Take A Picture (It'll Last Longer)

By the time the video got to the last scene where Bonnie Tyler is standing there with all the school kids, I was crying like I was PMSing or pregnant or something. I finally realized why Ben loved the song so much. It was because it was how he sincerely felt. I wasn’t sure if he was feeling that way about Brigit or about me or about some girl he met when he was five once on summer vacation, but who the girl was wasn’t the point. The point was that I felt the same way too. Anyway, I was trying to keep my crying down so I wouldn’t wake him up, but low and behold Ben can hear Total Eclipse like dogs hear those whistles, so he stumbled into the living room, groggy from being halfway asleep. I was really glad I couldn’t see his face when he found me in the dark, crying my eyes out, watching Total Eclipse.

“Come on Catt,” Ben said, sitting on the couch next to me and pulling me into his arms. He started running his fingers through my hair and that made me cry worse. “Let’s watch something happy. Look! The Colbert Report is on!”

“Ben?” I asked him, still sobbing like a baby.

“Yeah, love?” Ben asked me, brushing the hair out of my face.

“What if I die old and miserable and lonely and regret everything I’ve ever done in my life?” I asked him. Usually, I only asked him questions like that when I was too drunk to stand.

“You won’t Catt,” Ben shook his head. “Someone as great as you? No. That’s not possible.”

“How do you do it, Ben?” I asked him. “How do you always take things that make me feel so bad and then make me feel so much better? How do you take things that suck and make them okay?”

“Because you need me to,” Ben said to me. “I just know that’s what you need and then I do it.”

“But how?” I asked him.

“I don’t know,” Ben shrugged. “How do you always know what to say to make me laugh or how do you always get me to do things I don’t want to do? How do you get me to drop everything I’m doing just so I can do something for you and enjoy that I’m dropping stuff for you? How do you make me think that as long as you approve of what I’m doing, it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks about it?”

“I don’t know,” I sniffled, feeling slightly better.

“I don’t know how I do it either,” Ben said to me. “I just do it because it’s what you need me to do. That’s the same reason you do all that stuff for me.”

“Ben? What if we can’t go back to being friends after this?” I asked him worriedly.

“We’ll always be friends, Catt,” Ben shook his head. “No matter what.”

“I feel really stupid now,” I said, wiping my eyes. “Crying over nothing like that.”

“It’s okay,” Ben said to me with an understanding smile.

“I feel really messed up right now,” I admitted to him. Ben put his fingers under my chin and lifted my face up so that I was looking into his eyes.

“Well, I’m not a doctor, but you look fine to me,” Ben smiled.

“The last time you said that to me I had strep throat,” I reminded him. “On my birthday.”

“Yes, but I brought you cupcakes, so I was fine,” Ben replied. I thought for a moment then blushed and looked at him.

“My mother thinks that was Jon,” I admitted to him. Ben looked at me in surprise.

“Did you tell her it was Jon?” Ben asked me.

“No,” I shook my head. “I actually corrected her a few weeks ago when she brought it up.”

“Why does your mother think that Jon would do something like that?” Ben asked me, perturbed.

“Because I never told her about all the horrible things he did to me,” I shrugged.

“Why not?” Ben demanded to know.

“She and my dad really like him. They had a good opinion of him and when I broke up with him…” I sighed. “It was hard enough as it was to break up with him after finding out about all the cheating and lying. I didn’t want to go through it all again by having to explain it to my parents and I guess I thought even if I did explain it, they might not believe me because they had such a high opinion of him…”

“You’re their daughter,” Ben shook his head. “Of course they’d believe you.”

“I just… I’d already talked it out and analyzed every inch of it with you and Elle,” I shrugged. “I didn’t want to go through it again. I just told them we broke up and left it at that.”

“Someone needs to tell them. They go their entire lives thinking that a jackass like that was worthy of becoming their son-in-law…” Ben began.

“I never said anything about them wanting me to marry him,” I shook my head. “My dad thought he was a nice guy but he told me he didn’t think Jon was marriage material or whatever. My mom liked him but she never said anything like that either. I was the one who thought I might end up with him…”

“We should tell them anyway,” Ben frowned.

