A Conversation With Benby M-A
Ben was eyeing me, his jaw firmly squared, his chin quivering ever so slightly. "Why did you bring me here?"
I ignored his question. "I'm sorry, Ben." Those were some of the hardest words I'd ever spoken in my life.
"I don't understand why you... hate me so much."
Anger flamed up in me. It was easier to be angry than to admit I was wrong. "What makes you think we're so different, Ben Fraser?!"
He cast his eyes down. "You're real and I'm not."
"That's a moot point, and purely irrelevant."
He looked up at me, his grey eyes clouded and questioning. "Why do you hate me?"
I sighed. "I don't hate you, Ben."
He laughed, bitterly, and I could have shot myself right there. "Then why do you write all those stories about me?"
I sighed. "The problem's not you Ben... it's me." There, I'd said it.
"Why do you hate me?" he repeated.
I decided to evade the question. "You and I, Ben. We're too much alike. Looking at you is like looking into a mirror, only... only you're a better person than I am, and you aren't even real!"
"I thought you said that was a moot and irrelevant point," he chided and I wisely ignored him.
"And I don't like the people you remind me of, Ben!"
"But they are real people, and I'm not."
I nodded wearily. "I suppose so."
"You see me as a real person, you know that?"
"Of course I do, Ben! I don't see you as that... that caricature everyone's made you out to be! I notice the times when you are greedy, petty, cruel, or just plain mean. But, Ben, I *do* see the side of you that everyone else does."
"I don't believe you." Was it just my imagination or were those tears in his eyes?
"I know that you can be incredibly sweet and bashful, just like a little boy. Generous and kind, also. And so full of self-righteous virtue that I don't know whether to admire you or to vomit. But do you know what I like the most about you, Ben Fraser?"
He shook his head, surprised by the question. "No, what?"
"You do nothing by half-measures. If you can't give something your all, then you don't commit to it. With love, with hate, with friendship, with everything, either you're all in, or you're all out."
He sighed. "Why don't you say this more often?!"
I swallowed, then said weakly, "I only attack the ones I care about, Ben."
"Now that's just silly."
"Listen, buddy, I'm just trying to apologize here!"
He sighed. "Yes, I know. I don't hold anything against you, you know. The me that you see might not be conventional, but he *is* me."
I smiled sadly. "I just wish that I could see you like others do, innocent and a little ignorant of the ways of the world. But you're not, are you?"
He shook his head. "Of course not. I can't even remember ever being innocent. I've seen people murdered and worse, I've lost loved ones, I've been betrayed... But I haven't allowed myself to grow cynical, you know."
"Why not?" The all important question.
He shrugged. "I don't know why not. I guess... I just want to believe that everyone is good, deep down... I'm usually right."
"But sometimes not," I said dryly and he hung his head. I put a hand on his shoulder. I wanted to hug him and I knew he wanted to hug me back, but we weren't brought up like that.
"Listen, Ben. That wasn't really your fault. And if it means anything at all, I think that she did love you."
"Thanks."
"You were just out of it, that's all. And sort of moronic, too. But you didn't deserve that, Ben! Even I can see that!"
"Because you've been through it?"
"Yes, and because *you* didn't deserve it! It wasn't fair, or just, that someone like you, someone so good and so pure should be hurt like that."
"Do you really mean that?"
I thought for a moment. "Yes. I do."
"So, no more weird stories."
I laughed, a little. "I'll *try*."
"Although I do have to admit that acting like that was very... releasing."
I shook my head, trying in vein to swallow the lump in my throat. "Do you feel, Ben Fraser?"
"I'm a fictional character, not insensitive."
"Why don't you show it a bit more? Enough so that others can see it, too?
"You know why. You're just like me."
And so I am. I took a deep breath, "I do love you, you know."
He smiled for the first time and answered so softly I might just have imagined it. "I know."
Return to the
Ride Forever Archive