Chapter Text
“Benny, where are you going!” you cry, watching in disbelief as he turns away from you and exits your shared bedroom. “Benny!”
He doesn’t stop at your call. Doesn’t even flinch. Your voice is a pathetic grasp around his wrist that he shakes off like a pesky mosquito. He’s leaving, you realize, and when your body finally catches up with that understanding, you rush after him.
His strides are long, double the length of yours, and he’s already got his jacket off the hook and is pulling it over his shoulders by the time you’re able to close in on him.
“Benny, don’t go!” you wail in a desperate plea, but it’s still useless, and a moment later you’re chasing him out the front door into the rain. “Please!”
You’re both drenched in an instant, hair stuck to your heads like a pair of drowned alley cats. Your nipples pebble through your thin, white nightgown that now shows every curve of your figure. The denim on his body deepens a few shades of blue from absorbing every drop of the downpour.
“Benny!” you try once more.
He doesn’t so much as glance over his shoulder as he crosses the street toward his bike, so you stop your chase before your bare feet leave the last step of your front porch. All you can do is watch. Watch his long leg swing over the seat of the bike. Watch him kick the beast to life. Watch how he glows angelic-like under the intense ray of the streetlight; a spotlight on the man you love who is running away from you.
You don’t bother calling for him again. Your voice would only be muffled by the relentless drumming of heavy rain on pavement. Benny leans forward, and without checking for other vehicles, pulls into the street and drives until the darkness of night claims every speck of light from his bike.
He’s gone.
And you’re alone.
—
You hadn’t expected him to be overjoyed by the news—it’s why you waited nearly three weeks to tell him—but you didn’t foresee such anger over the actuality of being a father. When you told him you were pregnant, his face had darkened in a manner you’ve only witnessed right before his fist meets the jaw of a rival biker. And, in some respect, he'd treated you the same. Like you were a pest, a nuisance, an object put in his path solely for the sake of pissing him off; the difference being that Benny would never lay a hand on you. So instead, he'd left.
On day three of your husband’s absence, Johnny had stopped by to ‘see if the kid was still alive,’ and you were left with the burden and embarrassment of telling him that Benny had skipped town. Johnny had asked why, of course, so you told him, and by the way his features twisted from surprise to desolation, you knew he also saw little hope in your husband returning to you.
Benny has had his reasons for not wanting to be a father, failure a prominent knot in the back of his mind, but it’s not as if you planned this. It was an accident. An accident that you can’t just wish away because he doesn’t know how to handle being what you and this baby need him to be.
“I’m real sorry, sweetheart,” Johnny had said. You’d done your best to hold in the tears while long beats of melancholy silence passed between you. “Listen, you ever need anythin’, you know Betty and me, we love ya, so…”
You’d nodded, wrapping your arms around your middle to stave off a sudden chill. “Thanks, Johnny.”
He nodded as well, then he'd sighed and glanced around your quiet street as if expecting to see Benny ride up any second. “Well,” he said once it was clear neither of you would be finding that relief, “don’t be a stranger.”
He’d left after that and you haven’t seen him since. Not because you don’t appreciate him, but because he reminds you too much of Benny. Betty had called a few times—she’s as much a mother figure to you as Johnny was to Benny—but you weren’t very forthcoming with enthusiasm at talking baby plans and motherhood. At one point, in an effort to lift your spirits, she’d even mentioned throwing a shower, which immediately made you drop the phone and rush to the bathroom to lose your breakfast.
When you’d returned, the phone was dangling by the coiled cord, Betty’s concerned voice coming through the speaker. You’d put it up to your ear, told her you'd call her back, and hung up the damn thing. You didn’t call her back. You think she got the message.
In the weeks that have passed, many of the guys have come by to check on you, and in the beginning, you were somewhat receptive, but it was solely to abstain from hurting feelings and severing ties so harshly. You’re positive the relationships won’t last. You were in the biker lifestyle because of Benny. He brought you into a pre-established family unit, and without him, you don’t belong.
You know the day may come when you regret letting the club go. Its members are the only people who have reached out their hands to you, but for now, you’re too numb to care, and with that numbness comes self-destruction. And with your particular brand of self-destruction comes isolation. Solitude. Loneliness. You’ve put yourself in place to navigate the future alone. Finding a job to support your child, hoping you’ll make enough so you don’t lose your house—that’s your priority now, and you have no choice but to step up and figure it out.
—
As it turns out, no one wants to hire a pregnant woman. Well, no one you’ve contacted wants to hire a pregnant woman, but you’re willing to bet they’re a decent indicator of most companies' future rejection.
