Chapter 30 – Jessica

College parties were not my thing, which was probably the main reason why this party felt so odd to me. It was either that or the fact that my entire class was wearing Christmas colors and dancing to carols like they were the latest DJ mix. Either way, I was there, and in desperate need of something to occupy my mind, therefore, I decided to go along with the madness and have fun.

For most of the night, I did red and green shots with my classmates, jumped up and down on the makeshift dance floor to remixed versions of classic carols, and even cheered when Katie—a girl that sat behind me in Pathology—decided to climb on top of a table and burlesque dance her way through Santa Is Coming to Town. Still, no matter how much crazy fun I was having, nothing was able to erase Ben from my mind.

I saw his sad face behind my lids with every blink of my eyes, wondered if he was having fun at his party with every song I danced, and heard his voice saying my name whenever someone spoke to me. It was maddening and completely ruined my plan of escaping him and our relationship drama, which left me with no other choice than to party harder in hopes to forget.

Time kind of lost meaning as I downed shot after shot and danced until my skin was completely covered in a thin layer of sweat. At around the tenth shot, my head became foggy. As a result, I was able to momentarily forget about my anger, jealousy, and revolt over Ben’s betrayal and simply enjoy myself and the music.

With my eyes closed and a mix of vodka and cranberry juice—that was mostly just vodka—in my hand, I started dancing to a remixed version of Silent Night in a way that not only gave Katie’s burlesque dance a run for her money but was also completely inappropriate to the lyrics of the song. Dancing the I did was freeing and though I knew I should care that I was enjoying the moment a little too much, I simply didn’t.

At some point near the middle of the song, a pair of strong hands grabbed my hips, and a tall and warm body started moving with mine. The scent coming from the person behind me was spicy and familiar which made my mind instantly conjure the image of Ben dancing with me. Thoroughly relaxed by the alcohol and the sexiness of the dance, I leaned into him and just continued dancing without turning around or even opening my eyes.

I could feel his cock poking at my ass and felt myself growing wet with a desire to put all the day’s worries behind us and find a room to screw my man senseless. As the song finally came to an end, I bit my bottom lip the way Ben loved and turned around to kiss my daddy.

To my surprise, however, Daddy was blonde, twenty years younger and had eyes dark as coal. Releasing my lip to gasp in shock, I took a step backward and, in a slurry voice, asked, “Who the hell are you?”

A smirk curled into not-Ben’s lips revealing a set of coffee stained teeth that almost made me puke. He took a step forward, once again invading my personal space and used what I assumed was his sexy tone to introduce himself.

“I’m Dylan, baby,” he said, and I instantly hated him for calling me that. Ben called me baby, and I only liked when that word came out of his mouth. “We have Immunology together. I sit three rows behind you.”

Despite the chill that ran down my back, I nodded as I tried to take another step backward and recuperate my personal space. To my absolute horror, a group of people dancing behind me acted as a barrier for my escape.

Feeling trapped and very dizzy, my heart raced as I tried to find a quick and gentle way to dismiss him. When I couldn’t find one, I simply said, “Yeah, Dylan. Hi.”

“You don’t remember me, do you?” he asked with a tilt of his head.

“Not really,” I said in an obviously inebriated tone. “But I do have a boyfriend and am not very good at noticing people. So literally, it’s not you.”

Dylan laughed at my comment and took another half step forward, making the already slim space between us practically inexistent. “Where’s your boyfriend tonight?”

I didn’t like his question, his proximity, or anything about him to be honest, but because I was slow and drunk and stupid, I couldn’t think of anything better to say other than the truth. “He’s at a work thing.”

“What an asshole. If you were my girl, I would never let you go anywhere without me.”

Honestly, I wanted to roll my eyes at his pathetic flirting tactic. I was sure that bashing the ex you don’t know works with some girls, but it certainly didn’t work with me. Even drunk as a fish I wanted nothing more than to tell him to get lost because the only asshole in my life was him.

“He’s not an asshole,” I said. “And I’m a grown ass woman. I don’t need permission to go anywhere. Now, excuse me.”

I stepped around him to walk away, but barely made two steps before he materialized at my side once again. He grabbed my arm with unnecessary strength and forced me to stop walking. Chills ran down my spine as he approached again, promptly ruining the sliver of fun I managed to find on that godawful evening.

“I’m sorry,” he said, in a voice that even my drunken self recognized as not sorry at all. “I’ve seen you in class and always wanted to talk to you, but you’re always on the phone or studying, and I never saw an opportunity. Until tonight when I saw you dancing alone. You looked happy, and I wanted to be happy with you.”

This little speech seemed a lot better than his previous one, but I was too drunk to be sure if his intentions were pure or not. Though, the way he continued to grip my wrist should have been my clue that they weren’t.

“Well, I’m not feeling very well right now, but look me up after class. We could grab a coffee or something.”

I had hoped my kind words would encourage him to leave me alone, but they did the opposite. With a stern face, he started babbling about how he was going to take care of me and started pulling me toward the farthest and darkest corner of the room. All I wanted was for him to leave me the hell alone, but my scared and fuzzy brain couldn’t find the right words to tell him to fuck off.

