Chapter 18: Ben

(PJ's POV)

I stared at the boxes across the room, slowly burning Tara's rushed hand writing into my brain. The longer I looked, the more unsettled I became and I couldn't help but repeatedly think back to what happened.

"It…" She paused for a moment, shoulders heaving as she tried to control her tears, "It meant nothing to me. I don't feel anything for you. I have never felt anything for you. I lied because I wanted to see how easy you were. You're so gullible PJ, to think that I would ever like you."

I stared at her back for a moment as I began to disassociate from the room. My head felt like it was spinning, making me feel even more nauseous than before; I could feel my throat constricting and I had to get away before I threw up. I headed for the door as fast I could, throwing it open and moving a few feet away from the room before leaning against the wall.

'I have never felt anything for you,' her words repeated themselves in my head, making it hard to see straight, 'You're so gullible PJ…"

I slowly slide down down the wall; a lump had begun forming in my throat, making it hard to breathe.

"PJ," Dan's voice pulls me back to reality and I look up at his worried face, "Are you ok? Here, let me help you."

Dan pulls me up and I lean against him as he leads me to his room. I sit on the edge of his bed and he disappears into the bathroom before returning with a glass of water. I swallow it down greedily, trying to lighten the mood by saying, "Guess I drank too much last night, huh?" Dan stares at me with a concerned expression and after a while I can't take it anymore. "C'mon, mate, it was just a little alcohol. I'll be fine.

"PJ, there's something I have to tell you," Dan admits, taking a deep breath…

There's a knock on my door and Jamie pokes his head in. "Isabelle's here," he says, "Wants to pick up Tara's stuff." He motions towards the boxes. I swallow hard and nod; maybe she'll be able to explain it to me.

"Who?" I ask.

"Ben," Dan repeated; he was leaning on the wall opposite of me. "She called you Ben. Shouted it, rather, when you knocked on the door. She told me not to open the door for Ben. Know what that could mean?" "Haven't a clue," I grumbled, finishing my second cup of water.

"Maybe you should ask her?" he tried, giving me a weak smile.

My throat started constricting again and I shook my head, "Not… not now. I can't."

"What happened," Dan pushed, "Did you… hurt her?"

"No! Nothing like that," I exclaim, "It's… Can we talk about it some other time?"

"Sure, mate. I'm sorry."

I travel out into the main room, stopping when I catch sight of Isabelle. Her eyes lock onto mine and I swallow hard. She's giving me a cold, neutral stare and I feel as if she's look straight through me. "Isabelle," I start, "Not here," she shoots, giving a side glance to Jamie.

I nod and lead her to my room, shutting the door once she's in. "Is she here?" I try again as she walks over to the boxes. "No," she mumbles, picking one of them up, "She's uh… not doing very well."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, she's an emotional wreck, PJ."

"Because of Ben, right?"

Isabelle pauses at the name and turns to look at me with wide eyes. "You know?"

"Of course I know," I snap. Isabelle flinches at my tone and I take a deep breath before continuing, "Who is he?"

There's a moment of tense silence between us before Isabelle sets down the box and moves to my desk chair, sitting down. She sets her head in her hands, rubbing her face and she suddenly looks exhausted.

"Everyone has their secrets," She finally says, setting her hands in her lap, "You're going to want to sit down for this."

I sit down on my bed, crossing my legs and looking up at her with a mix of expectancy and confusion.

"This isn't my story to tell," she begins, "but if I don't, you'll probably never know it. Tara cares about you; I can tell from the way she looks at you that you mean more to her than she lets on. She's vulnerable, though, and she carries around wounds that she won't let heal. You're the first person… she's let in, in a really long time.

"Two years ago Tara and I met during a foundation class. The teacher was keen on assigning us projects and for one of them we were given partners to work with. That's when she met him. Ben, I mean. I hadn't really noticed him during class, but Tara couldn't stop talking about him once they were working together. After the project was finished, he asked her out on a date and she was beyond ecstatic. They seemed good for each other, y'know? It's hard to explain, but they clicked instantly. I wanted what they had: an easy-going relationship, someone you could rely on as a lover and a friend. When I started dating Thomas a couple months later, Tara went on and on about the double dates we would have.

"The two of them were inseparable when they were together and it verged on annoying sometimes. They'd visit each other during work and sneak into each other's classes when they could. Tara told me she'd never been so happy in her life; said she wanted to marry Ben and move to the suburbs and start a family. She said Ben always acted weird when the idea of kids were brought up, but she figured it was because they were young and he wanted to have fun before they settled down. She wasn't… totally wrong.

