CHAPTER 8
Ben opened the door of his car for Christina. She was looking like a scared rabbit. What was she expecting him to do, hit her or something?
She slid inside, head down.
He got in and started the engine. It was stuffy hot in the car. He punched the air conditioner on high. No way could they talk anywhere near the house. Even now he could practically feel the eyes of his whole family watching out the window. Even if they weren’t. Even if they were sitting around the table, laughing, pretending they didn’t notice anything wrong—when everything was.
Ben’s lungs burned. How did things go wrong so fast? Sure, Chris had been evasive about her family, but to not tell him her dad was dead? And he’d specifically
asked
about her parents. Oh, that look in Jess’s eye when she realized he hadn’t known. After he’d told her up and down how everything between him and Chris was so good. His sister could always see right through him. She knew he couldn’t stand anyone to lie to him.
He backed out of the driveway and headed up the road, away from town.
Chris focused out her window.
They drove a mile in silence. An old dirt road came up on the right. Ben turned into it and put the car in Park.
He turned toward his fiancée. With obvious reluctance, she faced him.
“So.” He kept his voice even. “I’m really sorry your father is dead. I’m also really sorry you didn’t tell me. In fact, you led me to believe he was alive.”
Silence.
“Why?”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“Didn’t mean to what? Lie to me?”
“I didn’t lie.”
“Then what would you call it?”
Christina licked her lips. “I just … when you asked, I didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Well,
I
want to talk about it. Now.”
Part of Ben felt like a heel. This was about a dead parent. He should be consoling instead of confronting. Not that Christina seemed to care her father was gone.
Christina lifted a hand. “There’s not much to tell. I wasn’t living with them. I moved out when I was eighteen. I told you that.”
Barely. She hadn’t told him why. It’s not like she’d gone off to college. So why not stay at home a few more years and save some rent money?
Ben shut his eyes. Tried to gentle his voice. “How did your father die?”
Christina looked out the windshield. “Heart attack, I think.”
What was this? She didn’t
know?
He put his finger beneath her chin. Urged her to face him. “Look at me.”
Slowly her eyes met his.
“What aren’t you tellin’ me?”
Christina pulled back and folded her arms. “I don’t like talking about my parents.”
“Why?”
“Because I … just don’t.”
“That’s not good enough. I need to
know
you. Understand you. And all the sudden I realize you’re purposely keeping things from me. Which means you don’t trust me.”
She stared out the windshield.
“You know what that feels like, you lyin’ to me? It means I’m not important enough to you to trust.”
“I trust you.”
“Then why won’t you open up to me?”
Her chin dropped. “Can’t we do this later?”
Was she that clueless? “Later? Like when? After we’re married?”
Her fingers curled inward. She shook her head.
“Okay then. I’m listening.”
Christina wouldn’t raise her chin. Frustration and empathy surged through Ben. He wanted to shake her. He wanted to hold her and tell her everything would be okay.
“Christina. Please. Tell me about your parents.”
Silence.
“Come
on!”
She gave him a sudden, hard look. “They weren’t nice, okay? Not like your perfect family.” She glared at him.
“I never said my family was perfect. Heck, you’ve met ’em.”
“Well, they’re a whole lot better than mine.”
And that was somehow
his
fault?
Ben focused on the steering wheel, working his jaw. Pulling his emotions back.
“Okay.” He shifted in his seat. “That’s a start. So … what exactly did your parents do? And why is bein’ with my family makin’ you so uncomfortable?”
“It’s not.”
Ben blew out air. “Yes, it is! You haven’t been normal since we got to the house! I’ve told everybody for days how wonderful you are, and then you get here and act like some whipped child.”
Chris flinched.
“So start talkin’ to me!”
She faced him, her mouth setting in a hard line. Something about her expression told Ben she’d crossed a Rubicon. Made a decision she’d been holding back. “Fine. If you really want to know.”
“Of
course
I do.”
