The End of All Things Beautiful (17 page)

I curl my body alongside him, hoping that he’ll find some
comfort in my presence, in my closeness, and in my touch. I can’t even begin to
imagine what he’s about to tell me, but I do know it’s going to change both of
us forever.

The room is silent and cold. I shiver in Benji’s arms and I wonder
if it’s as cold as I think or if what we’re talking about is driving my body
into some sort of shock. Like making me relive that day is almost more than I
can handle.

Benji hasn’t said anything for several minutes and I don’t want
to push him. I need him to share only what he wants, only what makes him
comfortable and then I nearly laugh out loud at my thought. None of this makes
him comfortable. There will never come a time when either of us is comfortable enough
with this to discuss it. With these thoughts or what we did. It will always be
a struggle.

“There’s more,” Benji says breaking the silence as he kisses my
head.

“I know. And whenever you’re ready I’m here.”

He chuckles a little, the small puffs of air that leave his mouth,
ruffling my hair, but there’s no humor in his laugh. “I’ll never be ready,” he
says matter of factly, and I know this too, but after everything that’s happened,
I feel like we both need the reassurance. We both need to know this will never
drive us apart again.

“Tommy and I…” he starts but stops. I feel him take a deep
breath and let it out slowly. “Tommy pulled Kelly from the car and carried her
away from the wreckage. She was still so drunk and confused. She kept losing
consciousness…” And again he stops short, saying nothing but shifting in my
arms and looking out the window. “She didn’t know Sam was dead, Campbell. We
didn’t tell her,” he says suddenly, and his voice shakes, the pain and guilt
evident. “She would’ve never agreed to leave with us if she knew he was. We
lied to her.”

I remember Kelly screaming, “Where’s Sam?” over and over, but at
the time everything was so clouded and hazy, my thoughts a jumbled mess, that
it never occurred to me to tell her. I guess I honestly didn’t believe it
myself. I kept thinking that maybe we made a mistake; that he wasn’t dead. It
was a moment of complete surrealism and I kept feeling like I would wake up.
That it was all just a nightmare.

I always wondered how they knew Sam was dead. I was unconscious
and so was Kelly, how could they have been sure? And then the realization hits
me.

“You checked, didn’t you?” I ask, and I don’t need to clarify
what I’m asking; Benji understands. He nods nearly imperceptibly, but I feel it
against the top of my head.

“When the car finally stopped moving, I saw you lying there,
your face bloody and your eyes closed, it was the first thing I did. I shook
you, but you didn’t move. I kept yelling your name and you didn’t respond.”

I feel his hold around my body tighten and again I’m shivering.
It’s not from the cold, it’s from everything that is being said; everything I’m
finding out and everything I’m reliving.

“I laid my head against your chest. I felt you breathing. I
heard your heartbeat and I started sobbing. I held you in my arms and cried. At
that moment I didn’t care who survived, I knew you had and that’s all that
mattered to me.”

His words would ordinarily sound selfish, but I understand fully
what he means. I’m sure I would’ve felt the same way had I been placed in his
situation.

He continues and now it’s like he can’t stop, as if he needs to
purge it all from his mind, from his body, from his soul, like there will be
absolution in telling it.

“Tommy climbed over the seat and after he found out Kelly was
still alive, he looked back at me. Sam hadn’t moved at all and I think we both
knew, but he still checked. It was then that he pulled Kelly from the car and
away from it all.”

He continues filling me in on how he didn’t believe Sam was dead
and despite the fact that he was terrified, he checked Sam’s pulse too,
actually, they both checked multiple times. While he said it felt like time had
sped up, like they had been dealing with the situation for hours, only a few
minutes had passed. And in those few minutes they made the decision to leave
and act like we had never been there.

Neither of us has moved, still in the same position, my head
resting against his shoulder, my arms wrapped around his waist, and I’m not
sure I could look at him right now without breaking down. Maybe it’s the same
reason he hasn’t moved. I can tell it’s taking everything in him not to start
crying.

He just admitted to me that he left his best friend, dead in the
car after checking his pulse. There’s so much insensitivity in it all, yet so
much realism too. We were just kids, scared and confused. Our decision making
skills at that moment were completely irrational and I feel like that’s when
everything started to fall apart. The selfishness took over. He was already
dead. There was nothing we could do. He was driving, he was at fault; he was no
longer one of us.

