Ohhhhh, is THIS chapter! Hmmm, this is where Ben… no, I’ll let you read it, lol! All I will say is that Ben’s shady (lmao Kate – SHADY PAUL AND HIS GUN!!! *ahem*) past comes to light…!! Xxx

Chapter Thirty-Six 

Rose woke up to find Mark half sitting up in bed, propped up on his elbow, looking into her eyes.

“Morning.” She mumbled sleepily.

“I wasn’t sure if I should wake you up or not.” Mark said quietly, reaching across and gently brushing a strand of hair from Rose’s face. “What were you dreaming, babe?”

“Um… I dunno. Why?” Rose asked, yawning.

“You kept mumbling something but I couldn’t work out what you were saying.”

“Oh. I can’t remember what I was dreaming about.”

“I had a really weird dream last night.”

“What was it about?” Rose asked.

“Well me, you, Ben, Chloe and Paul were at a theme park and we were all in a maze, walking along and talking and stuff. Then suddenly this big monster thing jumped over a hedge, grabbed you and ran off. Me and Ben were running after the monster, trying to rescue you, but Chloe and Paul just stayed where they were. Paul said something like, ‘The monster’s done us a favour’ and Chloe said, ‘At least we can be alone’ and then they were kissing, which was really weird, not to mention disturbing.”

“Paul and Chloe?”

“Yeah! And then it went back to me and Ben chasing the monster. We ran for miles and miles, still in the maze, and then the monster just disappeared and you were standing leaning against a dead end. I was really pleased that you were safe and was going to go over and give you a hug, but Ben got there first and after he’d hugged you he said, ‘Come on, let’s get out of here’ and you two just walked off! It was not a nice dream.”

“Aw, no, that’s a horrible dream!” Rose agreed. “Don’t worry, if I ever get kidnapped by a monster, you get the first hug. Promise.”

“And you won’t go off with Ben?”

“Ew no, definitely not!”

“Ew?” Mark asked with amusement.

“Well obviously not for some people but he’s really not my type.”

“How about Paul and Chris?”

“Nope, my type consists solely of people called Mark who are in a band called a1.”

“Don’t think there’s too many of them around.” Mark said with a smile.

“No, me neither. It’s a good job I found you then!”

“It’s a very good job. And it’s funny because my type consists only of people called Rose who live in Great Kingshill and have a best friend called Chloe.”

“Funny that.” Rose said. “So what’s happening today?” she asked.

“Well, first I will bring you breakfast in bed, and then we will stay in bed all morning watching cartoons on TV. How does that sound?” Mark asked.

Rose laughed. “That sounds fab.” She said. “A very grown up and mature way to spend the morning.”

“Well I thought so.” Mark said, getting out of bed. “So your job is to stay there and start on the cartoons while I make us breakfast.”

“Don’t you want any help?”

“Rose,” Mark said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “if you helped me, that’d kinda defeat the object of me making you breakfast in bed. But it’s nice of you to offer.” He said, giving her a kiss. “I’ll be back in a matter of seconds.”

Rose grinned. “Okay.”

“Jeans… pink top…” Chloe muttered to herself, putting the last few items into her black holdall.

“What are you doing?” came a sleepy voice behind her, making her jump.

She turned round. “Packing.”

Ben sat up in bed so he could see her properly. “Why?”

“Coz if I went home without packing, all my stuff would be at your house.” Chloe said.

“I thought the idea was that we stay in bed all morning?”

“It was, but you were asleep when I woke up so I thought I’d make use of the time and pack. Give us a bit more time together.”

“That’s a very good plan, but come back to bed now.”

Chloe smiled. “Okay.”

She got back into bed next to Ben and put her arms around him as he pulled her right up close to him.

“You didn’t stay awake all night.” Ben said.

“No, I fell asleep. Sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

“That’s okay. I like watching you sleep.”

“Why?”

Ben shrugged. “Just like being near you. Did you sleep okay though? You were really restless.”

“Was I?”

“Yeah. You were tossing and turning the whole night. You woke me up twice.”

“Did I? Oh I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be silly, I don’t mind! Are you okay?” Ben asked, looking at Chloe.

“I’m fine.”

“Is that real I’m fine, or pretend I’m fine so I don’t worry about you?”

“Bit of both.” Chloe said sheepishly.

“Clo…”

“I know, I’m sorry.”

“So what’s wrong?”

“Nothing! Nothing really important anyway.”

“Something a little bit important?” Ben asked.

“Not really. I was just having bad dreams.”

“What about?”

“Um… you.”

“I give you nightmares?” Ben asked.

“No! I give myself nightmares about you.”

