Page 34 of Beauty and the Nerd
Not to mention, graduating meant getting even further away from the whole mess with Carter. The fact that some of the girls had actually started giving her the cold shoulder because she told the truth about him, leading to the order for his DNA which led to his arrest warrant, astonished her. She’d anticipated some of the guys at school being assholes about it but amazingly, likethe day at the mall, most of them had backed her up. She just couldn’t understand how any of the girls would be able to ignore what Carter was really like simply because he had money and until then, a football scholarship.
“Me too, I think this is going to be really good for us,” she added, smiling more when Ben dropped a sweet kiss onto her lips. “I mean, if my parents don’t know when you ‘accidentally’ stay over, it won’t hurt them, right?”
The flare of heat that slid through Ben’s gaze made her smile uncontrollable, and she settled entirely against him as he kissed her again. It was still sweet but the heat, the promises in it were anything but innocent, and it made her fall even further for him.
Their trips to their campuses went without a hitch, beyond a few twinges she felt when girls paused to glance at Ben. Every time one hit, his hand squeezed hers, pulling her attention off the others around them and back to him, settling and calming her. He teased her about it when they were alone, whispering all the reasons why he wanted her over and over, and by the time graduation rolled around, even Crystal’s continued attempts to get his attention weren’t setting off alarms inside her. It still grated on her nerves, but she was certain of Ben, and it let her relax even more when they were alone together.
Ben headed up to Columbia with his parents the weekend before she headed up to get the rest of the apartment put together and she enjoyed taking her time, browsing shops for pieces while Ben was in classes. The best part of her day was when he stopped by afterwards, even if he was busy with papers and things.
They fell into an easy pattern and most nights, Ben crashed with her, letting her get more and more comfortable with taking things further. The week her dad was in town was bittersweet. She loved him being around, but it also meant Ben couldn’t sleepover. Those nights she resorted to sleeping in one of his shirts until she could have him wrapped around her again.
The start of school crept up on her before she knew it and while their routine changed some, it was even more enjoyable to be able to bounce questions off of Ben while she was doing her own work than simply watching him do his. Little by little they started hanging out with other people, some she knew from school, the others were ones Ben had met, but mostly, she enjoyed their time spent alone together.
As October arrived, so did the news that Carter had pushed for a fast court date and despite what he’d done to her and the proof that he’d assaulted the girl from Millersburg, he was found not guilty somehow. His attorney had brought up the fact that the girl had two previous boyfriends that she slept with and never told either of them a clear ‘yes’ before or during the sex, which meant Carter was out walking around free.
That on top of a party they attended where some jerk groped her, had Ben calling her dad for backup without her knowledge.
Emma knew something was up when she got to the apartment, finding him already there in the living room with her dad and her worry grew when she saw her mom come out of the kitchen area giving her a long look. Her eyes slid over to Ben questioningly, wondering if they’d figured out, he’d been spending nearly every night with her other than when her dad was in town.
“Mom, what are you doing here?” she asked when it was clear from Ben’s expression, he wasn’t getting a lecture from them.
“Ben called your dad and asked if he could come a day early so that we could talk to you, honey,” her mom said, and she shot her gaze over to him in surprise.
“Come here, Em,” Ben said holding out his hand to her and as much as she didn’t want to join him because he went behind her back on something, she didn’t want to be away from himeither. She shook her head as she sat down, trying to read his expression then her parents’ but she still had no clue what was going on right now.
“Would someone spit it out?” she said, laughing a bit nervously. “Clearly you all havesomethingto say, or you all wouldn’t be here like this is some sort of intervention…”
“You could call it that in a way,” her mom said, making her brow lift further in surprise at them. “We think you should talk to someone, sweetheart.”
“About what?” she asked, laughing more at the absurdity of this.
“About what happened last year before the accident with Carter, and what happened at the party you and Ben were at,” her dad said, forcing Emma’s gaze back to Ben fast enough she almost got whiplash.
“You told them about that idiot?” she asked in shock. Shaking her head at him when he nodded. “Why? He was just some drunk jerk at a party.”
“Em, you haven’t even wanted to go out since that party. I love hanging out with you more than anything, baby, but you are not the person that stays home every night. I know what he did probably brought up a lot of crap you didn’t deal with after the accident with Carter, and now with him getting off on the chargers for the shit he did…”
“So, you all think I have a problem because I don’t want to go party with strangers?” she said, chuckling to herself. “And we don’t stay home every night, we both have study groups that we’ve been at,” she added to Ben. “I’ve had term papers to write up though, and mid-terms are coming up. I want to be prepared for them, not waiting to the last minute to cram.”
“Emma,” her dad said, drawing her attention to him, his eyes serious. “I know Ben wouldn’t have called me about this if he wasn’t worried about you, and I know you well enough to knowthat you’d find a way to get him off the subject if he’d brough it up to you when you all were alone. That’s why we’re here, honey. We don’t want you ignoring what you need, trying to just lock it away in some dark recess of your mind and think it’s done and over.”
“We know it was hard for you to tell the police everything that happened, sweetie,” her mom added, grasping her hand with a gentle squeeze. “You didn’t want to but for that girl, you did it. It seems like you’re questioning that now, maybe because you think it didn’t make a difference? That because some sleazy lawyer got him off on the charges that you shouldn’t have said anything. That it wasn’t worth it because of everything it put you through, not only to tell it, but also to deal with the aftermath of it at school?”
“I don’t know,” she mumbled with a sigh.
“And that’s why we agree with Ben that you need to talk to someone about it, and anything else you may have kept to yourself about Carter or any other boy you dated or hung out with. Well, Ben excluded clearly,” he added putting a hint of a smile on her lips that he knew Ben was in a completely different category than them. That he loved her, really loved her, and wouldn’t do something that might upset her simply to get something he wanted. “We need to know that you’re not keeping this all held inside, Emma. That you can talk to someone who can help if you can’t talk to us about it, okay?”
“Okay,” she said, seeing the look on Ben’s face, the worry in his eyes and she leaned over, giving him a soft kiss with a smile at him. “You could have just talked to me about it.”
“I tried to last week, baby. I asked why you didn’t want to go out with Ashley and James, and you just gave me a smile, saying you wanted to stay in and watch Anne again,” he stated, holding her gaze, putting a light blush in her cheeks, remembering what else they’d done while watching the movie. “Your dad knowsyou’ve got me wrapped around your little finger, just like you’ve got him wrapped around it. I hoped that together at least, you’d listen to us, and we could hopefully not get so tangled up that you got both of us off track.”
“And I brought your mother with me so she could be the ballbuster if needed,” her dad said with a shrug making both her and her mom laugh.
“It is true though, much as I love you, you can’t wiggle your way out of things with me,” her mom stated, dropping a kiss onto her forehead. “So, you have to promise you’ll call and set up an appointment to talk to someone while we’re here. I don’t care if it’s in-person or online, your dad’s insurance will cover both through the family EAP. We need you to do something to help you with this though, we don’t want it getting to a point where it causes you true anxiety the way things with school did. You did great talking with someone then, to the point that we all were okay with you stopping, but that doesn’t mean you know how to best process everything that’s happened this time. Okay?”
“Okay,” she agreed, knowing she was vastly outnumbered on this, and while she didn’t want to talk to some stranger again, especially about all of this, she loved that Ben worried about her enough to go behind her back to make it happen. He really was the best thing to come into her life.
Chapter 13
