For those few hours I had no fear. I wasn’t worried that things would become awkward, or that, at some point, we’d be forced back into reality and made to suffer the consequences of our actions. What we thought would become of us outside our cocoon, I really didn’t know. It wasn’t something I thought about in that room on that night. We didn’t talk about life outside of that bed, by which I mean Robert wasn’t mentioned again. Somehow I’d managed to cut myself off and detach myself from real life. It was unsettlingly easy to do, but Ben made me feel safe, secure and loved, like I needed nothing else in that particular moment.
We didn’t sleep a wink, preferring to talk about everything and nothing instead, smiling at each other like super-happy-psychotic Cheshire cats. Ben smiled at me in a way he’d never done before – wider, bigger, more doe-eyed and lovelier than I’d ever seen. It was like he’d saved that smile just to give to me on that special night. A secret smile, just for me. It filled my heart with an unbelievable joy to watch it spread so infectiously across his face. It was beautiful. As was he.
It pained me to leave him the following morning, but when I did it literally felt like I was walking on air. I know that’s what people in movies say, ‘walking on air’, and I agree that it’s a saying that would ordinarily make me want to puke my guts up, but there’s no other description for the light and giddy feeling that overtook me as I drifted (there was no way I walked, my feet didn’t touch the ground once) from his to mine, recalling flashes of images from the previous night as I went – some innocent, some not.
Being with Ben was completely different to what I’d experienced before. It was tender and romantic – I felt special, sexy and wonderful. Possibly the biggest surprise was that it was Ben who’d made me feel that way. Ben who I’d spent almost every day with for the previous twelve years of my life. How he’d managed to keep his feelings hidden I’d never know – they were threatening to spill out of me that morning at every opportunity. I passed strangers on the street and couldn’t help but smile at them, or say good morning, as though I was bursting with kindness and a love for life.
What I wasn’t expecting was to walk into my house and find Robert on my bed, looking like he’d been staring at the door for hours, waiting for me to return; his worried face puffy and wide-eyed from a lack of sleep, his hair manically pointing in all directions. I had visions of him running his fingers through his hair in panic at my absence, an action I knew he did whenever he was anxious.
We stood frozen. Staring at each other as though we didn’t know who the other person was, we’d become strangers, but maybe that was just how I felt about him moments after being with Ben. After all, to him I was still his Maddy, the same girl I was before I kissed our best friend. He didn’t know any different.
The floaty feeling I’d been experiencing just moments prior vanished. It deserted me and left me to drop to the ground with a terrifying speed. I felt heavy and trapped as I lingered in the doorway, not wanting to go inside.
‘Hey …’ he started, his face full of shame and regret. I’d almost forgotten he was carrying his own burden.
‘Hi,’ I mumbled.
‘Where have you been?’
‘Out.’
‘I know that. With who?’
‘Why does it matter?’
‘Mad …’ he sighed.
‘Ben,’ I said sternly. ‘I was with Ben.’
‘That’s a relief,’ he almost laughed, putting his hands through his ruffled hair. ‘I’ve been having all sorts go through my head. I thought you might have been, you know – with some random guy or something. Getting back at me. Not that I’d have blamed you, of course, I’d have deserved that.’
‘Right …’ I said dryly, slowly walking in and shutting the door.
A faint smell of Ben’s aftershave wafted off me as I moved, catching me off guard. It didn’t soothe me. Instead, as I looked up at Robert and the guilt began to creep in, I was left irritated. I didn’t want to feel ashamed, I didn’t want to be regretful of my actions, I didn’t want to feel like what I’d done was wrong, even though I knew it was. We might have stopped, but we didn’t want to – we wanted to take it further, and that was the problem; as a result it wasn’t just a physical connection we’d made, it was an emotional one too. We hadn’t just had sex and woken up in the morning feeling embarrassed about what we’d done, looking for absolution as we awkwardly parted ways – we’d stayed up and developed something else. Standing there, in front of Robert, with a feeling of defiance over the previous night, I knew that what we’d done was worse.