Ben still looked like he didn’t understand. Chloe could hardly blame him.

“Tell me about these nightmares.” Ben said.

“There were two. The first one we weren’t going out I don’t think. I was just talking to you and then this girl with black hair came up to you and started talking to you as well. I said that I should probably go and you said you thought that was a very good idea. I went to give you a hug and the black haired girl said, “Why are you doing that? Do you think you’ve actually got a chance with him?” and then she laughed and you two started kissing, right in front of me.” Chloe shuddered. “It was horrible.”

Ben frowned. “What about the other one?”

“The second one was worse. We were going out and it was just like how things are in real life. I was staying with you and then I had to go home, but even though I was at home, in my dream I could still see what you were doing. At first you were just talking to a group of girls about a1 and stuff, but then you started saying things about me like how I was stupid and too immature for you. Everyone was laughing at me and then you went off with one of the girls and… well I didn’t see what you did but I knew what you were doing. And then you went back and got another one of the girls, and it carried on like that until there were none left. And every time someone asked “Don’t you have a girlfriend?” you said, “As if I care about her!” and laughed.”

Ben looked horrified. “No wonder you didn’t sleep well. Those are really nasty dreams!”

“I know.” Chloe said.

“Why were you dreaming about things like that?”

Chloe shrugged.

“What kind of a shrug is that?” Ben asked, smiling kindly at Chloe. “You do know why don’t you?”

Chloe looked down. “Maybe.”

Truth was, she knew exactly why she’d been dreaming about those things.

“Are you gonna tell me?” Ben asked gently.

Chloe looked up at Ben and smiled. “No.” she said.

“Please babe.”

“I don’t want to annoy you. I don’t want to ruin things.”

“How are you going to ruin things?”

“Because I worry too much.”

“Well that’s okay. You know I worry about things too.”

Chloe sighed. “Okay, well the first one… I think it’s because I guess I just don’t feel like I’m good enough to be going out with you. I keep thinking about your other girlfriends and how I compare to them. I keep wondering if you think you could do better than me. I’m just paranoid about losing you, that’s all.”

“Okay, point number one; you are good enough to be going out with me. I really hate to quote Mark but I’m gonna have to and say that no-one’s any better than anyone else, especially not me! Second point; you’re not even in the same league as my other girlfriends, and even if you were, I wouldn’t be comparing you to them. I don’t ever think that I could do better then you. Every day I wake up and think about how lucky I am to be with you, so you don’t need to worry about that. I love you Chloe. I’m not gonna get bored of you, or fed up, or want someone else. Ever. So don’t let things like that trouble your mind.” Ben traced a finger across Chloe’s forehead.

Chloe smiled and closed her eyes as she listened to Ben’s heartbeat.

“What about the other dream?” Ben asked, after a few minutes.

Chloe really didn’t want to bring up this subject.

“It was just a rumour I heard. Y’know, there’s always loads of rumours going around about things to do with your private life. It’s probably not true, I shouldn’t believe everything I hear…”

“What was the rumour about?” Ben asked, getting slightly worried that he knew exactly what the rumour was about.

“Um… well, some people said that um…”

“What, Clo?”

“They said that you had lots of one night stands, and that when you went to other countries and stuff, you’d go with a girl for one night and leave in the morning.” Chloe said quickly, wishing Ben hadn’t made her tell him.

“Do you believe that rumour?” Ben asked.

“I did believe it, before I met you, but I don’t know if I do any more. You don’t… seem like that kind of person.”

Ben sighed and was quiet for a moment.

“This is the one thing I’ve been terrified about telling you.” He started. “And just for the record, I wasn’t planning to tell you this after we’d slept together, I didn’t think that’d happen, so don’t think that I didn’t tell you before just so I could get you into bed. I didn’t tell you before coz I was scared.”

“So tell me now.” Chloe said. “And don’t be scared. I don’t bite.”

She smiled reassuringly at Ben.

Ben took a deep breath and sat up a little bit.

“The rumour is true. It’s maybe a little bit exaggerated but the basics are there. I went through a phase, not long ago, where I was a bit messed up. I’d started thinking about Katrina a lot, too much, and I got quite down about it. A couple of times when me and Paul went out drinking, we hooked up with a couple of girls, girls we’d just met that night. He only did it a few times but I guess I got the taste for it. So I started going out on my own and picking up girls, girls that I wasn’t even really interested in. We’d have a couple of drinks and then if we were getting on alright, we’d go back to her place and…”

Chloe winced.

