"Chloe! Hold up, please."
I'm twenty feet from Ben's front door, and all I want to do is break into a run. But the street is crowded and Ben could catch me anyway, so I stop.
"What, Ben?"
"Can we please talk about this?"
"What's there to talk about?"
"Hey," he says, taking hold of my hand. "Hey."
I want to pull away but it's hard to do it when he's looking at me with soft eyes and a contrite expression. I am an idiot for this man.
"What's going on, Ben? What was Rachel doing there?"
He ducks his head. "I don't know why Rachel came over."
"She said you texted her last night."
"What?"
"That's what she said."
"I ... Yes, okay I did do that."
I pull my hand away.
"Not like that. It was before we met at the bar."
That's supposed to make it better? She didn't text him back and I'm the second choice?
I swallow hard. "You asked to see her?"
"No, I ... Yes, I did."
"Which is it, Ben?"
He stands still for a moment. The crowd swirls around us, people annoyed that we're taking place on the street.
"My mom was asking about her yesterday. She hadn't seen her in a bit because I'd told Rachel that we needed to stop having her around my mom so much."
"When did you tell her this?"
"After I saw you again. With Tyler."
"You mean when you went to her apartment with Tyler?"
"Yes."
I can't stand this. Having to pull this story from him piece by piece.
"You have to tell me everything, Ben. If you want something with me. There have been too many secrets."
"I know. I know."
"But maybe you don't want something with me and last night was just a thing and that's okay. You know, bygones or whatever."
"No, that's not what I want."
"What changed?"
"What do you mean?"
"You said you weren't ready for a relationship. That you couldn't be with me because of your mom. And I assume that hasn't changed. So, if last night was just something because you were drinking, a moment of weakness, or whatever, I get it, okay?"
I get it because I was weak too. When I saw him at the bar I should've turned and run. I should run away right now but my feet are rooted to the spot.
"No. I don't want that."
"What, then?"
"Can we ... can we go back to my apartment and talk?"
"Is Rachel still there?"
"No. And I took the keys. I'd asked her for them before, and that's what I texted her about yesterday. She doesn't have keys anymore."
"So, that's where you lived with her?"
"Yes."
Ugh, I knew it. I knew it about the sheets. They were way too nice for a guy to pick out.
"Can we talk," Ben says. "Please?"
"Can we go somewhere else? Somewhere where you never went with her?"
"Okay, yes, just let me think for a minute."
Oh God, this whole city is tainted. They've been together so long that there's nowhere we can go without it holding some memory of her.
"Forget it."
"What? No. Come on, follow me." He takes my hand and leads me down a side street.
"Where are we going?"
"It's just up here."
Half a block up the street, there's a set of stairs going down to a diner.
"Here?"
"Yes."
"This must be your breakfast place with Rachel. It's so close to your apartment."
"No, it's not."
"How?"
"She wouldn't ever come here. It was my place."
"You promise she's never been here?"
"She popped her head in the door one time and that was it."
"Okay."
We walk down the stairs. It's a kind of speakeasy diner, one that must've been around New York for a long time. Old photos on the walls with a man in a white apron shaking hands with celebrities, a white Formica counter with red puffy bar stools, booths with little jukeboxes in them.
"I love it," I say and Ben gives me a broad grin.
"Right?"
"Hi, Ben," a waitress in her fifties says. "Who's this?"
"This is Chloe. Chloe, this is Miranda."
"Hi, Miranda."
"Usual table?"
"Sure."
She points to an empty booth in the back. "I'll bring you menus in a minute."
Ben takes my hand and leads me to the booth. We sit across from one another. I fiddle with my fork nervously, then turn to the jukebox while Miranda fills our coffee cups and puts down two menus.
"There's nothing past 1985 in there," Ben says.
"Perfect." I flip through the songs, names flashing by. WHAM! Tina Turner. Phil Collins.
"Chloe?"
"Yeah?"
"Will you look at me?"
I turn back to him. He's nervous too, I can tell, and part of me doesn't want to be having this conversation. There seems like too much to overcome. But I said I'd listen, so I will.
"Tell me from the beginning."
"What do you know?"
"Forget what Rachel said. I want to hear your side."
"Okay. So Rachel and I met in high school, and we were kind of that couple. You know, the one everyone always thought should be dating?"
I nod. I know exactly what he means. In my high school, their names were Chris and Alice. Kit and I used to make fun of them, but, really, we were jealous.
"So, at some point we started dating. Even then, we'd get into fights. She thought I was a bit of a dork, but we had the same group of friends and we sort of fit in other ways. We broke up a bunch of times, and when it was time for college, I wanted to break up for good."
"But ..."
"But she'd accepted UVM just like me and we ended up there together. And, I don't know, this sounds terrible, but it was just easier to be together. We didn't know anyone else there, and so we were hanging out and we fell into old patterns."
"The break-ups, too?"
