#gd benjamin

I can’t. There were at least 5 people that you could think of off hand that would be free to take your call and hear your news. Mom, Ollie, Beth, Milo, Helene... But there was only one person who you couldn’t wait to give it to. With Benjamin, your triumphs were his and his were yours, and they never felt fully celebrated until they were shared. It had been the same when he had come home from a meeting with Kesting, overflowing with excitement over the invite to join him on the panel. When you heard his key in the lock followed by the door swinging closed behind him, you’d called out to him from the kitchen only to be met with his arms circling your waist to pull you away from the sink full of dishes you were washing. 

“I’m going.” He tried to speak low and into your ear, but the excitement in his voice wouldn’t let him, wavering and becoming louder than he meant to be. You turned in his arms, soaked to your elbows in warm soapy water, slopping puddles onto the floor and dampening his clothes. But he didn’t care and neither did you. “The panel. For the conference in Sarajevo next month? It’s Kesting and one other professor from the department, but they needed a third and,” you watched as his cheeks fought the inevitable smile, your sudsy hands landing on his shoulder and hip. “Well, they...they picked me. They picked me to help present their research and I-” 

You did him the merciful kindness of cutting him off with a kiss, one that he eagerly responded to, laughing against your lips as they pulled away. “Of course they picked you, Benjamin,” you said, flexing the fingers around his shoulder and leaving dark wet spots behind. “Who else knows that paper in and out and upside down like you do?” You shook your head, biting your bottom lip as a grin took over your face. “No one,” you slid the hand on his hip around to his back, pressing him closer, “that’s who.” 

His nose wrinkled up as he smiled, lips twitching before widening. Nodding, his eyebrows flew up, nutty brown eyes growing round. “I’m nervous,” he laughed tentatively as his palms fell to the small of your back, “but I’m excited and I,” he sighed, smile still plastered on as he leaned in, beard brushing your cheek, kissing it before continuing. “I couldn’t wait to tell you.” 

You imagined the way his mouth would drop open, the creasing near the corners of his eyes as his cheeks pulled up into them when you finally got to tell him, and it stole another laugh from your heart. He’s going to be so proud. “Anyway, I hope the presentation’s going well. Call me when you get a chance.” You stopped at the crosswalk, the early spring breeze hitting your face and dancing through your hair. “Miss you, Benjamin. I love you.” You did miss him, but not in that can’t go on without you way, that suffocating loss of the other person from your space. You didn’t miss him because his absence hurt you. You missed him because his presence made everything better, and the difference was huge. You missed him because you wanted to be there to take part in his achievement, and because you wanted him there to celebrate yours. Two more days. You said goodbye to his mailbox and hung up, tucking your phone into your bag just as the walk signal flashed. Two more days, B. 

You continued on down the sidewalk on your way to the car park. Crossing Great Russell Street, you couldn’t help but glance down the road even though you were unable to see the entrance to the massive building where you’d soon be working. Doesn’t feel real yet. You’d only just left your office after learning about your new contract, and the weight of it had yet to sink in. As accomplished and successful in your career as you’d become, you were still blown away by this recent development. I’ve wanted to do work for them since… Since you’d first visited when you were 8 years old and learned that art preservation and restoration was a viable career path. You knew that you were able to do the job, had confidence in your ability and skill level, but that didn’t change the fact that the whole thing  felt surreal. Shaking your head for what must have been the twentieth time that morning, you tore your eyes away from the unseen structure and forced yourself to keep walking to your car. I’ll be there every day for three weeks, it will feel real then. 

The drive home had gone much more quickly than it usually did, and you’d spent it by calling the five other people on the need to know list using the bluetooth speaker. Ollie had found a way to tease you while simultaneously congratulating you, as was his way. Beth and your mother had had similar reactions, though Beth’s vocabulary was far more colorful. “Of course they bloody chose you, they’d be dumb fuckers not to!” Your good friend Milo had of course been thrilled, sharing his own news of a new contract, and Helene, from whom you’d learned nearly everything you knew, had told you that she was proud of you, and that she couldn’t wait to see the exhibit once you were finished bringing it back to life. By the time you pulled into your driveway that afternoon, you were beaming again, cheeks aching from how happy you were. 

You busied yourself with some Spring cleaning chores around the house- popping the screens from your windows and cleaning them, switching out heavy linens in the bedrooms for lighter blankets, and vacuuming vents and grates. You tried your hardest not to watch the clock as you worked so that you wouldn’t be focused on how soon you might hear from Benjamin, but you caught yourself checking the time at least twice. All kettles boil eventually, but watching them doesn’t help. You heard your mother’s voice in your head and rolled your eyes at yourself even as you mentally agreed with her, and decided to move into the garage- there were no clocks in there- to move the terracotta flower pots to the front door and back patio. Almost time to plant, have to stop at Penny’s to grab some soil and seeds and- 

Your plans were forgotten as you felt the vibration of your phone from the back pocket of your jeans, and you nearly dropped the hefty planter that you were carrying in your excitement to answer it. That’s got to be Benjamin. Stopping yourself from shattering your largest flower pot, you set it down carefully on the patio, brushing your hands off on your thighs before pulling out your phone. The caller ID told you that you were correct, and you felt your lips stretch into a grin as you swiped the screen to answer. “Hey you,” you greeted him, crossing to the wooden L-shaped bench that bordered one side of your patio, plopping down and pulling your knees to your chest. “How’s everything going?” 

