Three days. Seventy-two hours of lying in this bed feeling like something died inside me and forgot to stop breathing.
My room is dark. I keep the curtains closed because sunlight feels like an accusation, like the world demanding I participate in normalcy when everything inside me is shattered. The sheets smell like sweat and tears and that particular staleness that comes from not moving, not showering, not doing anything except existing in this hollow space where I used to be a person.
I haven't eaten. My mom brought me soup yesterday. Or maybe it was the day before. Time has lost meaning. She left it on my nightstand and I stared at it until it got cold, until the surface developed that filmy skin that makes your stomach turn. I tried to eat a piece of toast this morning. Got it halfway to my mouth before my stomach clenched and I had to run to the bathroom, dry heaving over the toilet because there's nothing in me to throw up. Just emptiness. Just this aching void where my insides used to be.
My parents think I broke up with Kevin. I heard them talking about it through my door. My mom's voice, soft and concerned: "She really loved him." My dad's response, gruff and uncomfortable with emotion: "First heartbreak is always the hardest." If only it were that simple. If only it were just Kevin, sweet uncomplicated Kevin who I've been stringing along for months because he's safe, because he's the right choice, because he's not my cousin.
But it's not Kevin. It's never been Kevin.
It's Ben.
I love Ben. I love him so much it physically hurts, like someone reached into my chest and wrapped their fist around my heart and squeezed. I love him in ways I'm not supposed to love him, in ways that make me sick with guilt and desire in equal measure. I love the way he looks at me like I'm the only thing in the world that matters. I love the way he touches me like he's afraid I'll disappear. I love the way he kissed me three days ago, desperate and hungry and wrong, so wrong, but feeling more right than anything else in my entire life.
But it can't happen. It just can't. We're cousins. Family. There are laws against this, social taboos, moral boundaries that exist for good reasons. What we feel doesn't change biology. It doesn't change the fact that our parents are siblings, that we share grandparents, that every family gathering for the rest of our lives would be tainted by this secret. It doesn't change the fact that the world would look at us with disgust if they knew.
So I told him no. I walked away. I did the right thing.
And it's killing me.
My phone buzzes on the nightstand. It's been buzzing constantly for the past hour, notifications piling up, but I ignore them. I've been ignoring everything. Kevin has called seventeen times. Seventeen. I know because I counted before I stopped looking. Each call feels like another weight added to the guilt crushing my chest. He deserves better than this. He deserves someone who actually loves him, who isn't using him as a shield against feelings she can't control.
But I can't talk to him. Can't talk to anyone. Can't explain why I'm falling apart when the official story is that nothing happened, that everything is fine, that Gwen Tennyson is just having a rough week.
I close my eyes and try not to think about Ben. It doesn't work. It never works.
Last summer. The beach. That day I can't stop replaying in my head like some kind of torture device my brain has constructed specifically to destroy me.
We went together, just the two of us, because Kevin was out of town and Ben had just broken up with Julie and we both needed to get out of Bellwood for a day. It was supposed to be innocent. Cousins hanging out. Nothing weird about that. Nothing wrong.
But then Ben took his shirt off.
God. God. The memory hits me like a physical blow and I feel heat spreading through my body despite the emptiness, despite the three days of crying, despite everything. He was standing there in the sun, pulling his shirt over his head, and I forgot how to breathe.
He'd always been good-looking. I'd always known that in an abstract, objective way. But somewhere between the last time I'd really looked at him and that moment, he'd transformed from a boy into something else entirely. His body was lean and ripped, all hard muscle and smooth skin, his shoulders broad, his stomach carved into defined abs that caught the sunlight. His arms were strong, biceps flexing as he tossed his shirt onto our beach blanket, and I wanted to trace the lines of muscle with my fingers, with my tongue, wanted to feel the strength of him under my hands.
His face. Jesus Christ, his face. Sharp jawline, high cheekbones, that messy brown hair falling into his eyes. And those eyes. Those sweet green eyes full of mischief and intelligence and something darker, something that made my stomach clench with want. He looked at me and smiled, that cocky half-smile he does, and I felt my entire body respond in ways that made me hate myself.
I wanted him. Right there on that beach with families around us, with children building sandcastles and couples playing volleyball, I wanted to push him down onto the sand and climb on top of him and ride him until his pelvis cracked, until he was gasping my name, until that smug smile was replaced with desperate need. I wanted to feel him inside me, wanted to know what those strong hands would feel like gripping my hips, wanted to hear what sounds he'd make when I made him lose control.
The thoughts were juvenile, almost animalistic in their intensity. I couldn't stop staring at the V of muscle that disappeared into his swim trunks, couldn't stop imagining what he looked like underneath, couldn't stop thinking about wrapping my hand around him and watching his face as I stroked him. I wanted to taste him. Wanted to feel the weight of him in my mouth. Wanted to make him come undone in every possible way.
We went swimming and I watched the water run down his chest, watched the way his muscles moved as he dove under the waves, watched him emerge with his hair slicked back and water droplets clinging to his skin like diamonds. He was beautiful. Unfairly, impossibly beautiful. And he was my cousin, and I wanted him so badly I thought I might die from it.
He caught me staring. I know he did. His eyes met mine and something passed between us, some acknowledgment of the tension that had been building for months, maybe years. He didn't say anything. Neither did I. We just looked at each other while the waves crashed around us and the world continued on, oblivious to the fact that everything had just shifted, that we'd just crossed some invisible line we could never uncross.
That was the day I knew. The day I admitted to myself what I'd been denying for so long. I was in love with Ben Tennyson. I wanted him in every way a person could want another person. And it was wrong. So completely, utterly wrong.
