Page 42 of When Ben Loved Jace

Tim finally lets go. He nods at the phone I now hold. “You know the code. It’s your birthday.”

The tenderness in his voice makes me feel like crying.

“All right,” Tim says, trying a smile. “I’ll talk to you later.”

All I can do is stand there and stare as he takes off running again, but it’s like he stays with me anyway, a ghost that has returned to haunt the deepest hollows of my heart.

— — —

“What should I do?”

Allison and I are sitting at the kitchen table in our apartment. I couldn’t bring myself to return to the café. She came and found me. I spent the drive home reiterating what Tim said and how seeing him made me feel. She was uncharacteristically quiet during this. Then again, I was using up all the oxygen by ranting and raving like a lunatic. So much for the healed wounds of my past! The stitches have been ripped open. My heart is bleeding. I just hope she can patch me up again. We’re seated across from each other, Tim’s phone on the table between us, like a bomb that needs to be defused.

“Throw it away,” Allison advises. “After smashing it with a hammer.”

“I should at least snoop,” I say in a way that sounds like I’m bargaining. I haven’t dared to unlock his phone yet, familiar with the moral of Pandora’s Box. But I want to anyway because… “I need to know what he’s been doing since we broke up.”

Allison hesitates before replying. “What if I could tell you? That way you don’t have to look.”

I nudge the phone toward her. “Go ahead!”

She shakes her head. “I don’t need that. I already know.”

“Huh?”

Allison sighs, her expression seeking forgiveness. But for what?

“I ran into Tim freshman year.”

“Here?” I’ve been so overwhelmed by emotion that I haven’t drawn some of the more obvious conclusions. “Tim goes to our school?”

Allison nods. “Yes. And I’ve prayed every day that you two wouldn’t run into each other.”

I feel an ache in my chest. I always assumed Tim went to the Catholic university his parents preferred. Coming here wasourplan, so we could finally be together openly.

“I’m sorry,” Allison says, mistaking the reason for the pain that must show on my face. “I know it must seem like a betrayal, but I was trying to protect you.”

“From what?” I snap, but I’m not angry at her. “Tim could have found me if he really cared, but obviously he doesn’t.”

Allison presses her lips together. Then she takes a deep breath. “I told him you live on the other side of the county. Remember the college you got accepted into that I didn’t?”

My voice warbles when I try to respond. All I can get out is one word. “Why?”

“He broke your heart! That’s why.” She raises her palms to stave off my inevitable outburst. “There’s more to the story, Ben. Things you need to know.”

I cross my arms over my chest. “Like what?”

“Do you remember Lacy? She was in the typing elective we took.”

“In high school?” I shrug. “Vaguely, yeah.”

“We researched a paper together for one of my behavioral science classes and got to talking about the people we used to know. And what happened to them. She mentioned Tim. Lacy had recently worked on a project with him and was invited to his house. You know the rich neighborhood on the edge of town that we’ve driven through a few times while dreaming big?”

“He lives there?” I interrupt before shaking my head. “His parents weren’tthatrich!”

“Exactly,” Allison says. “That’s the bombshell she dropped, because apparently, Tim lives out there with his sugar daddy.”

My stomach sinks. “What?”