She tilted her head, a defiant gesture. “My mother and father were both alcoholics. I can’t remember a time when they loved me. Or didn’t neglect and beat me. I’ve had five broken bones. Countless black eyes and bruises. My childhood was beyond awful.
Nobody
cared about me, nobody. The neighbors turned their backs. The church down the street didn’t help. Social services didn’t rescue me.” She faced Ben, breathing heavily, tears glistening in her eyes. “I moved out the day I turned eighteen. Didn’t talk to either of my parents for four years. Then my dad died. I don’t miss him. I still talk to my mom as little as possible. She’s nothin’ but a—”
Chris abruptly stopped, as if stunned at her own flow of words.
Ben stared at her, his insides gone cold. He’d figured she’d maybe had some kind of rough childhood, but
this
. “I’m so sorry.” He could barely choke the words out.
She lowered her eyes, then gazed at him again, a tear falling on her cheek. The sight of it spun rage through Ben. Christina was so wonderful. He could imagine the beautiful child she’d been. How could her parents have treated her like that?
He reached for her and held her tightly. She started to cry hard, her shoulders shaking. Dark thoughts about her nasty parents trudged through Ben’s mind. It was
good
her father was dead. As for the mother, they wouldn’t need to have a thing to do with her.
No wonder Chris didn’t know how to react to his family.
After some time she quieted and pulled away.
Ben kept hold of her hands. “Why was it so hard to tell me this?”
She looked past him, as if seeking an answer. Her face, so open a minute ago, seemed to shutter again. “I don’t … it’s hard to talk about.”
Yeah, but they were planning to live the rest of their lives together.
“Do you feel ashamed or somethin’?”
She hesitated, then gave a tiny nod.
“Why? It wasn’t your fault. It was your parents’.”
Christina’s mouth opened, then shut.
“You know that, right?”
For a long moment Ben waited. Heaviness bloomed in his chest—sadness for her pain. And disappointment that she wouldn’t let him into her thoughts as he’d done with her.
“Right?”
Slowly, her lips curved. “Yes. Sure.”
Another lie. Ben could spot it now—that reticence in her face. A flat smile that didn’t reach her eyes. Hadn’t he seen the expression a dozen times before? It wasn’t shyness. It was deceit.
The realization made him rethink every one of their conversations. All of them full of lies. The thought was more than he could bear.
“Chris, you really don’t trust me. Because even now you’re doing it. You’re holding back. When I’ve never held back from you.”
“No, I’m—”
“I want to help you.” Ben cradled her face with his palms. “I want to make you forget your childhood. Build a new life. But I can’t if you won’t let me inside your
head.”
“I will. I promise I will.” Her words tinged with panic.
“
Will
isn’t good enough. How about right
now
?”
“Okay.” Her cheeks reddened, tension stiffening her body. “Please. I don’t want to lose you.”
Ben pulled his head back. “What? You’re not going to lose me.”
She gazed at him as if wanting so hard to believe that. Ben gazed back, his forehead crinkling. What was going on here?
Christina shut her eyes. Said nothing.
Ben took his hands from her face. What did he have to do, pull every bit out of her? “Okay.” He leaned against his car door. “I’m going to ask you some questions. All I ask from you is the truth. No hiding. None of that ‘Sure, Ben, everything’s great’ when it obviously isn’t. Okay?”
She nodded.
“Good. You know what your parents did was terrible, right?”
“Of course.”
“Do you hate them for it?”
Christina hesitated. “Most of the time.”
Ben eyed her. “Then why do you feel shame within yourself? I mean, I get that sometimes we can feel ashamed for something a family member does. But it seems to go deeper than that with you.”
She looked at him for the longest time. Fresh tears welled in her eyes. When she finally spoke she choked out the words. “That’s why this isn’t going to work.”
“What’s
this?”
“Us.”
“What are you
talking
about?”
Her jaw tightened. “Because you have to
ask
me why I feel ashamed. You don’t get it. You’ll never get it.”
Never? That wasn’t fair. “So enlighten me.”
