BEN
When I get home to Josef’s place, the house is unusually quiet. I shut the door behind me and take a tentative step in. The television is on but no one is the parlour. I jog up the stairs to my room and stop.
Josef is in my room. He’s not alone. Mum is with him. They look up at the sound of my footsteps. I see fear in her eyes when she stands to hug me briefly. I am left alone with Josef. He pats the spot on the bed for me and I stagger towards him to sit.
“Benjamin.” It cannot be good. He never calls me by my full name. “I need you to be honest with me.” My palms moisten and I swipe them against my jeans. His tone of voice spells bad news. “Are you in trouble?” I shake my head, quite unsure what he might be talking about. He places both hands on his knees and sighs. “Are you doing drugs? Be honest.”
“What?” Josef sags. His whole body deflates and I feel the need to defend myself. I have been staying here since we won the All-Rounder. The house reminded me too much of Gracie. I am clean. “No, Josef. I am not doing drugs. I’ll never do drugs.”
“Okay,” he replies with a nod and a hint of doubt. “Your mum and I are worried, that’s all.”
I don’t need them to be worried about me. I am worried enough about myself. I didn’t have time to process Gracie’s departure. If she’s in New York, then it is over for us. I sit up, back straighter than a pencil. Josef is smiling worriedly at me. He’s tired.
“About what? What’s going on? I don’t do drugs.”
If he doesn’t believe me, I don’t know if I’ll survive it. Josef stands and my thoughts try to take over my head. He walks to my wardrobe and returns with a bag I recognise immediately. Fucking shit. I forgot about that.
Josef upturns the bag and the content topples to the bed. Wads of dollars. Enough to make up to one hundred thousand dollars. It must have freaked him out. I never touched it because I was yet to come to a conclusion with Gracie. It’s our win, our money.
“That’s one hundred thousand, Ben.” He holds his face in his hands like he cannot believe I have access to such an amount. It shouldn’t be a big deal to him since he’s a rich man. One hundred thousand dollars is no joke. “Where did you get this money?”
From fighting? Mum might have a stroke or a heart attack if I tell them that. Josef runs a hand through his scalp. It’s almost funny to see how worried he is. He is acting like my real dad. The thing is, I don’t know what to tell him. There’s no right answer.
“Benjamin, I need you to be honest with me, okay?” I nod. “Your mum is worried, I am too.”
“Because she is?” I ask. He cares because Mum cares. Left to him, he wouldn’t want anything to do with me. At least, that’s what I think.
Josef collapses to the bed, his head hangs between his shoulders. “Yes. And because I care about you too. I’m not trying to replace your father, Ben. I just...” He raises his head to give me a small smile. “I don’t know how to connect with you.” His heavy sigh echoes in the room. “You have raised this block and it’s hard to get past it. Even for your mum.”
I shrug. It’s like what Gracie said when I asked why she was so closed off from everyone in school. If she doesn’t let anyone in, she won’t get hurt. I have been practicing that with them.
“Help me to help you, Ben. Are you in trouble?”
“Gracie left for New York without telling me,” I say with a half-smile. “Does that count as trouble?”
He answers after a heartbeat. “Maybe. It depends.” Pointing to the pile of cash on the bed, he says, “Can we sort this out first?” He shoves the money into the bag and drops it at his feet. “Ben, how did you get this?”
I drum a finger on my knee. To tell the truth or not? Maybe he will listen. Maybe I’ll get freedom like Olivia. Josef shifts closer to me like he can tell I’m contemplating my words. He throws an arm around my shoulder.
“You can talk to me.”
“Okay,” I reply quietly. “I got it from fighting.” I don’t think he understands me, so I try to explain. “There’s a list. A really long list of all the things you ever bought for me since you married my mother.” That catches his interest. He arches a brow and I ball my hands. “I have to pay you back for it.”
And the only way I can get enough money to pay him back is by fighting at the ring. “Why?” he asks.
At this point, I don’t know anymore. It feels like I am fighting this battle alone. Maybe I am so stuck in the past and it’s affecting my present and future. I can’t be like other teens. I don’t even like San Francisco as much as Gracie thinks I do. I want to be here to protect Asher from her. If I’m here, she can’t get to him.
New York is not so bad. Maybe I will get into NYU and grow to love the city like Gracie does. It’s a cool place to start afresh. But I can’t protect Asher from there.
