Tears began to pool in her eyes, and she felt her chin wobble just a bit. “Then why?” she whispered sadly. “Why? You don’t know how many times I’ve asked myself that question, Ben, or all the different reasons I dreamed up as to why you’d want to leave me. I knew you were happy there, knew that no one could fake those sort of feelings.”
He used his thumb to gently wipe away the lone tear that had begun to trickle down her cheek. “I wouldn’t have begun to know how to fake it,” he assured her. “And I sure as hell never faked anything with you. Being with you in Big Sur was the most real and true thing that I’ve ever felt. And the decision to leave that morning was without a doubt the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life. I never, ever want to have to make a choice like that again.”
Lauren took his hand in hers, squeezing it tight. “So why did you? Why did you break my heart, you rotten bastard?”
Ben laughed in spite of himself. “I didn’t want to leave. Believe me, even while I was riding away all I could think of was turning that motorcycle around and heading back to you. Back to that cabin that felt more like home to me than anywhere else I’d ever lived. And back to you, who made me feel happier and more alive than anything else I’d ever known. But I kept on going and didn’t let myself look back because I knew I could never be enough for you. And I couldn’t bear to think of what would happen to you – to us – when you eventually realized that.”
She shook her head. “I don’t get it. You were everything I could ever want. I know I never told you back then – maybe I should have, considering what happened – but I was crazy in love with you, Ben. Still am. Never stopped. Not even when I was cursing you in three different languages.”
His laugh this time was genuine. “Now that I have no trouble envisioning. God, how I loved that about you! How honest you were, how much you felt, how you never held anything back. You were the brightest, most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, and the fear that I’d be the one responsible for dimming all that light was what made me run from you. I didn’t want to ruin your life, Lauren. The life that you were always meant to live. A life that I just couldn’t give you back then.”
“What life?” whispered Lauren brokenly. She felt tears fill her eyes again, but she was too dazed by what she was hearing now to brush them away. “A life without you? Why would I have ever wanted that?”
“Because I had nothing to offer you back then, sweetheart,” he told her earnestly. “God, how can you forget so easily? Everything I owned in the word – including a piece of crap camera, as some smart-ass girl once called it – I was carrying with me on my equally crappy motorcycle. I had no place to live, didn’t own a single piece of furniture, had no real job, barely enough money in my checking account to pay my bills. Whereas you - ” his voice trailed off as he shook his head.
Lauren frowned. “Whereas I – what?”
Ben heaved a sigh. “You were just about the most down to earth, unpretentious person I’d ever met. But that didn’t mean you weren’t used to having nice things, hadn’t grown up with a certain standard of living. I knew your parents had money – a lot of it – knew that just the land both of their houses was built on was worth a fortune. And I figured they wouldn’t be too happy if their precious daughter brought someone like me home for dinner. I could just imagine what they would have thought – especially your father.”
Her gaze narrowed dangerously as she gave him a ferocious scowl. “My parents would have welcomed you with open arms,” she told him sternly. “Because that’s the sort of people they are. Yes, they have money, money that they’ve both worked very hard for. But they’re also kind and generous and just about the most open-minded people I know. They also trust my judgment implicitly. And if I had brought you home to meet them, told them you were the man I loved – the only man for me – then they wouldn’t have questioned me for one second. And they sure as hell wouldn’t have cared how much money you did or didn’t have.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t know that at the time, did I? All I could see was this world you’d grown up in – a world so different from mine it might as well have been on another planet. You’d been loved and cherished and protected, while I’d never once known any of those things. And – God – you were twenty years old, Lauren. Twenty. You’d seen nothing of the world yet, had never had to fend for yourself or make tough decisions. I knew you had all these grand plans to become a professional photographer, to see the world, have all these amazing adventures.” He paused, closing his eyes for a moment before finishing his thoughts. “And I couldn’t bear the thought of holding you back, of keeping you from realizing those dreams. Because I knew how talented you were, how capable of achieving everything you’d ever wanted to do. And I wouldn’t let myself be the one who prevented you from doing all that. Or worse, to one day blame me for ruining your life because I held you back.”
With each word, each confession, her heart had begun to ache a little bit more as it finally dawned on her what the real reason had been for Ben to leave. It hadn’t been because he didn’t love her or want her enough, or that he’d been afraid of commitment. He had left for her, because he’d been afraid of keeping her from living her dreams.
“You silly, stupid man,” she scolded, pushing her chair back in order to climb aboard his lap, her arms twining about his neck. “Don’t you realize, Blue Eyes, that you were my dream? Or that by leaving me the way you did, my life was already ruined? Nothing has ever been the same for me since that summer, you know. I’ve never come close to being as happy as I was during those ten days. They were the best days of my life, too.”
He cuddled her close, pressing a kiss to her forehead as she rested her head on his shoulder. “Leaving you was the biggest regret of my life,” he told her solemnly. “There wasn’t a single day that went by when I didn’t wish I had made a different decision. Though I still don’t know what I could have done differently.”
Lauren gave him a playful punch on the arm, grinning when he winced. “For starters, you ass, you could have tried talking to me. Could have been honest. We would have figured something out.”
“Can you really say that, though?” he questioned. “If I had stayed with you, maybe followed you back to L.A. for a year while you finished college, taken some job just to get by for a year – what would have happened then? If you had won the photo contest and the job at National Geographic Travel – would you have still taken it if I was around? I’m guessing you would have turned it down so that you wouldn’t have had to leave me behind. And that was exactly why I left you – so that you’d be able to have those sort of opportunities.”
She shook her head emphatically. “As much as I love my job, Ben, I loved you more. We would have found a way to deal with things. Even if it meant being away from each other for a couple of weeks at a time. I would have always come back to you, you know.”
“I know you, Lauren,” he told her lovingly. “You wouldn’t have taken this job in the first place, in spite of what you say now. You would have sacrificed your dreams in order to stay with me. And I would have wound up hating myself because of it.”
“No.” She stubbornly denied his declaration. “It wouldn’t have happened that way. I wouldn’t have let it. We would have come up with some solution. And at least we would have been together. Instead, you broke my heart, you stubborn, pigheaded idiot, and made me hate you at times – even while I still loved you more than my own life. You should have trusted me, Ben. Should have talked to me.”
He sighed, then gave a reluctant nod. “I realize that now. But you have to understand that I wasn’t used to having someone to confide in. For so many years I’d been forced to look out for myself, make my own decisions. And in spite of how tough you were, how capable you seemed, you were still so damned young. I was terrified that I was just a summer fling for you, and that when push came to shove you’d choose your career over me. And that would have broken my heart into a million pieces.”