It’s a sick and twisted world we live in and that day, we all
saw it first hand. We saw what selfishness and fear can do to a group of people
who were thick as thieves. It makes you run. It makes you forget the people who
died far quicker than you ever thought possible, but more than anything, it
makes you less of a person. You lose part of yourself. We all lost that day.

And just when I think it can’t get any worse, Benji starts
again.

“Campbell, it was all so horrible. I hated myself the instant I
thought about leaving Sam, but at the time I didn’t see any other option. Fear
was guiding me and as I watched you lying there, you were still out, I knew
this wouldn’t be what you wanted.”

He moves out of my arms, shifting so he can look at me, as if
seeing me will remind him that he’s loved, that it doesn’t matter what he did
because I did it with him. “I…I…I decided not to leave him.” I give him a
questioning look because I know how this all played out in the end. We did
leave him. “I knew you’d come to and be the voice of reason. Something about
seeing you there reminded me that this wasn’t about just me, this was about all
of us, and Sam would always be one of us.”

I’m not at all prepared for what he says next in spite of
knowing that we did ultimately decide to run away from the accident and leave
Sam.

“Before you came to and after I made my decision,” he says, his
voice weak. “We realized that someone in the other car was still alive.”

I gasp out loud, I don’t mean to, but it escapes without warning
and Benji tenses immediately. His body goes stiff and he looks away from me
quickly, but I put my hand on his cheek bringing him back.

“Campbell,” he whimpers, and I feel it everywhere; the ache in
his words piercing my skin, making my heart shatter and my stomach churn. “We
watched him die. We could’ve done something, but Tommy and I stood there and
watched him die.”

He’s crying now, the tears running down his cheeks and I pull
him into my arms, his face buried in my neck. I feel the sting of his warm
tears hit my skin and I cry with him.

I can barely understand him, his voice muffled with tears as it’s
pressed to my neck. “I used to tell myself that it was okay that he died. His
whole family was dead, right?” he asks, but it’s rhetorical, he isn’t looking
for an answer. “What kind of life would he have had? He was just a kid.”

I understand what he’s saying and his rationalization at the
time seemed logical, but in the light of day, when the guilt creeps through and
your conscience shames you for what you did, it’s horrible. I hated myself and
I still do, for leaving Sam, for not stepping in when I knew Kelly was on the
verge of ending her life and now, for not ever reaching out to Tommy. But after
hearing all of this, I know the guilt Benji carries with him is far worse than
what feel. And now I know why he disappeared.

“It was never my decision to make,” Benji says, his voice now a
harsh growl, angry with himself and with his choices. “I chose for that kid. I
never gave him a chance.”

I don’t know what to say. Nothing that comes out of my mouth
will ever make what happened right. Nothing I say will correct all the wrongs;
it will always be a burden we carry, but now he’s not alone.

“I don’t know what to say,” I tell him. “And please don’t think
that’s because I think what you did was wrong.”

Before I can continue Benji interjects. “What I did
was
wrong, Campbell. Can’t you see that?
Can’t you see what a horrible person I am?”

“No,” I say shaking my head. “You’re not. You were confused and
lost. You weren’t thinking rationally, but you can’t keep beating yourself up
over this. We have to find a way to get over it. Both of us do.”

We have each other now and that should mean something. We’ve
been going this alone, burying everything and trying to live a lie. But
underneath it all, we’re both a mess. Yet together we can fix this. We can find
ourselves again and somehow end this guilt we carry.

“I went to the police once,” he admits. “I asked them what would
happen if someone was to leave the scene of an accident where people were
killed.” He runs his hand through his hair and wipes at the tears that have now
dried on his cheeks. “They told me that if the person who left the scene was
driving, they would be responsible for the death of the others. Vehicular
manslaughter, he called it. I wanted him to call it what it was, murder. It was
murder.”
 

The way he says the word ‘murder’ makes me cringe. That’s what it
was. We knowingly drove drunk; while we didn’t intend to kill anyone, that’s a
repercussion for our actions. It might have been something we’d done hundreds
of times in the past without incident, but all it took was one time—one
time to ruin far too many lives.

