Until November

Chapter 27

Ben

"Turn it off." My voice splinters my throat, my stomach. The dead calm of my voice is a twisted knot of hatred in my gut.

Jocelyn picks up the remote and clicks it at the screen. It goes black as she half-rises off the couch, her face a sheet of horror. "Is that...true?" The underlying firmness in her voice shatters pain through my heart.

"They had no right to say that publicly." I walk over to the bouncer, crouching low in front of Noelle. I keep my gaze on hers, unable to put out the smoke and fumes whirling through me. It's out. All of it. "They. Had. No. Right."

I face Jocelyn, sorry for all the times I didn't tell her. I'm the asshole who put that look on her face. I get up and go to the kitchen, taking out my phone, reading with eyes that bore into each article coming out, each statement highlighted from Linda and John, my anger doubling, tripling at the half truth they told.

Jocelyn's quiet footsteps cause me to look up. The pained frown on her face and disbelieving eyes only fuel the things I am trying to contain inside me.

"The first time you looked at Noelle, in the hospital," her voice is composed, "I knew something about her scared you. I could tell there was a wall between you and Jack, too. I didn't push because I know you'll open up when you're ready."

"I have opened up to you. Every night in your bed."

"No." Her saucy gaze is full of punishment. "That's not the same thing. Giving me an orgasm isn't the same as letting me in. You yourself said you would show me how to accept everything between us physically and not have any emotional attachment which is all shit."

I do a double take at the revulsion in her voice.

"People feel things, Ben." She pins her finger against her chest. "I feel things with you. Just when I think I've figured you out, I'm constantly reminded that the same wall you put up with Jack, you put up with me. You have to talk to someone or it will destroy you."

My breath comes out in a thin stream, my hands falling to my hips. "I've tucked away the truth for so long that I've forgotten how to say it. I didn't want to be changed by any of this, I didn't want you to need me to tell you things."

"That doesn't matter now. I need to know things. I need to know everything." She walks away, her head held high, and I follow, taking a seat next to her on the couch.

My phone erupts in messages and pings, and I turn it off.

It's time.

She's right. Rubbing my hands together slowly...exhaling. Breathing. Years of secrets and regrets still tight on my tongue. Starting and stopping. Pausing and dipping my head, the words heavy in my mouth. "Not everything Linda and John said was the truth." A fact I intend to set straight and blast their credibility. "Hannah was living in California when we met. Our relationship wasn't serious and she wasn't dating Jack. I met her first."

Jocelyn folds her legs beneath her, giving me her undivided attention.

"Hannah and I—it never would have been more than a good time. In fact, our attraction was fleeting and lukewarm, like we wanted to have this great connection, but didn't. She got pregnant in the short time we were together. It was right before my career took off. I was twenty. I hadn't made my money yet so it wasn't like she was going to have a baby to get millions out of me." I look over at Noelle, needing to hold onto her, the feeling effortless to hold her, to love her smell and her warmth. "I told Hannah I didn't want to have a child. I told her a lot of things. They weren't kind." I cringe at the memory, at the fights, the words I knew would hurt her. "She told me she would never want to bring a child into the world with me as a father. She promised me two things. She wouldn't keep the baby. And she would hate me forever. Both of those promises she lived up to. We went together to the clinic, we went inside, and it was done."