“We never came back here coz… well it was easier for me to leave if we were at hers. I was just using the girls I slept with. I’m not saying I didn’t want to sleep with them or that I didn’t enjoy it at the time, but it was nothing more than that. I had no feelings for them, no interest in having a relationship with them. I went with them because they were interested in me and that made me feel good about myself. For one night, anyway. I’m not proud of what I did; I know it was a bad thing to do and I’m not gonna make any excuses for myself. Mark warned me about the consequences and I didn’t listen to him. I wish I had now. I thought it was making me happy, but I realised that it wasn’t. All it was doing was making me feel cheap and… I wish I could turn the clock back, I’d do things so differently.”

Ben looked at Chloe but she turned her head away from him. She couldn’t look him in the eye. Everything he’d told her she already knew, well most of it anyway, but hearing it from him, it sounded so much worse.

“How many?” Chloe asked quietly.

Not that she wanted to know, but she doubted they’d ever talk about this again and she had to know. She hoped they wouldn’t talk about this again, anyway. It wasn’t exactly making her feel great.

“You don’t want to know that.”

“I do.”

“I don’t know exactly.”

Chloe wasn’t sure whether it was a good thing that Ben didn’t know the exact number or not. It could mean that there had been too many to keep track of, but isn’t it kinda sick if you keep count?

“Roughly how many?”

“I think it was about… twenty, twenty-five? I don’t know.”

That was a lot, right? Chloe didn’t know what she’d been expecting to hear but at least it wasn’t fifty. Even so, she didn’t think she really felt like saying anything in reaction to that.

Ben was quiet too. He didn’t know what to say now. This had gone badly, very badly. He’d made it sound… well to be fair, exactly as bad as it should have sounded, but he’d been hoping he’d be able to make it sound a little bit better. But he’d mucked it up totally and he had no idea what Chloe was thinking now or how she felt.

Finally Chloe spoke.

“Okay.” She said.

“No, Clo, it’s not okay.” Ben said. “You’re not okay about it, are you? I knew this would happen!”

“You can’t have been expecting me to be over the moon about it. But it is okay. It’s in the past now. Everyone makes mistakes. It hasn’t changed the way I feel about you.”

“It hasn’t?”

“No. I wish you’d told me before though. You know you should have done, don’t you?”

Ben nodded. “I know, I’m sorry. You deserved to know that.”

“Why were you scared about telling me?” Chloe asked.

“I didn’t know how you’d react. I thought it might scare you off!”

“It might have done if you’d have told me before we slept together. Might have made me a bit more worried about it coz, well y’know, in case I was rubbish compared to… everyone else.”

Ben smiled. “Tell you a secret.”

“Go on then.”

Ben whispered something to Chloe.

She smiled and, satisfied with that being the end of discussion, relaxed back against Ben.

“Have you got everything?” Mark asked.

“Think so.” Rose said, doing up the zip on her bag.

“I guess we’re ready to go then.”

“Yeah.”

Rose and Mark stood in silence for a few minutes.

“Don’t wanna go.” Rose said, looking at Mark.

He shook his head. “I don’t want you to either.” He said, going over to her and hugging her. “I’m gonna miss you so much.”

“Me too.” Rose said with a sigh.

This was almost as bad as when she had to go home from Chloe’s house.

“Promise me something.” Mark said, pulling back slightly.

“What?”

“That we won’t go for more than two weeks at the very most without seeing each other.”

“I promise. I don’t think I’d cope otherwise.”

“Me neither.”

Rose smiled. “You’d cope.”

“Without you here to give me a hug when things go wrong? I don’t think so.”

“Well we don’t live too far away from each other, it’s only half an hour. You can come up and see me whenever you want to.”

“I will. I’ll come and see you whenever I have a day off, or even half a day.” Mark paused. “Won’t happen as often as it sounds though, you know that right? We don’t get many days off.”

“I know.”

“You can come and see me at concerts and stuff though. I can always get you tickets if you want to come.”

Rose smiled. “You just try and keep me away!”

“Will your parents be there when we get to your house?” Mark asked.

“Dunno. Maybe.”

“In case we don’t get to say a proper goodbye later…”

Mark kissed her tenderly. And he didn’t stop kissing her, just kept pulling her closer to him, holding her as tightly against him as he could.

It was fair to say that Rose wasn’t exactly hating it. Goodbye kisses were definitely the best, she decided.

I love you Mark. Rose thought. I love you, and that’s it. There is nothing else.

She didn’t say that of course. She didn’t say anything in fact. All she could think, apart from how much she loved him, was that if this was how things were when he didn’t love her, imagine how incredible they’d be when he did. If he did. But he would. He definitely would. Wouldn’t he? Of course he would. That’s the way the story goes. It’s just got off to a bit of a slow shaky start that’s all. Nothing to worry about.