“Shhh, it’s okay Benny, I understand.”
I shook my head violently as my tears soaked his chest. “I chose wrong,” I whispered harshly. “You needed me! But I was only thinking about me. About what I’d lose.”
“Stop it,” he said, his voice thick with anger. “Don’t you dare blame yourself, Bennett Crawford.” He used his fingers to gently tilt my head back enough so I could look into his eyes. “You were a kid. You were faced with an impossible choice… you couldn’t have known how it would turn out.”
I shook my head because I couldn’t accept him just letting me off the hook like that. Not knowing how he’d suffered so much more than just the loss of his father that night.
“You said you came to see me that night,” Xander finally said softly after I’d quieted.
I nodded against his chest. “After I sent you away, I went to my room and cried. I didn’t care what my father thought at that point, and I didn’t care what those assholes at the party thought. I waited long enough for everyone to go home and my parents to go to sleep, and then I snuck out of the house.”
“But I was already gone.”
“When I saw all your clothes were gone, I was so fucking scared what it meant. But I told myself it wasn’t true. So, I got in your bed and I waited for you. My dad found me there the next morning. Said you were gone and you weren’t coming back.” I pulled back enough so I could look at him. “What happened to you? Why did you leave Greenwich so fast? What about your father’s funeral?”
“We didn’t, Bennett,” he said quietly. “Yes, we left the house because I told Aunt Lolly I couldn’t spend another second there. But we just went to a hotel.”
“What?” I asked, scrambling back enough so I could really see him.
“We stayed in Greenwich for another week. Long enough for the funeral and for my aunt to get the rest of our stuff from the house… she gave all the furniture and stuff to charity.”
I suddenly felt too stifled, so I quickly unzipped the sleeping bag and sat up. My heart felt like it was going to pound out of my chest.
“He said you were gone!” I yelled. “That’s why I didn’t ask him to let me go to the funeral. I couldn’t go without you.”
Disbelief tore through me. The betrayal cut so deep that I couldn’t breathe. I’d known my father had been obsessed with keeping me and Xander apart, but to go to such lengths? To blatantly lie to my face, even after knowing how much I’d been suffering. How much Xander had been suffering.
I felt Xander’s hand come up to rest on my back. “Take deep breaths, Bennett,” he urged as he rubbed circles into my skin. I tried to do as he said, but nothing I did made the breaths come any easier. Xander pressed his forehead against the side of my head and clasped his hand around my throat. “I’m here, baby. He didn’t win.”
Except he had won. He’d driven us apart.
“Benny, please, just breathe.”
The fear in his voice had me focusing on him instead of the agony slicing through my insides. The constriction in my lungs finally seemed to ease and then I was pushing myself into his arms. “I’m sorry, Xander.”
“Please don’t say those words to me ever again, Bennett,” he said hoarsely. “I should have had more faith in you… in us.” I began to shake my head, but he kissed me hard before I could say anything. “I thought I lost you, Benny. I saw you go into that river and I couldn’t find you at first and then I was watching you struggle to hang on to the rope… seeing you fucking saying goodbye to me…”
He was shaking violently, so I quickly put my arms around him and pressed a kiss against his neck. “I’m safe, baby,” I whispered in his ear. “You saved me.”
I felt hot tears sliding down my skin, but this time they weren’t mine. I kept murmuring in Xander’s ear that I was safe and that we were together until he calmed. When we separated just enough to try and catch our breaths I said, “Let’s not let him or anyone or anything else take these last couple of days from us, okay?”
He nodded. “Yeah,” he agreed as he wiped at his eyes. “God, I’ve missed you so much, Benny.”
“Show me, Xander. Show me how much.”
He let out a choked little sob, and then he was drawing me forward and settling his mouth on mine. Unlike all our previous kisses, this one was unhurried and gentle. That should have made it less intense, but it was the opposite. Because I felt everything he couldn’t put into words in that one kiss.