When we finally reached one the couches that lined the walls, Dylan kicked some guys out and sat me down on the cushiony seat. He knelt in front of me and placed his hands on my knees. Although most people would take his behavior as chivalrous, I saw it as creepy. I didn’t like to be touched in such an intimate way by a stranger, and I hated how close his head was leaning towards mine.

With undiluted fear creeping up my chest, I tried to pull myself away from him but couldn’t. The massive amount of alcohol I had consumed and the steel grip he had on my leg kept me terrified and in place.

“Shh, baby,” he cooed, sliding one of his hands up my thigh. “I’m gonna take care of you.”

Unable to move and not knowing what else to do, I begged, “Please, I’m fine. Just let me go. We can talk, but I don’t want you to touch me.”

“Don’t you, baby?” he said in a disgusting tone as his palm reached the middle of my thigh. “Our little dancing moment said differently. I think you really want a fuck but are playing hard to get so you won’t feel too guilty about your boyfriend.”

My eyes widened and filled with tears at his curt words. “I’m not playing, and I don’t want anything, especially from you. Leave me alone.”

Finding some clarity in the middle of my terrifying situation, I brought my hands to his chest and pushed him away with all my strength. Clearly drunker than I was, he lulled backward finally giving me some space to get up and walk away.

With my head spinning, I took a few wobbly steps away from him but I was slow on my high-heels and he quickly caught up to me again. “Don’t be a bitch, baby. I’m just looking for some fun.”

“No!” I yelled, hoping that would get my point across. “I don’t want to have fun with you. Leave me alone.”

To my absolute dismay, Dylan took advantage that there wasn’t anyone around to help me and smiled like everything was fine as he reached once more to grab me. Before I could run away, his hands grabbed my hips, and he started to pull me closer.

The world around me felt like a slow-motion scene in a scary movie. I could see every detail of what was happening and what was about to happen, but felt powerless to change anything or run away. Tears prickled my eyes as the despair settled in and I forced my intoxicated brain to think about anything I could do to get away from this situation. Having tried almost everything to no avail, panic took over me at what would happen to me.

However, just as the first tear fell down my face, my blurry eyes saw a shadow move behind Dylan. I blinked, trying to clear my vision, but before my eyes could adjust he was yanked away from me with enough force that my body wobbled as his hands disconnected from my skin.

Thumping sounds echoed as I took a few steps backward and towards safety. I heard a familiar voice yelling profanities and threats, but paid no attention to it or to the other voices chanting around me. All I cared about was getting away and going to somewhere safe.

My heart pounded like a freight train when I finally reached the front door of the house. I closed my eyes and took several breaths in an attempt to compose myself, but they were all useless. My head swam, and my stomach turned from the alcohol and the stress.

With one hand clutching my stomach and another my mouth, I walked to the nearby flower bed, bent over and threw up. As my body heaved, a hand grabbed my hair while another patted my back.

My body went cold with fear that it was Dylan again, but a soft and loving voice sounded beside me, calming my tense nerves. “Calm down, baby girl. It’s me. You’re safe.”

Although the sound of Ben’s voice was like instant medicine for my stomach, a part of me feared his presence was just a drunken hallucination. Nervous and dizzy by the rollercoaster of emotions I just experienced, I straightened my back and turned toward the source of the voice.

My lips curled up into a smile as I saw his handsome face staring back at me. He looked amazing in a charcoal suit, green tie, and crisp white shirt that was now dotted with specs of blood, making him morbidly Christmasy.

“Ben?” I asked to make sure I wasn’t just hallucinating.

He rolled his eyes and reached his bloody hands up to touch my face. “Of course, it’s me,” he said in a very matter-of-fact tone as he examined me. “Did that prick hurt you?”

Instead of answering his question, I asked, “What are you doing here?”

“Saving your ass, of course.” His tone was a bit rougher, almost exasperated. Then, he looked into my eyes and repeated his question. “Are you okay?”

As I stared back at him and felt the haziness of the booze clear out of my head, I took my first deep breath in several minutes. I brought my hands to Ben’s chest and ran a finger through the red spots on his shirt.

“I am now,” I said with a nod. The words were barely out of my mouth, and Ben folded me into his arms and crushed me against his chest. Despite the calming feeling of safety after such a scary night, I couldn’t help but ask, “Did you punch him?”

Ben’s chest trembled with a sound that was somewhere in between a humorless chuckle and a groan. “Of course, I did, baby. I punched him quite a few times. He was harassing you.”

The matter-of-fact way he admitted to assaulting a guy was kind of scary, but since Dylan completely deserved to have his ass handed to him, I smiled thinking it was very endearing as well. Letting out a sigh of relief, I hugged Ben as tightly as I could while he delivered several kisses to the crown of my head.

After long minutes of us reassuring one another that I was fine, he took half a step back to look at my face and said, “I know our situation is fucked up and that’s completely my fault, but what the hell were you doing in that corner with that guy, Jess? Fuck, baby.”

