24. Benny

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

benny

He’s pulling away from me. Trying to push me away didn’t work. But it doesn’t matter because he’s still pulling away, and I feel like my heart is being ripped out of my chest. I can’t believe we fell asleep like that.

Getting hurt on the field and feeling how desperately he needed to know I was okay was overwhelming last night. I could feel his love for me, and for once, I felt like it was really going to work out.

And now, everything has gone to hell.

“Don’t do this, Rowan,” I plead.

He pulls my hand off his chest and releases it so it falls down next to my side. “This is over.”

I shake my head. “You can’t just leave. We can fix this.” I don’t care how pathetic I sound right now. I can’t let him walk away from me.

“There’s nothing to fix.” His eyes have gone cold. “Like I said, you were a good fuck, but it’s run its course.”

I try not to flinch at his cruel words, but I do anyway, and he sees it. There’s a flicker of guilt in his eyes before he shutters it. “Don’t,” I say simply because he doesn’t want to hurt me. I know he doesn’t. “You don’t want this. You don’t want this to end. I know you don’t. You want me as badly as I want you.”

His gaze softens slightly, and his hand cups my cheek gently. “I can’t do this, Benny. It’s too hard, and it was always going to end.”

“But...” I try and choke on a sob. I don’t know what to say to get him to stay. “I’m your Benny.” I sniff, tears falling down my cheeks, and I don’t care. The pain deep inside me is a festering wound that I’m afraid will never heal.

I’m shocked when I hear a strangled cry in his throat, and I look up to see tears in his eyes too. “You are.” He kisses my temple, and I close my eyes. “You’ll always be my Benny.” I open my eyes just as he releases me and steps back. “But you’re right, I’m a coward. I can’t do this. I’m sorry.”

“Rowan...” I reach out for his hand, but he pulls away.

“Leave me alone, Benny. I mean it.” I can’t make any words come out to plead with him. I’m wrecked, completely and totally wrecked, as I fall to my knees and sob as he hauls ass out of the barn and out of my life.

I put my face in my hands, and I just let go because I had love—a great love—one for the ages, and then he just ran out on me. How did everything go so wrong?

I startle when I feel a hand on my shoulder and a body next to mine on the barn floor and open my eyes, hoping beyond hope it’s him, but I just see my dad’s worried eyes as he pulls me into his big, strong arms.

“Benny.” He holds onto me, and I just sob into his shoulder, clinging onto him.

“I love him, Dad. So much.”

“I know, son,” he says, his hand smoothing over the back of my hair. “I know. It’s okay. It’ll be okay.”

“He’s just scared. He loves me too,” I say, and my dad pulls me back to look at my wet face.

“I have no doubt he does.”

“It’s going to be okay,” I say, trying to convince myself, even though I know it won’t be. I saw the finality on his face. I heard it in his voice.

“His dad is . . .”

“An asshole,” I bite out, finishing my dad’s sentence, and he chuckles, wiping at my tears with his sleeve.

“But he’s all that kid has. He’s his family.”

I shake my head. “No. We can be his family. I know you don’t care, Dad, that he’s a guy. I know Mom wouldn’t either.”

“Of course we don’t, son. We want you to be happy. But Benny, it’s not always that simple.”

“It is,” I say desperately. “It is that simple. I love him, and he loves me. That’s all that matters, just like you and Mom.”

He’s patient with me as he hugs me and then pulls back a little to look at me again. “My dad didn’t want me to marry your mom.”

I suck in a deep breath because I didn’t know that. I knew that I’d never met him, but I never knew why. “That’s why he’s not around?”

He nods. “I told him that if he didn’t accept her, he didn’t have me.”

“See? So it worked out because you clearly made the right choice.” Which makes me even more mad at Rowan. I know we can figure it out.

“No.” My dad shakes his head sadly. “I mean, yes, I did, but it still hurts that I had to make that decision. It doesn’t go away. Knowing that my dad is out there in the world, and I may never see him again because of a decision I made.”

“A decision he made you make though. It was his fault.”

“I don’t regret it, son,” he says, putting a solid hand on my shoulder. “But it doesn’t make it any less difficult. Making that choice. He’s still my dad, and Rowan...”

“He doesn’t have anyone else,” I say sadly, my shoulders drooping.

“It’s going to be okay,” my dad says firmly, but I’m not so sure anymore. How can it be?

Everything feels so upside down and wrong, all of a sudden. I wrap my arms around my stomach as it churns.

It can’t be over for real. It just can’t be.

But it turns out, it is. Over. Totally over. Rowan won’t look at me at school. He won’t talk to me after practice. He ignores me when I try to get him to go to our spot after practice.

He doesn’t show up to the barn or come over for dinner.

It’s just over, and I’m empty.

A shell of my former self. It’s the last day of school before winter break, we played our last game a week ago and didn’t wind up in the playoffs, but it didn’t matter. Nothing seems to matter anymore.

I’m just going through the motions and barely hanging on. I feel like death. I just want Rowan.

But he doesn’t want me anymore. I watch him leave school, his backpack thrown over his shoulder, not a smile on his face or any emotion whatsoever, and it guts me. Steals my breath and makes my knees feel like jelly. I want to fall on them and beg him to come back to me.

Convince him we can work it out, but I know his mind won’t change. He’s given up on us.

“You look like shit.” My head snaps in the other direction to where Mya is standing, her arms folded, and her brow knitted with concern. “Are you okay?”

Is this how she felt when I broke things off with her? I know she was sad, but I don’t think she felt this terrible. Because it wasn’t real love with us. I cared about her, but I didn’t love her.

“I’m fine,” I say quietly, my voice scratchy.

“You’re definitely not fine,” she says with a sad smile. “You can tell me, you know?”

“Tell you what?”

She shrugs. “What’s actually wrong. We may be exes, but I think we were mostly friends. And friends can talk when they’re feeling shitty.”

I smile at her, and it’s real, even though it’s not a big smile. She’s a good person. I still hate that I hurt her, but I don’t think she holds it against me anymore. Still, I can’t betray Rowan and tell her what’s wrong. “Thanks, Mya. I’ll be okay.”

She gently squeezes my shoulder with her hand. “I hope so, Benny. You deserve all good things.”

“You do too,” I say honestly. She gives me a hug, and I head out to my truck. The ache still there, deep in my bones.

Because I’m Rowan’s Benny, and I don’t think I’m ever going to get over this.