“It was like he knew what I was asking, like he knew it was me
who left the scene, because he said that there really wasn’t anything he could
do to prove a person left the scene unless they were driving.” Again Benji
shakes his head, his eyes are closed now. “He also added, that the police don’t
generally look for that person if they have the driver. The person at fault
would be the person they sought out.”

“That would’ve been Sam,” I add, filling in so he doesn’t have
to.

“Yeah,” Benji says. “But we’re all at fault. It could’ve been
any one of us driving. It just happened to be Sam that night.”

“I know. Don’t you think that thought haunts me all the time?
Why was it him? Why wasn’t it me or you or Tommy or Kelly?”

“There are so many unanswered questions and not a day goes by
that I don’t wonder all these things and more,” Benji adds. “You’d think I’d
find some solace in what the police officer told me, but I just felt more
guilty.”

“It’s been nine years. How do we turn ourselves in now?” I ask,
and Benji shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t think we do. I think we need to try to
figure out how to move on, figure out how to start over, together.”

“We’ll never forget what happened, but we need to find a way to
forgive ourselves for what we did,” I say, knowing we can’t continue to live
this way, but knowing we need each other to survive it all.

I’m not even sure where to begin. I have so many questions and
so many thoughts running through my head. Having heard all of this for the
first time is overwhelming and disorienting. Trying to process it all and worry
about Benji’s feelings and how he’s coping is more than I ever expected to
encounter during all of this. Yet, as overloaded and upset as I am, I know we
both need each other more than ever.

“We’ll get through this together,” I tell him, my hands on
either side of his face, pulling his mouth to mine. I kiss him softly and
slowly, my lips pressing to his as I let the tip of my tongue graze his bottom
lip. I feel his hand slide into my hair, pulling me closer and he deepens the
kiss. I find more comfort in his touch and in his kiss than I have felt in so
long and when he pulls away, his forehead against mine, I murmur, “I love you,
Benji.”

“I love you, Campbell.”

We sit together quietly, both of us finally calming down, but
understanding that we’ve just scratched the surface of what we have to deal
with. Discussing the accident, our letters from Tommy and our feelings about it
all, is just the beginning. We have to figure out how to move on.

“Where do we go from here?” I ask, and Benji lets out a long
slow breath before closing his eyes and wrapping his hand around the back of my
neck. He kisses my forehead, his lips lingering for a few seconds.

“I know where we can start,” he says.

His lips are still on my forehead as he begins to kiss his way
to my neck. It’s only been two days since we were last together, but I can
sense the desperation and need radiating from him. After everything he’s just
shared, he needs to know we’re okay, I understand. I need it too. The feeling
of closeness, skin to skin, the touch of my hands, all of it will calm him and
ease the stress of what we’ve both been dealt.

“I need you, Campbell,” he murmurs in my ear.

“I’m yours. I’ve always been yours,” I whisper back as I pull my
sweater over my head. I run my fingers lightly down his chest until I reach the
hem of his shirt, lifting it over his head, I toss it to the side and return my
hands to his chest.

Benji lets out a soft sigh the moment my fingers touch his bare
skin. He’ll always be perfect to me, beautiful and caring and kind and
selfless, but I know his heart is scarred. He’s broken. We’re irrevocably
broken together.

I rest my hand on his chest, feeling his heartbeat beneath it
and I know I’m lucky. I could’ve easily lost him, not just in the accident but
also because of the accident. Not many people fall in love at age five, but we
did. We’ve endured so much together over the years and this is just one more
thing we’ll deal with together. While the accident is a tragedy, it’s
ultimately what brought Benji back to me. It’s what we both need to survive. We
need each other.

My hands drift lower and with each soft brush of my fingers,
Benji whispers my name. I undo his belt and then the button on his jeans. He’s
relaxed; his eyes are closed and his head is resting on the back of the couch.
He lifts his hips as I slide his jeans and his boxers down his legs.

I kiss a path down his chest to his stomach, but before I can go
any lower, he pulls me up to his mouth and kisses me, his fingers fumbling with
my pants until they’re unbuttoned and I’m wiggling out of them and my underwear.