It’s your own fault. You shouldn’t be telling them of your condition, but your bones are built of honesty and when they ask if you’ll be able to work long-term, you don’t hesitate to reveal the truth. In fact, the truth is out of your mouth before the thought to lie slithers into your head.
You’re going to have to toughen up, be someone you’re not used to being, if you intend to survive. And that’s all you let yourself think about anymore. When Benny slips into your thoughts, you work tirelessly to shove him aside. It’s taken practice, self-discipline, but you’ve made some progress. Just yesterday you were finally able to overcome your urge to run to the window at hearing the grumble of a motor passing by your house.
The next goal is to bag up his clothes and stow them away in the attic, but you’ve yet to face his side of the closet without breaking down. And to make it all the more agonizing, the fabrics still smell like him. You could wash them five times over and it would do nothing to remove his scent.
Sometimes, at the peak of your pathetic impulses, you want to sneak inside and bury yourself amongst the cheap and tattered clothes. Turn them into a blanket. Forget everything. But you’ve managed to resist.
Baby steps , you internally repeat as you bring a spoonful of cereal to your lips. You like the sugary stuff now. The stuff that kids gobble down before school. Bad for an expectant mother, yes, but you’re not about to scold yourself for what little enjoyment you find in this life.
Suddenly, a knock taps on the door. Your head shoots up and your heartbeat stutters at the sound, but you don’t move to answer it. These days, it’s rare you answer it at all. The guys know not to bother you, as do Betty and Gail and Kathy. If they see you’re home, they leave their tupperware-filled home-cooked meals at your doorstep, knowing you’ll grab them once they leave. Anyone else—salesmen or mailmen or whomever—always gives up after a few minutes.
However, this knocking has yet to cease. It must be a salesman , you think with a groan, and he must not have gotten the memo from other neglected salesmen that you’re a house to avoid. You can’t afford the latest vacuum model, you don’t care to own a stack of encyclopedias, and for the love of god, if you have to tell one more well-dressed man that your missing-in-action biker husband is not in need of a new shaving brush you’re gonna start keeping Benny’s handgun on the entryway table.
The tapping turns into full-fledged banging that shakes the house, and now you’re irritated, offended on the weathered structure’s behalf. Your chair scrapes across the floor as you stand sharply and round the corner into the hall. A curse is on your lips as you wrap your hand around the knob, twist, and pull, but it dies. More than dies, it’s sucked right out of your lungs along with your breath.
You want to slap him, split his puffy lips and watch the blood run down his chin. You want to shove him back so he’ll fall down the stairs and land on his ass. You want to get your breath back because that curse is clawing for freedom and you desperately want to let it out. But you can’t. You’re frozen.
He looks like shit. Well, as much as Benny Cross can look like shit, which is quite unimpressive compared to other men, but at least he doesn’t look well-rested. There’s some satisfaction in that, limited as it may be.
“Hi, baby,” he says. The low tone shudders your spine. If he’s happy to see you he doesn’t show it, but you know that even if he is, he wouldn’t dare smile after what he did.
Your swallow is hard, painful, and as the ease with which he spoke those two words sinks in, every emotion you’ve felt since he vanished bubbles over the edge of your resolve.
“‘Hi, baby’?” you echo. “Are you serious? That’s the best you’ve got, you asshole?” Your hand smacks against his chest and the unexpectedness of it forces him to stumble back a foot. You follow his stumble, stepping out onto the porch. “It’s been six weeks, Benny!”
He sighs, holding his hands up in surrender. “I know.”
“Six fucking weeks!” With your second smack, his fingers latch around your wrist, but he doesn’t push your hand away, he keeps it planted above his heart, refusing to let you go.
Dipping his head, he stares directly into your eyes. The intensity momentarily stuns you. “I know ,” he repeats.
“Oh, you know ,” you say, trying to jerk out of his grasp. “You abandon your pregnant wife and you think knowing that you’ve done it means a damn thing to me? Fuck off!”
“No,” he calmly replies.
“Yes!” you bark.
“No.”
Tears begin to cloud your vision. He disappeared and broke your heart at the worst possible time and now that you don’t want him here, he refuses to leave. And how horrible, how fucking humiliating to have your husband dismiss your desires so flippantly.
“I hate you!” you snap.
“I love you.”
“You left!”
“I panicked.” His free hand lands on your shoulder and slides up your neck to cup your cheek. “I panicked, baby,” he says softly.
That gentle tone pierces your skin against your will and seeps into your veins, spreading throughout your body a sedating sensation. Just enough of the drug to slow your violent pulse without knocking you out completely. And in the absence of such potent rage, sorrow takes over.
