Sweet as a Strawberry

23 ~ Sweet as a Sundae

A/N: Hi! If you're going to comment or message me, please say more than just 'update' <3 tell me how you're doin or something!

dedicated to XXsweetrevengeX for the absolutely beautiful cover you see on the side!! :)

Chapter 23: Sweet as a Sundae

My head tipped back. "Your house," I said, awestruck. "It's not a house..."

"It's not mine, either," Ben muttered.

I glanced at him. His back was stiff and straight and his expression was pinched. It was obvious how much he didn't want to be here, and I really wished that we could leave. But he needed to do this - face his demons and make peace.

We stood on the lawn that lay before the mansion, and I was just looking up at it. It was huge and extremely beautiful.

Archer nudged me. "The cake is melting, we should go in," he said.

I glanced at Ben again. He didn't look as though he was ever going to move. "Ben?" I asked tentatively.

"What?" he said, his voice tense.

I didn't like this. "Let's go in, okay?"

Ben nodded and began walking, his movements jerky and his strides long. Archer and I looked at each other and hurried to catch up to him. I didn't like how upset he was, and I didn't like how hard he was working to cover up that sadness with harshness. I ran up beside Ben and laced my fingers with his. His grip on my hand tightened, and I smiled.

At the front door, Ben abruptly stopped, and I slammed into his back. "Oh," I squeaked in surprise, stepping back and rubbing my nose.

"Sorry," he said, but sounded extremely distracted.

I waited for a moment, and when Archer started jumping impatiently, I tapped Ben on the shoulder. "Ben?"

"What?"

"Could you please look at me?"

When he turned to me, his expression was distant and cold, and I could tell that he wasn't really looking at me - his mind was somewhere else.

I frowned worriedly. "Ben, come back to Earth."

His mouth twisted into a scowl. "What, Lottie? Why do you always want something from me?"

I was taken aback. "What do you mean?"

"You can't just say stuff like that," he said loudly and unkindly. "You can't just pretend that you can fix everything, because you can't!"

I gulped. "I-I know that-"

"No you don't! You don't know how hard it is for me to do this, and yet you pretend that you do! I don't need your help, okay?"

My self-defence mechanism was to smile - it had always been like that. I couldn't help that whenever I felt hurt, I hid it with happiness. My mouth wavered into a shaky smile as I took a few steps back. "I'm sorry," I tried to say. "I didn't mean for-"

Ben turned away. "You don't care," he said. "God, Charlotte, don't you have the decency to know not to look so happy to see me this mad?"

The smile dropped. I didn't know he felt that way. I didn't know he thought I was just pretending to care. I thought I'd made it clear how much I liked him.

My heart stuttered when I realised that he'd called me Charlotte. Even though his back was turned to me, I lifted my chin and pressed my lips together so that an outsider wouldn't know that anything was wrong. I didn't say anything in response to Ben, because it seemed that anything I said just made him angrier and more annoyed. He didn't need more stress right now.