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46 - Battles and Scars

What the hell is he doing here? How dare he show up out of the blue like that? If he thinks he can just waltz in and everything will be forgiven and forgotten, he's got another thought coming...

"Sweetheart?"

And my family; huh, some supportive family they turn out to be, letting him in then ambushing me like that. That was Tony's idea, I bet. Has he been keeping in touch with him all these years? I thought we were united on this, I thought they felt the same way I do...

"Darling?"

The gall of him! And them; they all knew, I could tell from the looks on their faces - they hadn't been surprised to see him. Even Marco, when he avoided me down in the shop...

"Cara." Startled from my ceaseless, angry pacing to and fro in Ben's lounge room by firm hands taking hold of my elbows, I gasped and looked up at his face. It was confused and concerned – mostly concerned. "Talk to me?" he asked softly, eyes searching mine.

The tight ball of anger, hurt and betrayal lodged in my chest made that near impossible but I tried; God, I tried. "He...they...didn't...never..." Each stuttered word became more and more difficult to thrust out as the ball wound ever tighter inside me.

Thankfully Ben sensed that explanations were beyond my capability at this point; he gathered me closely to him and rubbed my back, murmuring soothingly into my ear while I stopped spluttering and became silent again. "Shhh, love, it's okay. You don't have to talk right now. I'm here." He pressed kisses to the top of my head while the sound of his heart beneath my ear beat a steady rhythm of calm that was at complete odds with my own hectic pounding and swirling thoughts. When I nuzzled my face into his neck he led me unresisting down the hallway, removed our shoes and jumpers and gathered me once more into his arms beneath a comforting cocoon of blankets. I sighed as I nestled into him, his unhesitating support a soothing balm to my troubled spirit, and we stayed that way as unwelcome memories from my childhood flickered behind my eyelids like a silent movie. I didn't want to go there; I hated that things I had worked so hard to forget and shelve away had been resurrected so easily. I was angry at my father for being here, angry at my family for tricking me into seeing him, knowing how I felt, and angry that he still had the power to hurt me by something as simple as showing his face. Most of all I was angry for feeling anything at all, when I had been telling myself for years that I didn't.

I lost all sense of time; I couldn't tell you how long we lay there – certainly long enough for shadows and moonlight to penetrate the room – but when I did finally move and speak, it was for the most mundane of reasons. "I need to wee," I said, the first cohesive sentence I had made in some time. Ben's reaction was a complete surprise.

"I'll race you."

"What?"

The look on his face was a mix of amusement and angst. "I've been holding on for almost an hour, not wanting to disturb you. So if you want to go, you're going to have to beat me." He lost no time in unwrapping his long limbs from around me and leaping out of the bed while I looked on in amazement.

"Oh my God, Ben, and you call me a kook."

"With any luck you're rubbing off on me," he smiled, his lips touching mine in the fastest of kisses as he raced to the ensuite. "I'm sorry darling, you know I'd normally let you go first, but if I did...I couldn't be responsible for the consequences."

Once we'd both attended to our needs we discovered we were also both hungry, so I followed him out to the kitchen and sat nursing a glass of red wine while he moved with lissom grace from bench to stove top to pantry and back again. He neither pressed me to talk nor subjected me to overworn platitudes and homilies; he simply let me sit quietly and watch him, occasionally coming to feed me a slice of whatever vegetable he was cutting then stealing a kiss before returning to his task.