Your bottom lip quivers. Salty drops create lines down your cheeks and drip off your chin onto the rotting floorboards beneath your feet. He was supposed to replace those. It was going to be a summer project but a month and a half has already been carved out of the season and the floorboards still bow under your weight.
“Why were you allowed to panic?” you whimper. “I didn’t get to panic, so how come you got to?”
He sighs, his calloused thumb stroking your cheek. He doesn’t have a response but you didn’t expect one, at least not one with any substance, so you continue. “You know what I’ve been doing while you were out panicking? Trying to find a job so I can afford this house and provide for our child the way a parent should. But no one’s been willing to hire me.”
Benny’s brow pinches and his grip on your hand tightens. Broad shoulders fall forward as if you've just placed a few hefty boulders upon them.
“I’m sorry, baby,” he breathes. “I’m sorry. I shoulda been protecting you from those kinds of worries. I shoulda been here.”
“Well, you weren't.”
“I'm gonna be,” he tells you, but it’s clear he doesn’t believe that you believe him. “I am. ”
You wish you could trust his word. You wish it was that simple. You wish you were more forgiving, but a situation conflicting enough to require this level of forgiveness is not something you’ve dealt with before. You’ve experienced loss in your life, and you know it well—your father left and your mother disengaged from motherhood, but neither were so rude as to put you in a place to contemplate forgiveness for their betrayal. Neither came back to request it.
“Will you wait here?” he asks, “and not lock me out when my back is turned? Please?”
You’re severely tempted to do just that because, frankly, he’s made you wait for him long enough. But for some reason, you don't. You cast your gaze aside, cross your arms, and after a couple of seconds, nod your head.
In your peripherals, you detect his light smile. Then he turns, walks back to his bike, and wrestles a brown paper-wrapped package out of the pack attached to his seat.
“What is this?” you ask as he returns to the porch and offers it to you.
“If I was just going to tell you then why would I have wrapped it?”
You almost roll your eyes at the image of Benny taking the time to wrap anything for anyone, as normally he’d enlist someone else ( you) to do it, but looking at it, it really is a poorly packaged mess. Wrinkled and ripped in one spot, with a lop-sided bow tied from the string that’s holding the parcel together. Definitely Benny-quality work for this sort of task.
As you tear through the wrapping, Benny collects your scraps, balling the shredded paper together and setting that ball down on the porch railing. The small blanket in your hands is made of bright green fabric with fringed trim, and when you unfold it, hanging it high to get a look at the full thing, you see a white duckling embroidered into one of the corners.
You lower the blanket so you can meet Benny's eyes. “Why a duck?”
He sticks his hands in his front pockets and shrugs. “They didn't have any with little Harley’s,” he teases.
To your great internal shame, you have to choke down a chuckle. His innocent joke instantly reminds you that he’s the one man who can make you laugh, the one who won you over because of his subtle wittiness and his less subtle charm. And now you fucking miss him, damn it. You’d convinced yourself you’d gotten over that, but even as he stands within touching distance, holding distance, kissing distance, you miss him.
He clears his throat. “Um…if you don't like it I can–”
“No,” you stop him, shaking your head. “I don't particularly like you at the moment, but…” You exhale and give the gift another glance. “I like the blanket.”
Benny nods. His adam’s apple bobs harshly in his throat as you refold the blanket and clutch it to your chest.
“You think you could like me again one day?” he asks. “You know, if I prove myself real well.”
Your eyes narrow as they flick up to his ocean blues. “Prove yourself as what?”
“A husband,” he says. “A father.”
A husband. A father. One of which he’s been good at in the past—prior to the disappearing act, of course—and one of which you used to believe he’d be good at in the future if that was where fate led you, which it has. But…you don't know.
You have two options. That’s it. Yes or no. Can you risk it or not? It’s a lot to take in but the reality is, there’s a question you must answer before you can answer any others—did the bomb he threw at your lives shatter your heart to an unmendable state?
You chew on your cheek, your jaw ticks, and then with a huff, you straighten your spine.
“You can never do this again,” you declare firmly, poking your index finger into the center of his chest. “I mean it, Benny. If you do, we won't be here when you come back.”
The ropes of rigidness unravel from his body. “Baby, this is where I wanna be,” he says, stepping into your space once more. “I promise.”
You can feel your heartbeat jackrabbiting from his closeness now that your overwhelming emotions have somewhat subsided.
“You’re sleeping on the couch,” you tell him.
Benny grins. “That's fair.”