I’m straddling his hips now, but he’s reserved; his kisses and
his touch slow and gentle as if he needs to take in everything about me. I don’t
want him to hold back anymore and in that moment he says, “Not here,” and I
take his hand, leading him to my bedroom.

I lay back on the bed and he stares down at me, but he looks
tired and I’m about to protest when he shakes his head slowly. I knew he wouldn’t
stop now; he needs me and I love that he’ll give himself to me completely.

And I will do the same.

I pull him down, lifting my head to meet his mouth with mine as
his body covers me with its weight, with its warmth and the smell of him. I’m
lost. Lost in him.

I feel Benji’s hand slip between us and when he touches me I
moan, telling him it feels good and that I never want him to stop.

I love what my words do to him; his breathing is heavy as he moans
softly in my ear. He will be my undoing.

“Please,” I say, and he pushes my knee up as slides inside me. He
feels incredible and I whisper in his ear just how much I love him, just how
much I need him, too.

I’m close, but our movements are slow and as I draw closer, I
cling to him, my arms wrapped tightly around his neck. With his mouth next to
my ear, he whispers my name over and over, and he could say it a million times
and I would never get tired of it.

He makes everything in my life perfect.

We both wake early the next morning, but for once it isn’t
because of nightmares or insomnia or missing each other; it’s being together
that keeps us from sleeping. I can’t get enough of him, even if it means losing
sleep.

I snuggle against his warm body and press my face to the curve
of his neck, kissing and smelling him. It never gets old and I know this time
together will only add to my need to be with him at all times, to always be
close to him.

It brings my thoughts to our plan before he found Tommy’s letter,
before we finally opened up and admitted what happened that night, and I wonder
if he still wants it. I know I still do.

“I don’t want to stay here,” I tell him and he pulls back from
me, giving me a confused look.

“In bed?” he asks.

“No. Here in Chicago. I want to be where you want to be. I want to
be with you.”

He says nothing, but wraps me in his arms; kissing me with
everything he has, hard and pleading. “I wasn’t going to leave without you,” he
says almost breathlessly, but with a smile on his face.

We both know we have a lot to take care of today and over the
next few days, even possibly over the next year. This is going to be a lot for
us to take on, but we need to start somewhere.

We haven’t talked much about it all, but Benji has a plan and
while it’s not something I’m keen on doing, I know it’s part of finding a way
to move beyond all of this.

There was a time when he knew me better than anyone and what he
says next makes me realize he still does.

“You’re worried,” Benji says, but it’s not a question, he’s not
asking me, he already knows I am. “Nine years apart doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten
everything about you. We spent more time together, Campbell, than we ever did
apart.”

“What if doing this drives us apart again?” I ask and it makes
my heart hurt. The thought of losing him again is something I can’t even
fathom, but it’s always there in the back of my mind.

“It won’t,” he responds firmly.

“You can’t possibly know that.”

Benji lets out a sigh and rolls onto his side so he’s now
looking at me. His fingers trail across my cheek and between my breasts before
coming to rest on my stomach.

“Yes, I can,” he says, nodding his head and giving me a subtle
smile. “My life without you was a fucking nightmare and judging by the way your
house looked, so was yours.”

Fuck if he isn’t right. I’d honestly rather be miserable with
him than ever live without him again. We’re in control of the way things happen
from now on and if the past has taught us anything, it’s that we need to be open
and honest with each other. Lies and secrets and running away solve nothing,
and even if it hurts like hell, hide nothing.

We said it before, no more secrets and no more lies. We can’t
let fear and pain dictate the way we live our lives. This is about us and it’s
about healing, about finding a way to live with what we’ve done and somehow
moving on despite everything.

I smile at Benji, not needing to argue or question the finality
to his words. I trust him wholeheartedly. I always have.

I lean over and kiss him. I kiss him hard and intensely, like
this might be the last time I’ll ever kiss him, like we might never find each
other again or like something will one day come between us again. While I know
none of this is true, I hope we live like this forever. This intense feeling of
wanting him and needing him, and the desire to be with him at all times, to
feel his hands on my body, to need his touch to survive. To have this, and all
of it coupled with the fact that we’re the only people in the world who know
what we’ve been through. We were made for each other.

