The Love of the Lost

Chapter 9

When I woke up the next morning, I found myself in my dorm. Even though Ben and I had only moved in together last week, I found  myself missing it already. I took way longer than I needed to to get out of bed. And when Evie saw me, she didn't try to drag me to Saturday breakfast. She brought me some from the buffet, my favorite, chocolate chip pancakes. To be honest, even with the special treatment, I missed Ben. And it wasn't the kind of miss I had felt while I was on the isle, after we broke up, it was the kind that made me forget how to walk. The kind that made me feel broken inside, like I could burst into tears at any given moment. And we hadn't even broken up. 

That's right, we haven't broken up. We haven't. He never wanted to break up, he just said he needed to go home. He just didn't call me all of yesterday. Which reminded me, I checked my phone. 

Nothing.

Today was gonna be super slow. Usually when we fight, it seems like he always apologizes, and to be honest, I had gotten used to it. It made me want to cry harder. Or just sob. I had been so selfish all of these months, and I hadn't thought of it. I hadn't thought about the toll it took on someone to always be the nice guy. Because, he saw me for me, he saw me for being bad. So maybe I needed to be the nice guy. I wanted to be the nice guy. So I would be.

I cleaned up. I grabbed the lightest of my clothes and threw it on. A flowing white summer dress, with purple hombre at the bottom. Then I took my lipstick up a shade, to a nice rosy pink. I let my hair down, fixed the coloring in a couple of places, and curled it. My hands were bare of gloves, and I took my flattest shoes to wear. I looked at myself in the mirror. I had used all of my year trying to find myself outside, but as it turned out, the inside is what matters the most. I realized that even with this totally not me outfit, I still felt like myself, which made the edges of my lips tilt upward. 

My slight distraction wasn't enough to make me forget about Ben though. I quickly ran over to my phone. 

Nothing

Well, it's all or nothing. So I guess I was going all in. It was Saturday, so that meant that classes weren't in and Ben was doing kingly stuff anyway. So I knew where to find him. His office. When I got to his castle after riding my moped, even the guards seemed surprised to see me. Did everyone know about our fight? They let me in anyway, if they had known enough about our fight though, they might not have. So I slowly walked into the main hall. Then I crept up the grand staircase leading to the offices. My surprise occurred when I ran into Beast as soon as I arrived at the top of the stairs. He seems just as surprised. 

"Mal! What a lovely surprise, I didn't expect to see you after...." He didn't finish his sentence. He didn't need to. 

"well, as I said, I feel like I can always talk to you. But I also need to always be able to talk to Ben, which means telling him what I feel and being the nice guy. He always has been, so I think it's my turn." I sighed, realizing the truth behind my statement. 

"Mal, I really do appreciate you coming here, but I have to warn you, Ben is under a lot of stress right now. He has to figure out a way to make all of the visitors fit in the castle, and he's been struggling lately." Beast said with a sad look. 

"He, he's been struggling?" I managed to choke out. He never told me about any of this. He never said anything about being stressed or having to manage things lately. 

"He didn't tell you? Well, maybe he just didn't want to worry you." Beast said, with a proud smile of his son. 

For some reason, this statement brought tears to my eyes. Here I was, thinking this was all about me, but he was stressed and trying to manage a kingdom. And he can't even confide in me! I felt even more horrible than before I had come. I couldn't help it, I started crying. 
"Mal, what is it?"Beast asked, concerned. 

He took me into a hug and let me cry on his shoulder. 

"It's just, Ben has always been the nice guy. he knows what he's doing. He always puts everything else before him, and it's hard to know how lucky I am until I hear things like that. That he just didn't want to worry me so he didn't tell me about his burden. Some people are just too good for this world. Ben is one of them." I said, truthfully. 

Beast looked at me kindly," I believe that you are the one that brings the best out of him."

And using that sentence, I headed into Ben's office.