“You tell me,” he responded, the tone of his voice already indicating that he had a hunch about your news. “You sounded like you were practically bursting to spill something when you called before.” 

“You caught that, huh?” You bit your bottom lip as he chuckled into the receiver, the sound of his laugh enough to send a warm bubbly feeling through your chest. “I do have news, but I want to hear about the presentation first.” Go on, Benjamin, brag about yourself for once. “How was the Q & A? How did your portion go?” 

“You really want me to go first?” You could hear how difficult it was for him not to erupt with words, not to just explode with excitement over speaking at his first panel, imagining him flopping onto the bed in his hotel room. Wish I was there with you. The little hum that you gave in response drew another laugh from him. “Alright, then, it was,” he paused, blowing out a breath. “It was brilliant.” I bet it was. You leaned back into the bench and closed your eyes, pretending that there wasn’t a time zone between you. “Kesting and Oberman, they let me take an entire section of the presentation, and then,” he laughed again, a gust of air leaving his lungs in the form of happiness. “Then, during the Q & A, they actually deferred to me on one of the topics. They actually-” Of course they did, B, you did all their fact checking, they wouldn’t have been there without you. “Someone asked about the Bolshevik Revolution and I, well, I can’t quite remember the question now, but-” You muttered about Kerensky in your sleep for weeks. “But it opened up a whole discussion and we ran long, but no one minded, no one stopped us.” No one stopped you, Benjamin. “It was…” you heard him swallow, and when he spoke again the excitement had drained, giving way to something that sounded like that surreal feeling you’d been carrying with you since you left your meeting. “Incredible. It was incredible.”       

“Good.” You sat forward, planting your feet back on the ground. “Good. It should feel incredible. You deserve that feeling.” You do, more than most. You were so happy for him, so proud of the man you loved for climbing to a new peak in his career, for working as hard and as long and as much as he had. “But it’s not incredible. It’s not unbelievable.” Those words were meant for things that couldn’t be explained, that made no sense. “It’s you, Benjamin. It’s the way you…” you sighed, “It’s the way you take everything you do so seriously. It’s the way you prove how passionate you are about the things that you love. This panel? This is just the beginning for you, Benjamin Greene, I know it.”  

“You…” you heard him release a breath. “You have so much faith in me.” It wasn’t a question, it was a statement. 

I wish you’d have as much faith in yourself. “I do. And you know me, Benjamin, I don’t trust anyone.” 

Your response had the intended effect and you were rewarded with a laugh. “A wise course of action, love. I’m just glad to be one of the few.” He paused, then, tone changing to something a few shades more sincere, he spoke your name. “Thank you. For believing in me and….for believing that I could do this on my own. No one’s ever...before you, no one’s really thought much of me and, and I know I wasn’t going about things the right way, but-” 

Oh, Benjamin, of course I… “You’re welcome.” You knew that he was right, that he’d been secretive and that he’d spun silken white lies so fine he’d gotten lost and tangled up in them, that he hadn’t gone about earning people’s trust the right way in the past. But what example did you have to follow? Who did you have to learn trust from? You knew that he’d been tuned into survival mode since...well, you didn’t like to think about it because it made you ache for him, but since he was far too young to be concerned with such matters. You knew he was truly just trying to scrape up a life for himself, that he hadn’t ever meant to hurt anyone. You knew that his inexperience with trust was what had led him from one disastrous relationship to another. He thought Allie could be trusted, he thought Julia trusted him, and neither turned out to be true. By the time the two of you had met, he’d finally found his feet, finally stopped the constant evolution that his secrets and elaborations demanded, finally learned who he was and what he was about, and finally learned that who he was was enough. “You make it easy to believe in you, Benjamin. I believed in you before I loved you.” You thought back to the 10 days that the two of you spent sharing the reference room in the library, both of you immersed in your work. I believed in you then.  

Where he once would have answered with something slightly self deprecating- you’re too good to me, I don’t deserve you- his response was simple, but full of truth. “I love you. So much.” 

“So much,” you replied, leaning back into the bench again, wishing that you were resting against his chest instead of the blue striped cushions. The sun was starting to set, the air temperature cooling off enough to make you pull your long sleeves down to cover your bare arms but not enough to chase you inside just yet. A light breeze shook the branches of the Silver Birch near the gate, the tiny green buds clinging tight. You took a breath through your nose, inhaling that cool, earthy scent that always preceded the first bloom of the season, as though the slow, persistent reaching of the bulbs and roots had churned up the dirt enough that you could smell it. Spring had always been your favorite time of year, when color came back to the world and seemingly anything was possible.     

He cleared his throat. “Now that I’ve filled you in, can you please get to your exhilarating news?” 

Your smile-sore cheeks flew upwards at the excitement in his voice. “Well,” you began, “I had a meeting this morning.” 

