Gift From The Bad Boy

Our eyes were locked together. Ben was all I could see. His jaw was stiff with pent-up anger and passion. His mouth a straight pink slash among the furrows of his dark beard. His neck ringed with veins and tendons stretched tight like cables on a bridge. He was my warrior, my guardian. My husband.

“I need you to tell me you understand, Carmen. It’s not enough for me to see you nod. I have to hear it come out of your mouth.”

“I understand, Ben.”

“Again,” he commanded. “Make me believe you.”

“I understand.”

“Again.”

“I understand.”

He nodded, satisfied for the moment. I saw him leaning forward inch by inch. His mouth drew closer to mine until his breath was hot on my face and his smell filled my nostrils, rich and deep, drowning out the leafy scent of the wildlife around us. I was sure he was going to kiss me. I wanted him to do it, like it would seal in everything he’d just said and make it real, make it realer than real.

But the membrane was still there. I could feel it and I knew he could, too. We weren’t quite there yet. A little bit was left to go before we could fully trust each other.

He looked into my eyes, then drew back again. “Look down there,” he said softly. “Jay and I used to do this thing every now and then. We’d pretend that if you looked closely enough at the surface of the pond, you could see the future, your future, playing out like a movie on the water.”

I followed his pointing finger. The pool’s surface rippled slightly from the force of the waterfall puncturing it from above, but it was still enough at the edges that I could start to see a reflection swimming into place as I squinted. I leaned over. There, I could see myself, almost, the blurriest outline of my head and shoulders peering down from where we were sitting a few yards above.

“You have to really look,” he said solemnly, “but I swear, sometimes you can really see stuff.”

I leaned forward an inch more, staring intensely at the surface. I came a little more into focus the harder I looked. But then the wind picked up a spray of water from the waterfall and sent it a little bit farther beyond its normal path, scattering across my reflection and ruining it.

“I don’t know,” I said, staring to straighten up, “I don’t think I can—”

I saw only a flash of Ben’s wild grin before he scooped one hand under my legs and another under the small of my back and tossed me high into the air over the pond.

I screamed as I flailed helplessly all the way up to the apex of my flight path. I heard Ben’s booming laughter, then I started to descend. The way down was quick. I had only a tiny chance to swallow a huge breath and squeeze my nose shut to keep out the water before I plunged below the surface.

It was frigid. I was chilled to the core immediately. I sank like a rock, spearing a yard or two down. The pool was deeper than I would have expected. I bumped gently into the rocky bottom before finding my feet and turning my gaze upwards. The light sparkling through the surface of the water was beautiful. It looked like it was dancing for me.

But my lungs were starting to burn. I hadn’t gotten enough air to stay down here very long. Driving my heels hard into the bottom, I arrowed back up to the surface.

The sound of the forest seemed loud after the silence underwater. I treaded in place as I took a big inhale, then squealed, “You asshole! I can’t believe just did that!”

Ben was standing above bent over with his hands on his knees as he laughed harder than I’d ever seen him laugh before. There were legitimately tears running down his cheeks and mingling with his beard. As stunned and angry as I was, I couldn’t help but love the sound of it. It was the most purely joyful thing I’d ever heard from him, far lighter and happier than I knew he was capable of. In spite of myself, I smiled.

He tried to choke out words between bouts of chuckling, but he could hardly manage it. “You thought…the future! In the water! Haha…” He descended again into another laughing fit, falling back onto the stone as he wiped the tears away from his face.

“You better get your ass down in here with me,” I warned, “or else bad, bad things are going to happen to you.”

He composed himself and hunched down to look at me. His eyes were twinkling. “No chance,” he said. “I’m not the clown who tried to see the future in a pond.”