I hide my hands inside my shirt. The nerves slowly creep up on me. “I was mad at you.” Because he fathered the child who ruined my childhood, the girl who ruined my innocence. Josef frowns. I try to smile. “I didn’t want to have anything to do with you or your money or Mum’s either.” Josef’s hand drops from my shoulder. “I don’t really know.”
I kick one foot out, staring at my boots like it’s the most interesting thing in the room. Gracie returned the combat boots too and our memories bracelet. It feels like she returned my heart to me, it was hers to keep. I want to be mad at her but I can’t. I walked out on us first.
“Why are you so mad at me, Ben? What did I ever do besides marrying your mother?” Hurt laces his words, he grimaces. “I make your mother happy.” He makes Asher happy too. He has been a good father and husband to them. “There’s something you are not saying,” he comments. “What’s wrong with my money?” I keep mute. He runs his hands over his face. Another hopeless glance at the bag and he sighs again. “So the money is legal? It’s yours?”
“It’s from an illegal source but it’s legal.” I laugh at his confused expression. Maybe I am too tired of holding it in because I explain the rules of the All-Rounder. Josef’s eyes widen with each word. “Yep.” We shouldn’t be fighting at the ring but we make clean profit from it. “It’s how it came to be.”
“You can fight,” he mutters like I said it for the first time. Josef sizes me up, then nods. At first, fighting was about protecting myself from her so she will never have her way with me again. But I have come to love it. “I used to box too” he says with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. I know he wants us to talk about the source of my dislike for him but he doesn’t know how to broach the topic. “Was quite okay at it too. What was your motivation?”
“Her. Protection from her.”
My words carry weight. There’s a shift in the air. His eyes meet mine. We both know our lives will never be the same if he asks the next question and I don’t want to be the one who bites the bullet. Josef flexes his hands.
“Theresa?” he asks. I nod. “What did Theresa do?”
Her name is like a rope that tightens around my neck. My chest tightens and my lips twitch.
“Does it matter?” I whisper.
It is like those memories never fully go away. I don’t want to cry but tears roll down my cheeks. The memories unleash themselves from my mind’s archive. I close my eyes but the images still flash behind my closed eyelids. If it was Olivia who asked, I’ll simply say I don’t want to talk about this and she will understand. But Josef looks interested.
I didn’t tell him then, I told my mum. We were no longer the three musketeers after her marriage and I was partly to blame for that. But I expected her to take my side, not look at me like it was another one of my stunts to get us out of Josef’s house.
“It matters, Ben.” His voice is soft like warm water running over me. “What did she do? Talk to me.” I uncurl my fists. “Why do you hate her so much?”
A sob tunnels out of my throat. I prop my elbows on my knees and clasp my hands behind my head. For a moment, I am back in that room. And I’m that kid who was forced to do things against his will.
“Hey. Hey.” He snaps his fingers in front of my face and I shake out of it. “Benjamin. Look at me.”
Why is he squatting in front of me? Josef rises to his feet but he doesn’t sit. I open my palms and say it. I spit it out. The exact words I told my mum all those years ago. He doesn’t say a word. He stares at me, just stares like I have grown a horn in the middle of my forehead. I should have kept my mouth shut.
“Josef...”
The words are hanging on the tip of my tongue when he walks out. I wait. I wait for him to come back and say something but the door remains wide open. Wow. Why do parents have to be this way?
Many minutes later, someone knocks. I lift my gaze to the door. Mum. She lowers herself to the bed. I’m mute and she’s so quiet it’s easy to forget she’s here. She draws close by one inch, then another until her side is pressed flush against mine. Her hand wraps around my waist and I rest my head on her shoulder.
“Ben,” she whispers. “My Benny.” Her voice cracks. Breeze rustles the curtain and for a second, I wish for its freedom and ability to be in any place. I would be in New York with my Gracie. I will tell her everything, starting from that night when it first happened. “Will you ever forgive me, Benny?”
I give her hand a small squeeze. “It’s okay.”
Her tears spill to my arm but I am too numb to react or console her. My gaze fixates on the window and the clear, blue skies. I think I am suffering from my first heartbreak and I don’t know how to handle it.
I miss Gracie.
“We will take care of it, I swear.”
“Okay,” I whisper in return. “Thank you.” She squeezes my hand harder. The air is thick with our sadness, I want to talk about something else. About her. “Gracie left. I think I’m heartbroken, Mum.”
Mum says nothing. She holds me tight in silent comfort and for that moment, everything is a little better.