lady disdain

“God,” he dropped one of her hands to swipe a tear from his eye. He didn’t care how it looked, his life had just clicked into place and he was not about to pass up the opportunity to feel. “Fuck it up?” He shook his head slowly. “Beatrice. There is absolutely no way you could fuck this up. We’ve been fucking things up for years. This is real. This is us. And I wouldn’t have you any other way. I know who you are. I know who I am. I’ve known the worst parts of you, and I love you even more for it.” 

“I am not scared anymore. I know that we were meant to be together.” Ben flashed through his mind for a moment and he wondered how his idiotic brother would take the news. Not well, if he had to guess. “I should have done this years ago.” He brushed his fingers down her face and wrapped his hand around her neck. The breeze hit him then, like a crescendo. How could this not be their moment? Suddenly, he didn’t regret waiting. It’s always sweeter after a long wait. Goosepimples erupted across his arms, and a shiver went down his spine. They were close enough to feel each other’s breath, his head was lowered, just enough to tease. 

“I’ve gotten so used to you Beatrice,” he shook his head, causing his lips to brush back and forth across her nose. “I’ve gotten so attached to you. And I know that if you give me the chance I can prove to you every single day that I’m not him.” He was crying again, this time he wasn’t sure if it was the manly kind of tears. “But I can’t let you go. You and I, we’re it kid.”

“You know, I want to kiss you so bad.” His lips were centimeters from hers, all it would take is a breath to bridge the distance. “I’ve wanted to kiss you forever. I remember when you first got together with Ben…” He couldn’t take it anymore. Ben be damned, this was his Bea. Of course, that was the one thing Ben never understood. Bea didn’t belong to anyone but herself. He kissed her hesitantly at first, before diving in, loosing himself in the feel of her lips tugging against his. 

Her body went cold everyone except where he was touching, that was as hot as an open flame. How many times had he touched her in their life? Too many to count but never like this. It had never meant this before. He was so close, she could feel his pulse and she was sure he could feel hers, they were almost completely beating together. She looked up at his dark eyes, so familiar, so damn familiar. “I want to believe you...” She mumbled, a tear traveling down her cheek. “I fuck everything up, you should know that by now.” She tried to laugh but it sounded more like a croak. 

She had wanted this for so long, she felt as if everything had lead up to this moment. She remembered every little thing, how he was always the one who would let her play whatever game she wanted, even when he got too old for make believe. Hal was the one who distracted her when her parents fights got loud enough to hear upstairs in her room. How she cried when he went to Iraq, and cried again when she got her first letter from him. She remembered how he was the first one she went to when Ben left. Hal was always there, everything good in her life was because of him. She knew that he was right, they were meant to be together. 

No one could ever call the two of them saps, and yet here they were, dramatically declaring their undying devotion to each other on a beach, crying like babies. If her heart wasn’t about to leap out of her chest, she would laugh. “We’re it.” She repeated, closing her hazel eyes, and rested her forehead against his. “I’ve waited for this for so long... You have no idea how long I’ve waited for this.” 

His face flashed with something akin to panic. There was something so dangerous about the game they played. He loved it, but he also hated it. He was so fucking tired of pretending all of the time. If she said jump, he would jump. If she gave even the smallest indication she was ready he would drop on one knee and propose to her with the ring he had picked out as soon as he got back from the war. The waves seemed to be getting louder as he stared into her eyes, all else gone from his mind. 

It wasn’t even her body he wanted. He would go his entire life without even thinking about sex if that was what she wanted. He would gladly step into the void for her. “What else am I going to talk about?” There was no smile on his face now, just a fierce gaze that followed her like a spotlight. He thought he saw it, the hunger, reflected in her. 

“What else do you think I think about? God, Bea. You want to know the hardest part of my life? Looking my wanker brother every morning and not fucking strangling him. You… you have no idea what it’s like to have someone as the center of your universe. You could murder me and I wouldn’t mind because if I had to die at anyone’s hands I’d want it to be yours.” He grabbed the wine bottle from her and dropped it in the sand. “I’m sick of pretending like it’s okay when it’s not. I need you to know. I need you to know that I have never loved anything in my life like I love you.”

“And the worst part is you are inside me. You are in every corner of my soul. I’ve tried to stop thinking about you, I really have. I’ve never wanted this for you. I’ve never wanted you for me because I’m not as good as I pretend to be. I’m not Ben, but I–you deserve someone who will be able to attend to your every need. But God when I see you I think about all of the things that I want to do with you.”

“When I close my eyes you follow me. You haunt me every night. I dream in these elaborate love songs because I can’t bring myself to come to you and tell you myself. I’ve been a coward. I wanted to save you from me, but now… Now I need you. I need you B.” 