The fear and care in Ben’s voice were more sobering than a triple shot of espresso. I considered telling him the whole story but figured we had more important things to talk about at the moment.

I shook my head and said, “That doesn’t matter. What is important is what are you doing here? Why aren’t you at your party with my mom?”

Ben stared at me in silence for a little while, as if collecting his thoughts. My heart pounded violently as the tension in his eyes turned into tenderness, and the hint of a smile curled on his lips. “I’m here because my place is with you, baby.”

Those words made the air seem too thick to breathe. My head swam, and my chest ached with happiness and so many questions, but there was only one that seemed important enough to ask. “What about the company and my mother?”

“They’re okay,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders. “A lot of things happened tonight, most of them were pretty shitty, but the one important thing was that Pam and I got a chance to talk. We talked a lot. Mostly it was about you and me.”

Having him choose me was everything I had wanted for months. I had dreamt and fantasized about this moment since we first slept together. Now that it was here, the feeling was better than I could have ever imagined.

“You told her?” I asked in a high-pitched tone that displayed my excitement.

Ben raked a hand through his hair and said, “Yes and no.”

His admission was like a bucket of cold water thrown in my head. My brows pulled together with confusion and hurt, but thankfully he was quick to explain. “She’ll want to tell you everything herself, but like I said, many shitty things happened tonight. One of them involved a drunk woman trying to get revenge on me by telling your mother I used to sleep with her.” My lips pursed with yet another reason for jealousy, but Ben smiled and added something that somewhat erased that feeling. “It was before we started seeing each other and she also disclosed that I used to call her by your name. As you can imagine, that was what ignited our lengthy conversation.”

No longer feeling happy or chosen, I held my breath and steeled myself to check the last bit of necessary information I needed to know. “Is she divorcing you?”

Still with that smile on his lips, Ben shook his head and in a very casual way, said, “No. She’ll fulfill her side of the agreement and stay out of our way. She wants you happy, Jess, and so do I.”

He smiled at me like he had something to be proud of and I wanted to kick him in the nuts. Tears prickled my eyes as my dreams fell apart and this already terrible night turned unbearable. Hurt and silent, I turned around and walked away.

“Jess,” Ben called frantically, but I ignored him and continued walking.

Persistent as always, he followed calling my name in that demanding way he was so used to. Still, I continued to ignore him. I was almost at the end of the lawn when he stepped in front of me, forcing me to stop.

“What the hell is going on?” he demanded exasperatedly. “I just said that everything is fine and we can be together. Why are you mad?”

Anger that he couldn’t see how fucked up he was boiled in my veins. Crossing my arms and staring at him with fire glowing in my eyes, I said, “I’m mad because you only came here pretending that you were choosing me after the cat was out of the bag and you knew there wouldn’t be consequences. That was not what I wanted. I wanted you to choose me despite the risks and show me that I was more important than the company or my mother.”

“You are!” he said emphatically. “You’re also wrong, Jessica.”

I raised a petulant brow at him, but he ignored it and kept talking. “First of all, I’m not pretending anything. I’ve chosen you, and though I didn’t show you sooner, that choice isn’t new. I didn’t make it tonight.

“I chose you when I went against your mother’s warning simply because I couldn’t stay away from you. I chose you earlier tonight when I went after you wearing nothing but sweatpants. I chose you when I spent thirty minutes banging on your door, with tears in my eyes and my heart in my throat, begging you to stay even though Pam was about to come home. I chose you when I told Juanita to return your stuff to our bedroom despite our fight and your mother being across the hall. I chose you when I told your mom that I loved you even when I could have made an excuse for Vanessa’s words and saved my ass.

“I’ve chosen you then, and I’m choosing you now, not because there were no consequences, but because any consequence is better than losing you. You’re the love of my life and the only woman I’ve ever loved, Jessica. I want to be more than your secret lover or your Daddy. I want to be your man, your partner and so much more. My life is fucked up right now, and my past mistakes make me unable to give you all that you deserve and all I want to give you right now, but I’ll be better. For you, I’ll be better, and I’ll always choose you. Just please, say you’ll forgive me and come home with me, baby. Please.”

Happy tears rimmed my eyes when Ben finally stopped talking. Every word he said was exactly what I wanted to hear and after all the months, the secrets and the heartbreak, I could barely believe this perfect moment was true. But it was, and the honesty in his face assured me of it.

“You love me?” I said overwhelmed.

The apprehension in Ben’s face finally slipped away, and he smiled a real, broad, loving smile. He took a step closer and brought his hands to either side of my face. “Oh, Jess . . . I love you so much it hurts, baby.” I bit my bottom lip and smiled as he leaned closer still. “I love you so much, I want to kiss you even though you just puked all over those poor flowers.”

Unable to help myself, I laughed at his words and folded my arms around him as well. “Then do, because I love you too.”

The words were barely out of my mouth, and his lips were pressed against mine. Our kiss was slow, passionate and made me remember about the first day we met.

When Mom and I arrived at Ben’s house, I knew that my life was the one that would be forever changed. And I was right. My life was changed, and it was a change I would cherish forever.