her mind.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah! Yeah."

"You know you can tell me anything, right?"

"I mean, even if I tell you this, I don't think I'll make sense."

"It's okay. Just try it."

And so she tells him, in a tangential way, what has been bothering her at the moment, to which he says, "I get it."

"There's no way that you get it."

"I may not get it exactly, but I do know the feeling of, 'What if I just give up? My claim to the crown, my academics, all my sports, what if I just give it all up?' And trust me, it gets very tempting sometimes."

"And then what do you do?"

"I think of the people counting on me. All of Auradon is counting on me. They're my people. It is a great privilege to become their king, and I owe it to them to help them the best I can.

"You have Uma, your sister, and Lost Revenge, your crew, and me, your friend, counting on you to live. They would want you to live. I want you to live."

Ursa mulls it over for a while, until they reach the office.

"Thanks, Ben, for helping me make sense of it," she says, smiling at him.

Returning the smile, he says, "That was basically a therapy session with the crown prince of Auradon. That has a price, you know."

"Charge it to the royal family, my therapy sessions are covered by you, anyway."

He gapes at her and puts a hand on his heart, saying, "The audacity!"

They laugh together.