It takes us another hour to pull ourselves from the bed and an
hour after that to finally shower. Benji is unable to keep his hands off of me.
It’s like baring his soul to me, sharing everything, has freed him from this
burden he carried for far too long.

I can only hope that it continues, that both of us find the
redemption and solace in everything we’re about to do. We’ll never be able to
go back in time and correct everything that went wrong, but from this point
forward, we can set things right with our families, our friends and with our
relationship and ourselves.

It’s still early, but I send Jack a text anyway.

Me: Can you meet me at my
house tonight around 9:00?

Jack responds almost immediately and I know he’s already in the
office. I’m sure he’s trying to make up for my absence over the last few days
and after what happened yesterday, he has to know I won’t be in today either. I
feel guilty for wanting to leave my job and leave Jack, especially after all
the bullshit he’s put up with from me over the last nine years. He didn’t have
to give me a job, he didn’t have to tolerate me, but he did and he did it
without question.

It’s taken me a long time to realize it, but he loves me and he
just might have been the reason I lasted this long.

Jack: Sure. What’s going
on? Do you want to meet me at the office instead?

I chose my house because it’s intimate and this is now about my
relationship with Jack as my brother and not my boss. He’s deserving of knowing
why I behaved the way I did for all these years and I also owe him an apology,
one that no matter how many times I say it, it will never be enough.

Me: I’ll explain tonight
and nope, my house. I’ll text you later on to make sure we’re not running
behind.

Jack: Ok. I won’t ask any
questions.
J

I smile at his last text; this is the one time that I want him
to ask questions, I want him to know everything.

It takes us about four hours to get up to Ann Arbor and the
closer we get to the scene of the accident, the more the tension in the car
builds. Neither of us has been back to the scene since it occurred and that’s
exactly what we’re about to do. But this time, we’re together and there are no lies
between us, no uncertainty.

Benji reaches over and takes my hand, bringing it to his lips;
he kisses it as he waits a long second before speaking. “It’s okay,” he says
softly.
 

And I want it to be okay. I want to hear his words and know he
means them; that we will be okay. Together.

Benji pulls off to the side of the road and it looks the same as
it did nine years ago. I look down at the floorboard of the car and I’m hit
with far too many memories at once. Things I’ve kept from myself, things that
only find their way back to me in my nightmares and while they’re not all bad,
that doesn’t mean they don’t hurt like a bitch.
 

I can see Benji at nineteen, holding me in his arms, pleading
with me to get in the car, a smile gracing his face and remembering how hard it
was to say no to him. I was anxious but with it came the feeling of normalcy
knowing I was surrounded by the people I loved. I don’t think I told any of
them enough that I loved them. Maybe I feel that way because I’ll never have
the opportunity again.

I said it to Kelly regularly. Leaving for class, writing her a
note to let her know where I was, when she’d go home for the weekend, leaving
all of us. “I love you,” we’d say as one of us would part, but it became like
saying goodbye. It had lost its meaning. I’d take back every single one of the
times I’d said it, if I could have one more moment where we heard each other
say it, where we knew it was the truth.

It always made Sam uncomfortable so I said it all the time. I’d
scream it across campus when I saw him, I’d throw myself in his arm and kiss
his face, telling him over and over until he’d laugh and say it back. We teased
each other; it was part of who we were, part of our relationship. But I hope he
knew I meant it. I meant it every time.

I can still recall the feel of Tommy’s hand on my thigh when he
slid into the seat next to me; the soft squeeze he gave it that made me giggle
and the way his lips felt when he kissed the top of my head. I can hear his
voice and feel him like it was just yesterday. His voice always had a soothing
quality to it—quiet and reserved. I loved it. I loved him.

My tears are warm against my cold skin as they roll down my
cheeks. I didn’t intend to cry, but there are points when I no longer control
my body and its reaction to things. This is one of them.

Maybe I’m crying over all the things left unspoken, for the loss
I feel and the wonder if I’ll ever feel whole again. Benji’s return has helped,
but there will always be a piece missing, three actually, in both of us.
Because when I look over at Benji, he feels it too.

“You ready?” Benji asks, as he kisses my hand that is still
laced with his. The touch of his lips sends a shiver up my spine and I grow
cold.

“Yes,” I say, nodding my head.

No.

I’ll never be ready.