Chapter 16

16

Ben

I was empty.

I felt like I had nothing left, and that was a shock to my already overloaded system. Two days – everything had changed in two days. A cataclysmic shifting of the Earth – of everything that you knew, and just as soon as you started to revel in your happiness, it shifted again. Nothing. My everything had left.

I called Percy's name as he walked away from me, and I understood the enormity of what keeping the truth from him had caused. I wanted to take it back, but what was done was done, and all I could do was try to move forward. Old habits always have a way of coming back to bite your ass, and I had no one to blame but myself. I withheld. I hadn't been totally honest. I was scared.

I have always been scared.

I was still scared. After all of that growth and change over the last ten years, I fell back into my old habits in the blink of an eye. I was a fucking idiot, and now I was paying for my stupidity.

I would leave Foggy Basin the same way I left it last time – alone and angry. But this time, I knew why I was angry. I was mad at myself.

Angry? No, it was something worse. It was the most pronounced sadness I had ever felt. For a moment, I had the world in my hand, and then it shrunk to a grain of sand that somehow slipped through my fingers in the blink of an eye. I was the world's biggest idiot, and everything I felt – I deserved.

Percy had always been better than me. He was more caring and compassionate, and every word he said was true. This town deserved more. It deserved respect and love. It had given so much to me until I turned my back on all of it. Why did I do that? Fear…

I wasn't proud of the way I… acted. The reason that I came here never felt right, and I felt that way the moment I started walking around my hometown. What they wanted me to do was dirty. This whole deal was dirty, wasn't it? Why couldn't they alter the space of the fucking parking lot, and then none of these businesses would even be involved? But BHB wouldn't. They never did. God, I really was working for a greedy corporate monster, wasn't I? I had known the truth all along, but I was willing to turn my face to not see the problems we left in our wake. But I did know about them.

I was complicit – just as Percy had said.

I sobbed in that kitchen as I stood there feeling more alone than I had felt in a long time. The same kind of alone I felt in high school when I lied to everyone and hid who I was away from my family, my friends – from Percy. I had lied to myself, and I had done it again. Fuck! I should have told him.

Tammy Sue left me alone, bless her. I didn't deserve that. When I left the bakery, I saw her out of the side of my eye, but she didn't say anything. She just let me leave the same way everyone else had ten years ago. Alone and scared was how I left then, and history would repeat itself.

Unless I did something. But what could I do?

I called Tim, and he was home and alone for the night. I drove over to his place because I needed a friendly ear to perhaps help me salvage my own dignity, if not my relationship with Percy. But it was and has always been about Percy. He was all that mattered.

I was tired of feeling alone. I had no roots. I had no new growth. I was a stagnant piece of shit that wanted to be so much more. And in the blink of an eye, I had what felt like everything as I held him in my arms. I had to get it back, no matter the cost.

Tim had a bourbon waiting for me.

"Well, you really stepped in a giant pile of shit. I can't believe that you kept that from him, Ben. Why couldn't you have just told him the truth? Percy is a really good guy, and you walked back in here and destroyed him in just a couple of days. Bro? what the fuck?" I deserved his judgment.

"I messed it all up, Tim. I had him, and I fucked it up." I bit my bottom lip, trying to control my emotions.

"Yeah… I'd say you did."

I looked up at him, completely lost. "What can I do?"

"Don't you think it's a little too late for that, Ben? Haven't you done enough damage already?"

I rested my head in my hands and leaned back on his couch. "I never wanted to hurt him. He is all I've wanted for a very long time. I wanted to be that person who would… make everything better for him."

"Dude. You were here to talk him into selling his business."

"We never talked about it once. As soon as I knew he was here – he was all that mattered, Tim. I didn't mean to hurt him. I didn't." I felt like I was unraveling from my very core. What could I do to fix this – to fix us?

"But you did, bro. You just don't… You have never understood how much you can really hurt people. It's like this chasm in your psyche that you can't see past. You act or react, and there's a wake left that drowns everyone else."

I sighed. "Am I still an asshole?" I wiped my sleeve across my eyes.

"No, man. You just were fucking stupid." He sighed and bent forward to put his hand on my shoulder.

"I want to fix this, Tim. There has to be a way to fix this."

"Well…"

"What?"

"You know what Percy wants. What is it you want?"

"I came here hoping for a promotion to partner if I could help with the project. But the moment I saw him, it was only about him." Even the thought of him – mad at me or not –filled me with a warmth I had forgotten.

"You mean that?"

"More than I have ever meant anything in my entire life." I stood up and started pacing behind his couch. "I can't just quit, right? There has to be a way to…"

"Then you have to do something about it. Fight for him."

"I don't think he wants to hear from me at all. But… maybe I could… Am I fucking stupid?" I ran my hands through my hair as a plan, maybe one of the stupidest plans in the history of plans, started to form in my mind.

"Fighting for what he wants is fighting for him . Stop your bosses from trying to buy those businesses. I've heard from a friend who works at city hall that the mayor is going to force us to sign by declaring eminent domain at the meeting tomorrow night. If he does that, it's over. He really thinks this town needs a tourism boost."

I stopped and stared at him. I did have a plan, but for it to happen, I would need a lot of help. "And BHB will have won, and everyone else will have lost. Most small towns thrive and do well with the resort. But there have been others, a lot like Foggy Basin, that didn't. It killed the town's businesses for the most part."

"Dude, really? You were gonna let that happen?"

I thought it best to ignore his question. I was on a roll. "I'm not. We're gonna keep Foggy Basin as weird as fuck."

"What can you do?"

I pulled out my phone and started scrolling. "I'll lose my job, but I have copies of all those studies in my email. That might help with… The town does need a boost of tourism. It would help everyone. What it doesn't need is a big resort like BHB to come in and take over everything. It should belong to the town. The jobs should belong to the town."

"I can get behind that. What can you do?"

I ran over to his table, where he had a notebook, and opened it. "Can I?" He nodded. "I have the stupidest idea I've ever had. Do you have the mayor's number?"

"No, bro. I do not have the stupid mayor on speed dial."

"Mom does." I broke out my phone again and started typing a text to Mom, telling her what I needed her to do. It was late, but if anyone could do it – she could.

"Go, Nancy. She's always been a badass as long as she didn't cook for you."

"Mom said they were friends. What if the town can still have a resort… to help bring in tourism, but it doesn't have to… destroy anything else to be built."

"You could make that happen." He sounded impressed.

"It's a hail Mary, bro. But I'm gonna do my best." I had to. I would move a fucking mountain if it meant I could have another chance with Percy.