Hooked

22. For Your Eyes Only

"Man," Mal uttered, squeezing Ben's hand, "And I thought the first event's turn out rate was big."

Another wave of people flooded to join the already-packed town square as Ben and Mal had just finished giving their welcoming speeches. They knew their King and Queen were about to come down from the terrace and greet their citizens as they had last month's event. The security was far thicker this time, which meant more restricted meet-and-greets, and therefore, more erratic fighting for a spot in line.

Ben's nervous energy was relentless. So relentless, that he had dissociated through his entire speech. He didn't know how well he did, but he had faith in his autopilot, and by the energy of the crowd, he was sure it wasn't nearly as bad as the last speech he'd given. But his autopilot could only do so much. He had given a mere hum to whatever Mal had just said, while his eyes remained glued to the screaming people before them.

"Are you worried because of what happened?" Mal's voice asked, "With Harry?"

Ben's focus snapped to her and his breath nearly caught in his throat as he plummeted back into reality.

"W— What?"

"With him getting jumped?" She specified, then gestured to his watch, "And you getting robbed last time? I can understand why it would be nerve-wracking being back here."

Ben's next breath reassured him. Right. Uma had eventually informed the group of Harry's "unfortunate scuffle" with "a bunch of drunk, violent, and completely random men". Kindly, she left Ben's name out of the story.

"Oh," Ben sighed, eyeing the crowd again, "Yeah, actually." That was probably the first truth he's told his fiancee in a while. Obviously, there was still more that added to the nausea he was currently feeling. Like the accumulation of stress he endured the past two weeks of not seeing Harry at all and receiving only one or two texts of bland assurance from Uma. And the stress of having to hide very prominent and painful bruising along his torso from the person he lived, changed, and slept next to. Despite those reasons adding to it, it was true that he was terrified of being back here after past negative encounters. He'd hate to find those men among the crowd.

Mal stopped, which made Ben stop. She looked deeply at him with a sad, reassuring smile. She grabbed both of his hands and squeezed them again.

"Ben," She said with a warmth to her voice, "If you want to talk about it before we go out there, you can. I really appreciated you opening up about your feelings last week. The pressure and anxiety are completely understandable and normal feelings to have and I really want to help you work through it. I don't want you to be ashamed of it. I don't want you to feel like you need to keep hiding it from me."

Ben stared at her. Well, he stared at someplace in front of her. At this wall that stood between them built of bricks of guilt and anger and self-loathing. Agreeing that he was scared to be back at the Isle really was the first truth he's told her in a while. Even when he sat her down last week and spilled his confession as Jay forcefully advised, he still wasn't truthful. It was as much of the truth as he told Jay, but still... omitting the full story.

It was enough of the truth that if Jay were to ask Mal "Did Ben finally talk to you?", she would say, "Yes, he did." If he were to ask, "What did he tell you?", she would say, "He told me he's been overwhelmed and struggling emotionally the past few years and it's terrified him to admit it out of fear of what his family would say or what the kingdom would think. And he told me he talked to Harry about it while he was at the Isle for the program interviews." Thankfully, he never admitted to Jay that the educational program was complete bullshit. He definitely wasn't ready to admit that to anyone. So everything was vague enough that Jay would be assured Ben did open up to Mal. And while Mal was initially upset about him hiding this, Jay could rest easy knowing she was okay and things were getting worked out.