I've been fighting it ever since. Dating Kevin. Keeping my distance. Pretending the attraction didn't exist. Building walls between us that he kept tearing down with every look, every touch, every moment we spent together.
Until three days ago when the walls finally crumbled completely and he kissed me and I kissed him back and for one perfect, terrible moment, I let myself have what I wanted.
And then reality crashed back in and I remembered all the reasons why we can't, why we shouldn't, why this will destroy everything if we let it continue.
So I walked away. I said no. I did the right thing.
My phone buzzes again. And again. The notifications are relentless. I reach over and grab it, intending to turn it off completely, to cut myself off from the world entirely. But something makes me look at the screen.
Forty-three notifications. Text messages. Social media alerts. News updates. Everyone is talking about something. Everyone is freaking out about something.
I don't care. I don't care about anything except this hollow ache in my chest, this feeling like I'm in purgatory, stuck between the life I'm supposed to want and the one I actually want, unable to move forward or back.
I turn the TV on just to have noise, something to fill the silence that's been pressing down on me for three days. Some mindless show. Something I don't have to think about.
But it's not a show. It's news. Breaking news. Helicopter footage of a residential street. Police cars. Crowds of people. And in the center of it all, a bathtub sitting in someone's front yard.
I'm about to change the channel when the camera zooms in.
There's someone in the bathtub. Someone wearing a tuxedo. Someone with brown hair and a face I'd recognize anywhere, in any context, under any circumstances.
Ben.
Ben is sitting in a bathtub in his front yard wearing a tuxedo, and the water is up to his shoulders, and his eyes are closed.
My heart stops. Actually stops. I feel it seize in my chest, feel the world tilt sideways, feel every cell in my body screaming that something is wrong, that Ben is not okay, that I need to get to him right now.
"Gwen!" My mom's voice from downstairs, shrill and panicked. "Gwen, get down here!"
I don't move. Can't move. I'm frozen, staring at the screen, at Ben in that bathtub, at the helicopter circling overhead, at the crowds watching him like he's some kind of spectacle.
"Gwen!" My mom screams again, louder this time. "Get down here! Ben's on the TV!"
I move.
I don't remember getting out of bed. Don't remember running down the stairs. Don't remember my legs working or my feet hitting the floor or any of the physical mechanics of movement. One second I'm in my room and the next I'm in the living room, standing in front of the TV in my pajamas, my hair a mess, my face probably swollen from crying, and none of it matters because Ben is on the screen and he's not okay.
The news anchor is talking. Something about Four Arms. Something about a stolen bathtub from Walmart. Something about Ben Tennyson having some kind of public breakdown. The words wash over me without meaning. All I can see is Ben. Ben in that tuxedo.
The tuxedo. I recognize it. The black and white tux he wore to winter prom. The prom where he went with Julie but couldn't stop looking at me. The prom where I wore that red dress and felt his eyes on me all night and pretended I didn't notice, pretended it didn't make my skin burn, pretended I wasn't thinking about him while I danced with someone else.
He's wearing that tux. In a bathtub. In his front yard. On live television.
And suddenly I understand. This is about me. This is because of me. This is what I did to him when I walked away.
My mom is saying something. My dad is there too, both of them talking, asking questions, their voices overlapping in a cacophony of concern and confusion. I don't hear any of it. All I hear is my own heartbeat, loud and insistent, drowning out everything else.
My mind is screaming at me. Screaming that this is exactly why we can't be together, why this is wrong, why I was right to walk away. Look what happens. Look what we do to each other. Look at the destruction we cause. This is proof. This is evidence. This is every reason I said no made manifest.
But my heart. My heart is screaming louder.
My heart is screaming that Ben is hurting, that Ben needs me, that I'm the only one who can reach him, that nothing else matters except getting to him right now. My heart is screaming that I love him, that I've always loved him, that walking away was the biggest mistake of my life. My heart is screaming that right and wrong don't matter when the person you love is drowning in a bathtub on live television.
My heart wins.
I'm moving before I make the conscious decision to move. My body acts on pure instinct, pure need, pure desperation. I'm running for the door, my bare feet slapping against the hardwood floor, my pajamas still on, my hair still a mess, and I don't care. I don't care about anything except getting to Ben.
"Gwen!" My mom's voice behind me. "Gwen, where are you going? Gwen!"
I don't answer. I wrench the front door open and I'm outside, the afternoon sun hitting my face, the concrete of the driveway rough under my bare feet. My mom's car is in the driveway. The keys are probably inside. I don't have time to get them. I don't have time for anything except running.
So I run.
I run down the driveway, onto the sidewalk, my feet pounding against the pavement. I don't know how far it is to Ben's house. A mile? Two? It doesn't matter. I'll run the whole way. I'll run until my lungs give out and my legs collapse and my heart explodes in my chest. I'll run until I get to him.
People are staring. A woman walking her dog stops and gapes at me. A man mowing his lawn turns off the mower and watches me sprint past in my pajamas. I don't care. Let them stare. Let them wonder. Let them think I'm crazy.
Maybe I am crazy. Maybe this is insane. Maybe I should stop, should think, should remember all the reasons why this is wrong. Maybe I should turn around and go home and let Ben deal with whatever breakdown he's having without me making it worse.
But I can't. I physically cannot stop my legs from moving, cannot stop my body from carrying me toward him. My mind is still screaming, still listing all the reasons this is a mistake, still reminding me of consequences and morality and family and everything we stand to lose.
But my heart is screaming louder. So much louder.
And for the first time in three days, for the first time since I walked away from him on that street, I'm listening to my heart instead of my head.
I'm coming, Ben. I'm coming. Just hold on. Just hold on until I get there.
Please just hold on.