Messy Ending

Dai

Ben’s actions had been completely unexpected, yet they couldn’t have made me happier. I never would have imagined that for my birthday he would drive me four hours to see my family.

Once he parked his car in the gravel driveway of my grandparents’ house, I leaped at him. “Thank you so much, Ben!” Tears gathered in my eyes. “You honestly did not have to do this for me, Ben!”

The tips of his fingers brushed away my tears. “I just wanted to make you happy, Dai.”

A dam of some sort broke at his words and the tears just kept flowing, nonstop. Basically I was sobbing in happiness now. “I’m sorry,” I managed to choke out. “You did. You made me so fucking happy, Ben. Thank you.”

A grin broke out across his face in return. “You ready to go inside?” he questioned.

I inhaled deeply and wiped the tears that still remained, sliding down my cheeks. “Yeah. I’m ready.”

Outside of the car, the rain had softened to a light mist, spraying our faces and hands as we locked fingers with each other. Ben raised his free hand to knock on the door exactly three times.

The door opened it revealed a beautiful, familiar girl. Her straight, jet black hair had been cut to her shoulders since the last time I had seen her, but everything else in her appearance remained pretty much the same. She still maintained her stick thin body figure and she hadn’t grown an inch from her five foot four height. Once she eyed Ben and I her crystal blue eyes, which matched that of a Siberian husky’s, lit up.

“Dai!” she squealed, rushing forward to wrap me up in a huge hug. The hug forced my hand to break from Ben’s and my arms wrapped tightly around her small frame.

“Cait!” I replied, my voice filled with just as much excitement as hers.

Travis, Caitlin’s husband, materialized behind his wife. He held a small girl in his arms and a little boy stood next to him, holding onto his denim clad leg. “Hello, Dai.” His lips curved into half a smile. Travis and I got along really well. It felt as though he was my actual brother instead of brother-in-law to me.

“Hey, Trav.” I parted from my sister and bent at the waist to reach eye level with the little boy and the little girl, who Travis had just set to her feet. “Hey, Jax. Hey, Atti.”

The children stared up at me curiously as I raised to stand at my regular five foot three height.

“You must be Ben.” Caitlin grinned ushering us into the foyer upon realizing that we still stood in the misting rain. “I’m Caitlin, Dai’s sister. This is my husband Travis and children Jax and Atalie.”

Ben nodded in acknowledgement. He seemed very uncomfortable, his hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket.

“Where are Grandma and Grandpa?” I questioned, reaching out to take Ben’s pocketed hand in mine again.

“Kitchen. Grandma wanted to make breakfast for you since you’re the birthday girl.” She nudged me gently in the ribs with her elbow. “C’mon,” she said, taking the lead of us. “Grandma!” she called out. “Guess who’s here!”

My grandmother turned to look at me with a huge smile on her lips. It had been a while since we’d seen each other. “Oh, Daidara,” she gushed, pulling me into a warm embrace, neglecting the stove for a second to do so.

Once she parted from me and returned to the stove, she seemed to take notice of my boyfriend. She scanned her eyes up and down him, her smile seeming to falter as she noticed the piercings in his lip and the visible parts of his tattoos. Let’s just say my grandmother was not a big fan of body art, in fact she loathed it and thought of people with it beneath her.

“Grandma,” I began, hesitatingly. “This is my boyfriend, Ben.”

She didn’t say anything, a taut smile forced over her lips as she returned to flipping the pancakes. I knew that smile. It was a forced one, not a happy one. She obviously didn’t approve of Ben, not that it mattered. I cared deeply for Ben, I might even love him, that’s all that should matter.

Ben introverted him, staring at the tacky linoleum floor that had been in the house since it was built. Through the entire time we had been in this house he hadn’t spoken a single word to anybody. His eyes raised a bit to size of the white hair, wrinkled woman. The hold he had on my hand tightened. He’d been nervous long before this and I had a feeling my grandmother didn’t help the matter any.

“Caitlin, go find your grandfather and tell him that breakfast is ready, would you?” my grandma questioned in a low voice as she began to set plates of food on the long, wooden table that had been in this house since I was little.

My sister obliged and went in search of him as her own little family took their seats. I pulled Ben to sit beside me. I made sure that Travis was on the other side of him and Caitlin’s spot was reserved to the side of me. I wanted him to feel as comfortable as was possible.

She returned with my grandpa in tow. Once he laid his eyes on me he sent me a huge smile, but Ben a substantially smaller one. A lot of that might have been that he hated body art as much as my grandma, but another part was probably the fact that he saw no man as good enough for his granddaughters.

Silence hovered over us in a thick fog as we began to eat. After several minutes of the awkward behavior, Caitlin finally dared to break it. “Dai, Grandma was telling us that, since it’s your birthday, we should go out to dinner… How does that sound?”

I granted her a sidelong glance and a nod. “That sounds great.”

Her mood instantly brightened at my acceptance. “Great! I have a dress you can borrow and Travis should have something Ben could wear. You guys can just come to our place and we’ll meet Grandma and Grandpa at the restaurant. Sound good?”

I nodded, unable to speak this time as my mouth was full of food.

To my side Ben stared wide eyed at his plate as he slowly ate his food. He probably regretted bringing me here now. I sighed at the thought. I knew he wanted to make me happy in the first place, but I didn’t want to be happy if he wasn’t.

~~~

Nearing afternoon, Ben and I stood alone in the kitchen. Caitlin and Travis had left a few minutes earlier to put the kids down for a nap and arrange for a babysitter to watch them or the night. My grandparents had retreated to their room immediately after finishing their breakfast, most likely avoiding the two of us.

“Sorry, Ben,” I murmured, grabbing out a jug of sweet tea that my grandmother always had in the fridge and a hard plastic cup from one of the cabinets next to the fridge. Nothing really changed since I’d lived here.

He watched as I set the objects on the cracked, tile counter. “What for?”

“You brought me here to make me happy and my grandma has been rude to you from the moment we walked through the door.”

A miniscule smile crept to his lips and went in the same breath. “Nothing you need to worry yourself with, Dai. As long as you’re happy nothing else matters.”

I began to pour the tea into the cup as I replied, “If you’re not happy, I don’t wanna be happy.”

A moment of clear silence rang over us, but Ben ended it by saying in a very low, shy voice, “I love you, Dai.”

Those three words that preceded my name sent me into a state of shock. The tea, due to my failure to remember that I was pouring it, overflowed the cup. Once the cold liquid cascaded over my hand, I jerk the jug away and it ended with Ben drench in the beverage.

“Damn it! Ben, I’m so sorry” In my scatterbrained moment, I rushed to wipe up the liquid that had pooled into a puddle on the counter. I vaguely heard Ben mumble something about going to take a shower, but I couldn’t let him leave like this. I turned from the mess and said in a small voice, “Ben, wait.”

He froze in his tracks and turned to look at me, a subtle look of hurt etched across his features.

“I love you, too,” I repeated his words, very honestly.
The current look of hurt was erased, replaced by a giant grin as he continued onto the bathroom I had showed him earlier in the day.