“It’s not you,” I sobbed, though I wasn’t sure he could understand the words. “I can’t cope anymore, Ben, ever since the burglar I’ve just been— I think I’m going mad.”
“What burglar?”
I told him—between sobs. Everything I hadn’t told Jude. What it had been like, waking up, realizing there was someone in my flat, realizing that no one would hear if I cried out, realizing that I had no way of getting help, no chance of fighting the intruder off, that I was vulnerable in a way I’d never thought I was before that night.
“I’m sorry,” Ben kept repeating, like a mantra. He rubbed my back with his free hand. “I’m so sorry.”
His awkward sympathy only made me sob harder.
“Look, sweetheart—”
Oh no.
“Don’t call me that.” I sat up, shaking my hair away from my face, and pulled out of his hold.
“Sorry, it just— It slipped out.”
“I don’t care, you can’t say that anymore, Ben.”
“I know,” he said distractedly. “But, Lo, if I’m honest, I never—”
“Don’t,” I said urgently.
“Lo, what I did, I was a shit, I know I was—”
“I said don’t. It’s over.”
He shook his head, but his words, somehow, had stopped my crying. Maybe it was the sight of him, stricken, hunched, and so very miserable.
“But, Lo.” He looked up at me, his brown eyes puppy-dog soft in the soft bedside light. “Lo, I—”
“No!” It came out harsher and louder than I meant, but I had to shut him up. I wasn’t sure what he was about to say, but whatever it was, I was certain I couldn’t afford for him to say it. I was stuck on this boat with Ben for the next five days. I couldn’t let him embarrass himself more than he already had done, or this trip would become unendurable when we had to rub shoulders in the cold light of day. “Ben, no,” I said more gently. “It was over a long time ago. Anyway, you were the one who wanted out, remember?”
“I know,” he said wretchedly. “I know. I was a twat.”
“You weren’t,” I said. And then, feeling dishonest: “Okay, you were. But I know I wasn’t the easiest— Look, that’s not the point now. We’re friends, right?” That was overstating it, but he nodded. “Okay, then don’t screw this up.”
“All right,” he said. He stood up painfully and swiped at his face with the arm of his dinner jacket, then looked at it ruefully. “Hope they’ve got an onboard dry cleaner.”
“Hope they’ve got an onboard dress mender.” I nodded at the rip all the way up the side of the gray silk dress.
“Will you be all right?” Ben said. “I could stay. I don’t mean that in a sleazy way. I could sleep on the couch.”
“You totally could,” I agreed, looking at the length of it, and then shook my head as I realized how my words sounded. “No, you couldn’t. It’s big enough, but you can’t; I don’t need you to. Go back to your cabin. For Christ’s sake, we’re on board a ship in the middle of the ocean—it’s about the safest place I could possibly be.”
“All right.” He walked, hobbling slightly, to the door and half opened it, but he didn’t actually go. “I—I’m sorry. I mean it.”
I knew what he was waiting for, hoping for. Not just forgiveness, but something more, something that would tell him that squeeze wasn’t completely unwanted.
I was damned if I’d give it to him.
“Go to bed, Ben,” I said, very weary, and very sober. He stood in the doorway a moment longer, just a millisecond too long, long enough for me to wonder, with a shift in my stomach that echoed the shifting sea, what I would do if he didn’t go. What I’d do if he shut the door and turned around and came back into the room. But then he turned and went, and I locked the door after him and then collapsed onto the sofa with my head in my hands.
At long last, I don’t know how much later, I got up, poured myself a whiskey from the minibar, and drank it down in three long gulps like medicine. I shuddered, wiped my mouth, and peeled off my dress, leaving it coiled on the floor like a sloughed-off skin.
I stripped off my bra, stepped out of the sad little pile of clothes, and then fell into bed and into a sleep so deep, it felt like drowning.