“Yeah..?” He knew full and well that you had a meeting this morning. You’d gotten an email from some chairperson on some restoration committee for some organization- they chose to remain anonymous, not even sharing the name of the foundation or affiliation that they were representing until you agreed to meet one of the members in person- and you’d been buzzing about it since you’d accepted the meeting the day before he left for Sarajevo. You pictured him sitting up straighter, pulling his glasses away from his eyes, eyebrows raised as he bit down on the curved plastic temple tip. “Well how’d it go then?” 

“Yeah,” you nodded, closing your eyes as an unexpected wave of emotion forced you to swallow a lump in order to continue. “It went,” you felt the tingling prick of tears gathering under your closed lids. “Benjamin, I got the job.”

“Well of course you did! You’re only the best conservator in the country, in the world, really.” Let’s not exaggerate too much now. But there was no exaggeration in his tone, tears gently rolling down your cheeks as your grin widened at his overzealous but completely genuine support. “Go on, tell me. What’s the mysterious project?” 

Wiping at your eyes with the cuff of your sleeve, you licked a stray tear from your top lip. “It’s...well, I’ll be,” should I tell him the exhibit or the location first? Your heart beat with wild adrenaline, more now than it had when you’d told anyone else. No one else knows that it’s my dream to work for them. Not even Ollie. “I’ll be working on restoring some pieces for a new exhibit on shipwrecks.” You decided to save the best part for last. “Divers, recently I gather from what I was told this morning, they recovered some items from the wreck of the Lusitania.” You heard the stunned little gasp he let out as you mentioned the name of the doomed ocean liner. Knew you’d like that. Though his work had a very specific focus for the most part, you knew that Benjamin was an absolute sucker for any and all WWI related topics, the world’s second most famous shipwreck being one of them. 

“What did they find?” You knew he couldn’t help himself but to ask, and you could see the shake of his head as he realized that there were more important questions that needed answers. “I mean, what will you be doing?” 

Such a swot. You both threw that word back and forth at one another, and often, both of you so immersed in academia and art and history that it was hard to tell which of you was deeper in. “Turns out they found some sculptures from the ballroom, sconces and busts and, well they tell me it’s a lot, really, so I can’t even,” you laughed. “I don’t...I don’t exactly know all of the pieces, but I’ll be getting a full inventory on Monday. I’ll have the week to prepare, go over photographs, outline a plan, and then I’ll start working the following week.” 

“Right so now it’s down to who you’re working for. Smithsonian? Or, no, it was the Irish who found the engine room telegraph a few years back wasn’t it? So it’s the National Museum of Ireland? Are you working on location?” His questions spilled out as quickly as the salt water had spilled into the massive vessel to sink it.”I’m sorry I’m babbling, I’m just excited for you. So are you off to D.C or Dublin?”

You let out the breath you’d been holding while he speculated. “Neither. I’m not off anywhere I’m, well that’s not entirely true, I’ll be in a hotel Monday through Friday for the length of the job. They want to cut my commute time so I have as long with the restoration as possible, but it’s, the job, it’s here. It’s in London.” That had to be a giveaway. 

“In London?” The way he asked told you he’d worked it out. “In London, well that’s… it’s got to be…” 

You nodded even though he couldn’t see you. “It’s the big one, Benjamin. It’s the British Museum. It’s-“

“I knew it. I knew it was-“ he let out a whooping laugh and you heard a smacking sound as he slapped his thigh. “Congratulations, love, that’s wonderful. That’s, this is your dream and I,” he paused and your tears continued to slip silently from your eyes by way of your heart. “I can’t think of anyone who deserves their dreams coming true more than you do. I’m so proud of you and I, well I just wish I was there with you right now to see the look of it on your face. To see you.”

“Soon,” you choked out, stubbornly wiping at your eyes again. I wish you were here now, too. 

“So soon. Two more sleeps.” He’d already been gone for 4 days, returning the morning after tomorrow, and the only reason you hadn’t gone with him was the meeting. “And I can’t wait to celebrate everything with you.”

“I can’t wait either,” you said softly as the sun finished sinking beneath the horizon. You couldn’t. Couldn’t wait for him to be home, couldn’t wait to celebrate both of your successes, couldn’t wait for him to wrap you up in his arms and warm you with his smile. 

You chatted for a few minutes longer, going over some more details from your meeting and asking if he felt prepared for the last day of presentations tomorrow. When it had finally become too chilly to stay out on the patio any longer, you surrendered to the fact that it was time to go inside, make dinner and start wrapping up the evening. With a shiver you stood from the bench and yawned. “Alright, I should let you get some sleep so you’re sharp for the conference.” He reluctantly agreed. “I love you, Benjamin.”

It had been nearly 4 months since those words first tumbled forth, and their meaning had only grown stronger every day. “I love you,” he responded. “Sleep well.” 

You ended the call and went inside, finishing out the evening with a few more chores, a steaming cup of tea, and when you eventually laid yourself down in bed-on his side, because his pillow smelled of him- you drifted to sleep, cheeks still round even as your eyes closed.

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