“What do you mean ‘we’?” I asked him.

“Don’t you want them to know the truth?” Ben asked me.

“Ben, they’re my parents not the American public,” I rolled my eyes. “Of course I don’t want them to know the truth!”

“I think your parents should know about Jon,” Ben frowned.

“I think your parents should know that you’re married,” I replied. All the color drained out of Ben’s face and he was suddenly rendered momentarily speechless.

“You’re telling me that you’re comparing telling your parents about Jon to me telling my parents that I’ve been married for three weeks and they don’t know about it?” Ben said horrified.

“What’s the difference?” I asked. “They’re both lies.”

“Yes, but your lie is small!” Ben said. “You say, ‘Mum, Dad, Jon was a jerk off who treated me like dirt and slept every girl on campus’. Your Mum says ‘Oh, he seemed so sweet’ and your father says, ‘Well, at least you got rid of him,’ ‘And married someone better than him’ your mum adds. End of conversation.”

“Do you have made up conversations involving my parents and how they fanatically worship you often?” I asked him with a laugh.

“You’re totally missing the point!” Ben said, exasperatedly. “Telling your parents about Jon would take fifteen minutes tops. Do you realize what would happen if I called up my parents and told them I had gotten married? To someone they’ve never met?”

“I told you to tell them before we got married, but you wouldn’t hear of it,” I snorted.

“Because it’s not like they ever have to know about it,” Ben said, annoyed.

“And what if at the end of six months we have nothing better to do and just try and see if this can last forty years?” I asked him curiously, pretending I wasn’t thinking about how sweet it would be to still be married to Ben when the two of us were put into a crappy nursing home by our bitter kids.

“I can handle not talking to my parents for the next forty years,” Ben said.

“And when they start wondering why you haven’t gotten married and why they don’t have grandchildren?” I asked Ben.

“My mum hates children,” Ben said disgustedly. “She hated me and my sister when we were kids. She hated herself when she was a kid and she hated all of her siblings until they turned fifteen.”

“That’s not the point,” I rolled my eyes. “What if you parents show up one day and you have to explain where this wife and kids of yours came from?”

“You don’t even want kids,” Ben snorted.

“Accidents happen and don’t change the subject,” I said, annoyed.

“I don’t know,” Ben sighed. “But I think I can slip into obscurity and out of their attention. I wouldn’t mind being an orphan now that I think about it…”

“Would you at least tell your sister?” I sighed.

“Amy? That blabbermouth?” Ben snorted.

“Nice way to refer to your sister,” I said.

“It’s true!” Ben said. “You tell something to Amy, within five minutes all of England knows it. And in fifteen all of Europe does. I once told her that I hated some movie and I swear to God, twenty minutes later, the BBC ticker declared the movie a flop.”

“Just because you told your sister you hated a movie and then at the bottom of the BBC screen it said that the movie was a flop doesn’t prove anything save that you have decent taste,” I snorted.

“I have better than decent taste, thank you very much,” Ben said to me. I blushed a little.

“Quit trying to change the subject!” I said annoyed. “If you tell my parents about Jon, then I’ll track down your parents and tell them exactly what you’ve been doing for the past month!”

“Fine,” Ben said, “it’s your head they’ll guillotine.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked Ben with a raised eyebrow.

“Just don’t mind about my parents, okay?” Ben said annoyed.

“Okay,” I said, wondering why he was getting so defensive on the subject.

“You need to get to bed now,” Ben said to me authoritatively. “If you don’t get some sleep, you’ll be grumpy in the morning and I don’t like making breakfast for a sourpuss.”

“It’s not my fault you don’t enjoy sleeping in half as much as I do,” I snorted.

“Come on,” Ben said, picking me up and carrying me towards the bedroom.

“I can walk myself!” I said, kicking my legs around.

“Don’t make this harder on yourself, Catt,” Ben shook his head, not putting me down in the least. “You’ve already done enough of that.”