Page 54 of Love Under Snowfall

“Five more points.” His shoulders tensed, jaw flexed. She saw it and still pressed further. “What did your father do that makes you so disgusted to be like him?”

She thought she saw a glistening of moisture in his tormented eyes. The rise and fall of his chest morphed from slow and steady to labored and jagged, like he’d just finished another set of lunges in the middle of the small cabin. The urge to retract her question was strong, but she had to know. Curiosity won over in her quest to understand the depths of the man who had once been her terrifying professor.

“Benjamin.”

“He’s the reason my mother is dead.”

Chapter twenty-nine

Benjamin

Francesca’s mouth hung open, and Benjamin watched as her cheeks quickly flamed from a cozy pink to an embarrassed, regretful red. She’d pushed. Used the silly point system to get him to talk. He could have denied her. Could have said that he refused to answer such personal questions. Yet why did it feel critical to be candid with her? He’d tried to fight it, but after blurting out the truth, he felt the dam give way.

“My father dropped my mother and me for a woman twenty years his junior. If that wasn’t bad enough, he hired a team of divorce attorneys to ensure we wouldn’t get a penny beyond the laughable child support he paid every month. We went from living in luxury—literally having every whim fulfilled—to barely getting by in a one-bedroom apartment in South Tacoma. I adapted. Quickly became familiar with food banks in the area and churches that provided shoes and clothes for teens. I figured out how to survive, but she . . .”

The beautiful, jovial, statuesque woman who’d raised Benjamin flashed through his mind. Images of her in cocktail dresses as the family hosted annual Christmas parties. Sweeping wayward strands of black hair off her face as they sailed on their boat on Lake Washington. Smiling warmly at him when she’d lightly kiss his forehead before bed each night.I love you to the moon and back,she’d say as he climbed the stairs to his room.Until tomorrow, my love.

“My mother wilted. Drank to drown her sorrow over the fabulous life she’d lost. Her parents wouldn’t help us either. Said she’d made her bed, and if she couldn’t keep her husband in it, then it must have been her fault. For whatever sick, self-torturous reason, I became a divorce attorney and a damned good one. I managed high-profile cases, earning buckets of money off vulnerable, powerless people. I helped countless rich pricks do to their spouses what my father did to my mother. All the while, I justified the cyclical behavior because I’d suffered too. Like it was my turn to be the powerful one. I worked hard, kept my nose clean, cared for my mom when she was too broken to care for me, and so I figured I was owed.”

At some point during his blabbering, he’d stood and started pacing. Francesca said nothing. She just sat there with tears rolling down her face. He turned, couldn’t watch the salty trails left on her cheeks, feeling torn between wiping hers away and crying his own.

He’d allowed himself to weep for his mother on the day of her funeral. Surprisingly, his father had shown up, landing a heavy hand on his shoulder.

“She wasn’t like us,”his father had said.

Benjamin had turned and looked at the man beside him, an older version of himself, but kept his mouth shut.

“We’re strong. Resilient.”Benjamin felt nauseated under the squeeze of his father’s fingers.“I’m proud of you for making something of yourself. Just like your old man.”

The next day, Benjamin had marched into his boss’s office and resigned. He left without a backward glance, determined to make amends in some way for the rich dirtbags he’d helped in his years at the firm. He spent every day at the university trying to churn quality, socially responsible lawyers out into the world to rebalance the chaos he’d unleashed. His efforts hadn’t quelled theregret. But being so busy distracted him from the pain and anger that remained locked up in his chest.

Out of sight but ever-present.

Dormant.

That is until Francesca decided to waltz in and open the Pandora’s box of his repressed memories.

“Anyways.” He cleared his throat. “She died of liver failure just before I started teaching, and ever since, I’ve been doing everything in my power to be the opposite of him.”

"So, last month? When you told me you were on your way to visit her?"

"I take flowers to her grave every year on her birthday. Pink roses were her favorite."

“I’m so sorry,” Francesca gulped out on a sob. “I was such an ass. I made comments about your mom notexistingand you being spawned instead. And I’ve been so mean to you since we arrived. Had I known—”

“You couldn’t have. I haven’t even told your brother about half of this. He knows about my youth and everything leading up to graduation and me joining the law firm. Since then, he’s shared with me, but I’ve held back everything from him.”

“Why?”

Benjamin dropped his head into his hands, struggling even to contemplate weighing someone else down with his issues, like how he was at that moment with Francesca. This was wrong. He shouldn’t be sharing this with his best friend’s little sister. He shouldn’t be seeking out understanding and comfort from someone he’d been judgmental and unyielding with the last few months. A sharp woman with a bright future, intentionally sabotaged by a professor who couldn’t see past his own conflicting feelings.

His actions were unforgivable.

“I didn’t want to burden him with my problems, not after his father—your father . . . and then Cynthia. It would be selfish.”

Francesca sniffled and wiped her nose. “I can empathize. We had a rough start, but it got so much better once we were adopted. Others have it so much worse. I have no room to complain, seeing as I got my happy ending, and so many others don’t.”

He’d always forgotten that Johnny and his sister were adopted. His friend was so solid, forever talking about his amazing family, that it was easy to forget they weren’t biologically linked.

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