"Yeah, those too. But somehow, we'd always make it up. Then we came back to the city after graduation and it made sense to move into together. It's hard to explain, but it felt like my life was on this track, and I couldn't get off."
"You never dated other people?"
"We did. In college, we were broken up for most of Junior year, and I had a girlfriend and she dated someone too. And then, when our first lease was up, I moved out for a while. I mean, I got my own place, the place I'm in now, and we were apart for another year."
"I don't need to hear about the other girls."
"Sure. Anyway, my mom got sicker and Rachel was just there. She's always been great with my mom, and then, before I knew it, we were back together."
"Ben, come on. 'Before you knew it?'"
"Okay, okay, I know what you mean. The truth is, it was just easier than being apart."
"You loved her."
"I did. She is part of my family, but this last time, I realized that it wasn't like that anymore. Not love, love, you know?"
I nod slowly because I do know, but also the thought of him loving someone else makes me feel sick.
"I've been there."
"So you understand."
"I'm trying to."
He runs his hands through his hair. "I was trying to figure out what to do. End it or not. Seemed like we'd been together so long everyone was expecting us to get married. Like, people were talking about it like it was something we'd already done, or we were already engaged."
"You were scared."
"I was scared of waking up married to someone I wasn't in love with, yeah. For sure."
"You broke it off."
"Yeah. I did. And it was final this time. I told her that. No getting back together. We had to move on. Both of us."
"But she still had your key."
"She wouldn't give it back. I didn't think she was going to murder me."
"And you still hung out all the time."
"It's hard to untangle your life from someone after all those years. And I didn't hate her. She didn't hate me. We just didn't work."
"Did she agree with that?"
"I thought she did."
"So she was coming over this morning to return your keys and she found me there in my underwear."
"Is that what happened?"
I blush at the thought of it. "You didn't know?"
"I didn't stop to hear the story, I just took the keys and came after you."
"She's not going to like that."
"It's not for her to like or not. We're done."
The waitress arrives to take our orders, but I haven't given any thought to it or even looked at the menu.
"Just coffee for me, please."
"What?" Ben says. "No, no, you have to get the full ticket here, it's the best."
"What's the full ticket?"
"One of everything."
That does sound good. "Okay, bring it."
Ben smiles and asks for the same thing. She fills our coffee cups and leaves.
"So that's the story," Ben says. "Are we okay?"
"Is there a we?"
"I hope so."
"And what about everything before?" I say with Kit's warning in my ears. "What about you not being ready and having family obligations and everything?"
"That's all still true."
"What am I doing here, then?"
"I want to try anyway."
"Why?"
"Because I haven't been able to stop thinking about you since we met that day in the diner. Me sitting down like that? That wasn't something I'd normally do. Normal Ben would've corrected your mistake, collected my to-go coffee, and bolted. Normal Ben would've walked in the other direction when I saw you at the Met."
"So you were acting crazy?"
"That's not what I mean. I was drawn to you from the beginning. And after that day, I wanted to find you, but I couldn't. And then there you were again, looking for me through the BookBox and that scared me. It scared me because I wanted to see you so badly I knew that I was going to screw it up."
"That doesn't make any sense."
"If you're me, it does. I stayed with someone I wasn't in love with for years because that was the easier thing to do, Chloe. Change is hard for me. Taking a risk is hard for me. Especially now with everything going on with my mom."
"What changed?"
"You just kept showing up."
"Like the universe was putting us together?"
"No, like it was reminding me that I was a dumbass and I had this great opportunity that I was turning away from. That I had a chance to be happy, and I didn't want to take it because what would happen if I did?"
"What?"
"Then I could really get hurt."
"Oh."
Our eyes meet and it's like last night. In this downstairs diner, with the clatter of the morning all around us. It's hard to look away but I do.
"The thing is, you have hurt me."
"I know. I'm so sorry about Rachel this morning."
"It's not just that. It's all the times you turned away. That you're scared at all."
"Aren't you?"
"Honestly, I wasn't."
"And now?"
"Now I am."
Ben laughs. "Welcome to my boat."
I shudder. "You know how I feel about boats."
"Ah, Chloe, I'm sorry."
"It's fine. Truly. It's ... What do you want from me?"
"I want to date. I don't want today to be our last breakfast. I want to do all the things."
"Eat all the things."
"That too."
"You're not going to run away from me again?"
"That is not the plan."
"But you can't guarantee it."
"How could I? But I really don't want to, Chloe. I ... I like you a waffle lot."
I burst out laughing. "Oh my God. You're using the punny breakfast place against me?"
"I'll take what I can get."
"That was your choice of restaurant."
"It wasn't."
Ugh, right. It was Jack's. Jack. Shit. What am I going to tell him?
"Can we try, Chloe?"
"Hmmm."
"You're thinking about it?"
"I'm thinking about how I can trust this."
"Oh."
"I have an idea."
"You do?"
"Yes."
"What is it?"
"It's not a what. It's a who."