"They went to a party one night, typical Uni one, probably fraternity. The two of them got really drunk, like completely hammered. Ended up having sex in one of the rooms… without protection. Tara hadn't really thought anything of it at the time, being drunk and all, but the next morning she called me sobbing. She wasn't sure she was ready to be a parent and she knew Ben wasn't either from the conversations they had. I told her the best thing she could do was wait to take a pregnancy test and then bring it up to Ben. No point in talking about it if there wasn't anything to worry about.

"Those few weeks were unbearable for her. She couldn't hold a conversation for longer than a few minutes and she'd text me every few days with another scenario she'd thought of. When the time finally came for an accurate reading, she got a false positive. Of course, she didn't know that at the time; it wasn't until a few weeks later when she went to see her doctor that she found out that she wasn't pregnant. That's when things got really bad, though. She sat down with Ben one day and told him about the pregnancy test and reminded him of the night at the party. From what she told me, he started freaking out. Yelling about how he didn't want to be a father and that she needed to have an abortion and how it was her fault because it wouldn't have happened if she had been on birth control. It only got worse from there.

"She didn't refuse his request to get an abortion. Even though she was still on the fence about wanting to be a mother, she didn't want to bring a child into the world whose father resented them. The problem was that she didn't have enough money for one and she refused to ask her mom, her being all pro-life and what not. Ben didn't want to pay for it either because he believed it was her fault. He told her if she got herself into the mess, she could get herself out, as if she'd gotten pregnant by someone else or something. He broke up with her, then, and while she was at work of all places. I let her stay at my place for the weekend so her mom wouldn't see the absolute meltdown she had.

"Anyways, she went to the doctor, found out she wasn't pregnant. The doctor advised her to see a therapist, though. And she did for about a month. She decided one day that she was emotionally stable enough to deal with her broken heart on her own, despite my encouragement to keep going. She wouldn't talk about it after that. Any time Ben's name came up or someone asked her about her love life, she'd just shrug and walk away. I knew she hadn't dealt with it, though. She refused to let anyone new into her life after that. She'd always make up some excuse about how it was bad timing or that she was too busy to make new friends. I thought that maybe things would change when she met you; I hoped she'd tell you about him and you'd help her work through it or something. I never expected it to go like this. I should have made her keep going to counselling…"

I listened to Isabelle speak in silence, my anger slowly bubbling into a burning rage. I'd finally figured out why she'd been so familiar when I met her. It finally made sense.

I knew Ben. I knew him very well.

We'd been friends a few years back, before he'd gotten into a relationship with Tara. There was a misprint in his schedule and he'd been put in one of my classes instead of a foundation. He was switched out after the first week, but we'd sat next to each other during the first class and hit it off quite well. He found my stories funny, said that being able to make up absurd thoughts off the top of your head was a trait that only intelligent people had. We kept in touch after that, mostly through texting. We'd hang out from time to time, play video games or go to a party together. He'd told me about his girlfriend; showed me pictures of her and went on and on about how perfect she was, but I'd only ever met her once. It was at a party and by the time she'd gotten there I was too drunk to even notice. I don't even think I said hi to her, just waved over at Ben when he pointed to her and smiled.

We quit talking not long after that. Or rather, he quit responding to my texts and I took that as a sign that our friendship had run its' course. If only I'd known…

I could feel the hand that wasn't wrapped around the back of my neck clenched tightly against my leg and I willed myself to calm down, to lay my hand flatly against my jeans. I couldn't fix what happened nearly two years ago, but I could fix what happened in Ireland.

"When can I see her," I make eye contact with Isabelle and her expression changes from worried to unsure.

"Don't force it," she says, standing up again, "She'll come to you, just give her time."

"I will," I agree, rising to help her with the boxes, "I promise."

I live again! 3 years and I finally decide to do something. That happens though, right? Either way I have decided to come back and finish this story and not be an asshole. I have read a lot of fanfiction and I hate when a story ends on a cliffhanger and then the author never finishes it. Better late than never I say.

ANYWAYS, this isn't a new chapter, I apologize. Just chapter 18 reuploaded, but I actually rewrote it, decided to take another route with it so that I could make it more believable and also more of what I wanted to do with the next chapters. I think you will enjoy this version more, at least I hope. Sorry again.

-Boots