It felt like there was a suction cup below her breast bone, pulling in her chest, so that she would be turned inside out. With every word he spoke the tightness inside her got more extreme, her heartbeat became so strong that she could feel it in her toes. She wanted to say something, anything, to tell him to shut up, to say she loved him back, anything, but her throat felt horse, and she wished the bottle she was holding was water instead of cheap wine. 

The two of them had been standing on a cliff’s edge for as long as she could remember, neither of them brave enough to jump into it. Every rock below was a reason not to. One was Ben, one was the fear of commitment they both shared, one was the risk of losing the one person who they could ever count on. Hal had just jumped off the cliff and now the question was wether or not she would jump too. She loved him, God of course she loved him, she loved him like she had loved Ben before he crumbled her heart into a broken thing. Maybe she loved him even more than she had ever loved Ben, it was all so messed up in her head. She was looking down from the cliff and she was getting dizzy. She had two options, run as fast as she could, or jump too. 

“I think about you too.” She croaked out the words before she knew it, she wouldn’t be able to stop herself even if she wanted to, which she didn’t. She wanted to jump too.”I’ve thought about you every day of my life. It should have been you, it was always supposed to be you. It was you on your 21st birthday, it was you when I would scrape my knees when we were kids and you were the one to hold my hand. It was you when I was with Ben.” She felt the pressure behind her chest release, something that had always been wrong, her whole life, was now in the right place. She had loved Ben, but she had always loved Hal, she always wanted it to be him, even if she couldn’t admit it. 

“Ben has his own way of doing thing. I’m not saying it’s right–I’m saying that’s what he knows. That’s what he was taught. You don’t learn a lot when you are a kid being raised by four different nannies. There’s something about being tossed around that makes you perpetually childish. We didn’t have someone to say “that’s wrong, don’t act like that.” My aunt did it for a little while but there’s only so much parenting you can do when you don’t have backup. I’m not trying to say that he was right, or even explain away his actions. He loved you in a way that he felt was real. I don’t think it was, because if I loved you, I wouldn’t treat you like that. I’d treat you with respect.” 

“You can find love in all of the nooks and crannies of life. Find it here–on this beach.” He wanted to pretend for just a moment that they were laughing lovers, coming in and out with the tide. If only just in his head, he could see them swaying with the waves, pretending their love would last beyond this night.”

“I don’t want to talk about him anymore.” She said taking a chug of her wine. She hated thinking about him, what he did and said to her, both good and bad. She had loved him, he had known what that meant for her, and he still stomped on her heart all the same. He had ruined her and he didn’t even know it, or didn’t care. Once again she got the familiar feeling that she picked the wrong brother, if only Hal had been there first. “I know that you would have...” She nodded, soberly before turning to him and giving him a bitter sweet smile.

“Oh yeah? Who on this beach am I going to fall in love with? It’s just the two of us.” As soon as she said those words she wished she could take them back. Maybe she was drunker than she thought she was, showing her cards like that. She knew better than that, she knew better than to make herself vulnerable, a target. 

“Dick has his faults,” he studied her face closely. “He has a lot of them. One thing Dick has never been bad at is choosing a girlfriend. He’s a real sod, he is. But…” he felt the need to defend his brother, even at this moment. There was something so vulnerable and broken about Dick that was hard for him to ignore. He was his older brother, and he was supposed to be wiser–or something. Not that he was wiser, just better looking.

“Dick loved you in his own way. He’s not good at love, he generally tends to fuck it all up. That doesn’t mean he didn’t love you. Not as you should be loved. You should be loved with all of the passion and desire you deserve. I think he’s a fucking asshole not to see how wonderful you are. And he might be too late for your heart, but I’m sure you’ll find someone who’s right on time.”

“Please, don’t tell me how much he loved me.” She shook her head, biting the inside of her cheek angrily. “I’m so tired of the whole ‘you always hurt the ones you love’ bullshit. If thats really true then maybe no one should fall in love. If Ben had loved me, he wouldn’t have fucked me up the way he did.” She wanted to ring his neck. She wanted to scream at him until he burst into flames but not as much as she wanted to take it all back. All the kisses, all the I Love Yous, and stollen glances. All the fights. She would give anything to start again. 

She was slightly surprised by Hal’s severe words about his brother and how his eyes looked somewhat darker, and it wasn’t just the dim lighting. “Who am I going to find who thinks that Hal?” She whispered into the night sky, all of a sudden feeling a chill go up her spine which she told herself was only because she was standing in freezing cold water in the middle of the night and for no other reason. “Someone who thinks I’m wondering.”

“Rolanda.” Bea answered, scrunching up her nose. “She was a bitch.” She only hung around them that summer because she had a thing for Hal, barely even looked at Bea and when she did, it was with a upturned nose. “Why? Looking to get back in touch with her?” She meant it as a joke, but somehow it didn’t end up sounding like one. Instead she sounded put out and perhaps and little bit bitter. She silently cursed herself, wishing the water was warm enough to sink her head under. 

