Music And Silence- A Reylo AU

Chapter 31 -You Have Bewitched Me

"Ben!" 

Rae had followed him outside, and outside it was raining. It was early dusk, but she couldn't see him in the fields around the marquee, so she headed for the wood and the clearing where the ceremony had taken place. Ben stood under the arbour.
"Ben!?" she cried again. No answer. Rae perched at the edge of the seating area not sure if he'd heard her or if he was choosing not to respond. Despite the beeches' substantial canopy, rain dripped in heavy droplets through the leaves into the clearing where they stood.

Ben began pacing back and forth from one side of the arbour to the other, then he stopped and turned to her, "Is it going to be like this every time I don't want to share something, you assume it's about Lucinda?"

For a moment Rae didn't respond she didn't want an argument, but this bullshit about Lucinda had to stop.
"Well, did she teach you to dance?"

"Lucinda taught me a lot of things but nothing that left the bedroom."
He said it angrily and that side of him she'd seen that Sunday, when Lucinda had turned up to his apartment unannounced, was there. When he saw her lack of reaction, however, he immediately calmed.
"Sorry." He swept his wet hair from his face. "The truth is my mum took me dancing with her when I was a kid because my dad wouldn't go with her. Not exactly cool, and that's why I didn't want to share."

"I wouldn't have minded, either way, Ben. Your mum or Lucinda."
She watched as rainwater from his hair dripped onto his face as he scrutinised her. His face was tormented and filling with shame and self-loathing; she had to make him see. See that there was no need for shame or guilt or for his past to become between them.
"Our past relationships and our ex's are the past for a reason. We learn, and we move on."

"What I had with Lucinda was never a relationship."

Fucks sake. Rae walked down the aisle to the arbour took him roughly by the arm and made him look at her.

"Ben, I get it. I was with someone I shouldn't have been with when I was seventeen. Shit at home was awful, and he was... well he was an alcoholic who was twice my age. I didn't actually like him he was, well he was vile. I just wanted something away from all of that, something that was just mine. So I get it. We've all done it. Well, maybe not Paige but most people."

"Were you with him long?"

"No, I finished with him pretty pronto when he broke his leg drunk between a wall and a fruit machine, and I'm pretty sure he pissed himself when I introduced him to my mates at this pub, thankfully we were sat on a bench outside."

Ben eyed her like she was making stuff up, "He pissed himself? Really?"

"Yeah, real classy guy," Rae nodded.

"So you didn't let it go on for years just what a month or so? It's nowhere near the same thing."

Uh. According to Ben, they were having a contest of who had done the worst thing.

"Ben, I've done awful things as an adult too. I knew exactly what I was doing, and I didn't care. I went through a horrible break up, got with someone I'd liked and known for years shortly afterwards. I wasn't getting the attention I wanted from him, and I ended up taking his best friend home, Evan. Practically had sex in an alley, did have sex at mine. I cheated and then tried to pretend it hadn't happened. I tried to pretend it was ok because my heart had been broken, but it wasn't ok. In my books, cheating is the worst thing you can ever do, and I did it.
I used to think I had no regrets, but I do, and I'm glad. I'm glad I have regrets because I've learnt from them. It's how I know the real thing now I've found it because I can't miss it; it hits you, bam, like lightning."

Rae relaxed her hold on his arm a little but still held him softly.
"The point is it doesn't matter to me what happened with Lucinda or even if you had ten such relationships. In the immortal words of Tommy Lee Jones- I don't care!"