Defiance returned to her eyes. “You’ve been built up all your life by parents who love you, Ben Dearing. Who’ve always said you could do anything. Who gave you confidence. Your past is what makes you
you
. The way you trust people, the way you see the world is all because of what you were taught in your childhood.” Christina swiped at a tear. “How do you think you’d see the world if your parents always said you were worth nothing? That they were sorry you were born, because now they had to feed you?” Her voice hardened. “That you were ugly and insignificant and would never amount to anything.”
Every word hit Ben in the chest. “I’m so sor—”
“I’m not through.” Her hand shot up.
“Ok—”
“What if you dreaded to wake up every morning because you were afraid how you’d be treated? Or worse yet, you
knew
. What if the sound of your father’s footsteps made you shake? What if you grew up knowing you couldn’t trust anyone or anything? That life could end in a minute? And sometimes”—Christina’s mouth trembled—“you wished it would.”
“Chris—”
“What kind of person would you be today, huh, Ben?” Tears spilled down her cheeks. “You think you’d still be laid-back and easy? Confident? Think you’d just open up to people, believing they were going to love you—when no one else ever had?”
Ben’s heart was about to break. “But I
do
love you.”
“Because you don’t know me!” Her voice rose. “Because you think I’m some perfect person who’s going to fit into your perfect world!”
“I do know you, Chris. And what I don’t know, I want to learn.”
“Really? Then guess what—I
hate
being called Chris!”
Ben’s eyebrows rose. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know—”
“My father used to call me that. He’d never let me forget I was supposed to be a boy. My name’s
Christina.
”
“Okay, okay.” Ben held up both palms in an
I-give
. “Christina. It’s a pretty name, I like it.”
He waited, afraid to say anything else wrong.
Christina regarded him, her jaw still set. Little by little her expression relaxed. Finally she blinked away. “There.” Now she sounded toneless. As if she’d just thrown her life away. “I told you.”
No kidding. And there had to be more. This was probably the tip of the iceberg. Ben swallowed. “You said we wouldn’t work. Yes, we will, Christina. We will.”
She gave him another long look, then managed a nod.
He ran a hand over his mouth. “Do you love me?”
She started to cry again. “More than anything.”
“And I love you too. I love you even more now than I did ten minutes ago. So trust me when I tell you—you just have to continue bein’ honest with me. How do I know what you like and don’t like if you don’t tell me?”
She sniffed. “What if you don’t like what I say?”
“Then we’ll work it out. That’s what love’s all about.”
That disbelieving look came back. He opened his mouth to say more—and sudden, cold understanding hit him. Christina had spent her whole childhood learning to hide her feelings just to survive. She’d never known honesty in a relationship. Never.
She hadn’t a clue.
What if she didn’t learn how to be honest? What if she couldn’t trust him enough to overcome her past? She could ruin this for both of them. She really could.
He touched Christina on the arm, inwardly steeling himself for more. “Tell me somethin’ else I do that you don’t like.”
She wiped away the last tear. “There is noth—”
“
Stop
it. That’s not gonna work anymore.”
She sighed, then sat in silence, her expression turning from soft to resolved, then back again. Finally her mouth opened. “I don’t like the way your sisters wait on you.”
What?
“They don’t wait on me.”
“They do so. Anything you want, they run and fetch it for you.”
Well, maybe they did. But he
liked
that. “So what’s this got to do with us?”
“You’ll expect me to do the same thing.”
“No I won’t.”
“Yes you will. In fact you practically said so.” Christina’s head wagged. “‘That’s what I like—a woman who waits on me.’”
“I didn’t mean that.”
“You did, Ben. You
did
. You don’t even realize how much you’ve been coddled as the baby of the family.
I’m
not going to do that. I waited on my parents all my life when they were too drunk to get up themselves—which was most of the time. I’m not doing that anymore.”
Wait a minute, this was serious. “So … you’re tellin’ me you’re
never
gonna do
anything
for me?” Serving someone was a sign of love, wasn’t it?