The mention of Benedick made a lump rise in her throat. The past year and a half she had tried to pretend like he didn’t exist, that he had never touched her or her life but her total inability to open up to anyone was a constant reminder of how he had ripped her heart out and ate it. “I wish... I wish I could take it all back. Everything that happened with Dick and I.” She looked up at the stars, anywhere but at Hal right now. “He told me he loved me and–Fuck you must have thought I was such an idiot, falling for him when I knew what he was like. I always thought I had more self control than that.” She pulled her eyes away from the stars to finally look at Hal, right in his eyes. “I would do anything for things to be different.” I wish you had been first, she wanted to say.

“This is absolute piss. Look, it even has a fucking screw top.” He bought a fifth for good measure, there was no way they could get drunk off of some 6% two buck chuck. That wouldn’t do–no–they had to get drunk. He led them to the beach just down the way, taking a moment to admire the waves from afar. There were a million good memories of the beach–his favorite being his 21st birthday.

“You remember my 21st birthday?” He kicked off his shoes and picked them up, letting the sand slide over his feet. “We came to Spain–it was only a few months after my accident in Iraq. I was so scared to fly that I nearly threw up. When I got to the hotel the first thing I did was come to your room and order room service,” he grinned at the memory. “We decided to go down to the beach in the freezing cold. It was like 7 am or something. I had a late flight.” 

She reached out and took his hand in hers when he was done. Of course she remembered his birthday, she had been 17 and she hadn’t seen Hal since he had left for Iraq. It was a perfect night, she remembered she had wished she could have kissed him then. “I remember not wanting to go to sleep until I saw you.” She had stayed up, checking her phone every couple of minutes and drinking cup after cup of spanish coffee. “It was a perfect night.”

She had the feeling again that he could kiss her right now and she would let him, which is what made her drop his hand and grab at the wine bottle and taking a large swig. “You better catch up.” She said, taking another swig. She wanted them to be drunk enough to make mistakes that they secretly wanted. 

“But especially today, with all of this bullshit,” he waved his hand towards the pub. Their parents were always trying to force Beatrice and Benedick together. It made him crazy, made him want to throw beer bottles and throttle his idiot brother. It was his goddamn fault for breaking Beatrice’s heart into a million pieces. Beatrice deserved more than to be cast aside just because his brother couldn’t make up his mind. 

“How do I know you weren’t stalking me, B? How do I know that you aren’t madly in love with me and looking to take advantage of me right outside of this shitty pub?” He laughed, avoiding her eyes so she couldn’t see how hopeful they were. “Let’s ditch this bitch. Their drafts taste like they haven’t cleaned the taps in 50 years. Wouldn’t be surprised, to say the least.” 

She only nodded her agreement. She didn’t want to talk about Ben, or think about him, or see him. A part of her hated her parents for forcing her to come on this trip all as a way to get her to see Ben again. If only they knew the whole story, they might not be so willing to forgive him and understand why Beatrice couldn’t. 

“Yes how do you know?” She arched her eyebrow and leaned in a little bit so she could smell his cologne mixed with the cigarette. She wondered if he could tell the way the idea of having her wicked way with him outside of the shitty pub made her pulse quicken. She realized that if he leaned in and followed up on his statement, she would let him. A million times over. “I thought you would never ask.” 

There was a sort of excited buzz surrounding the pub they were holed up in. With Dick watching his every move, and his parents right around the corner, he was careful not to get too intoxicated. It was frustrating not to be able to be himself when he wanted to be–but it wasn’t exactly something he wasn’t used to. It happened all the time–came with the territory. He had to be the perfect older brother, perfect son. Sometimes he just wanted to burn the fuck down, simmer inside himself quietly for a while. 

Being out of work for vacation was something he wasn’t going to waste. It was nearly impossible to plan a two week vacation when you were a pediatric surgeon, especially at such an elite hospital. Somehow he’d managed–he wasn’t about to waste the opportunity to see Beatrice Duncan in a bikini. Hell no, he was going to stare unabashedly and see if she got the hint. 

All he needed was a cigarette and some air. It seemed as though the pub had closed in on him and he was going to suffocate any moment. He wanted to dash before his parents had the chance to prey on him–that was something he was not there for. It was a vacation, and he would be dammed if he didn’t make the most of it.

If all of Spain wasn’t big enough, the pub they were all at certainly wasn’t. No drink was helping the knot in her chest to loosen or Benedick’s stare to feel any less heavy so she silently slipped away into the starry night. She was standing there, seeing if she could count every star in the sky before she went back inside when she heard the door creaking. 

She let out a sigh of relief when it was just Hal. Her Hal. He was the only thing worth a damn on this trip, the only thing that made her thing that made her think that maybe, just maybe, it was all worth it. “You’re my wight knight, Hal Smith.” She said taking the cigarette from him, brushing her fingers against his only a little bit on purpose.