On an Edge of Glass

arms wrapped around Lily’s shoulders and he’s talking into her hair.  The scene is so fiercely intimate that I almost gag right then and there.  It feels like my heart has just been shoved out of a tenth-floor window and then trampled by a stampede of giants. 
    A s nowstorm of emotions slams through me all at once.  I’m a huge gaping hole of a person.  I’m dizzy and out-of-control and losing it.
    Ben looks up.  When he sees me standing in the open door, his beautiful gold-flecked eyes go wide and that perfect of his mouth opens, but nothing comes out of it.  It wouldn’t matter if it did because I can’t hear him now.  I’m already off—down the hall, through the door, and pushing against the sea of bodies crashing into me, pulling me under.  Everything is starting to morph together—the people and the lights are blurring and shifting like a dream and it’s not the alcohol this time.  I’m crying real tears that fog everything up and weigh me down.  I can barely think, but I know that I need to make it out to the black, bleeding night before everything inside of me rises to the surface. 
    Wiping my face, I stumble past the bouncer who guards the front door of the bar and I turn a corner.  Ben’s voice is somewhere behind me.  He’s calling my name and he’s using the word please over and over again.  A hundred million pleases but I still won’t look.  Everything is ruined and broken and I just want to get away from it all.
    I step toward the street and lift my hand up for a taxi even though there isn’t one in sight.  Ben reaches for my outstretched arm and I knock him away.  He shifts and tries to pull my face back so that I’ll have to look at him.  I don’t want him to see my traitorous tears, so I shove and push and spin.
    “Ellie, stop it!  I swear that it’s not what you think.”
    That’s it.  I laugh.  His words are too much of a cl iché and I can’t handle clichés right now.  Not after getting my disappointing LSAT scores and everything that has gone wrong with this day.  “Oh, you mean to tell me that I didn’t walk in on you and your fiancé in an embrace in the back room?  That’s funny, because that’s what it looked like.”
    Ben winces.  He didn’t know that I know and now he does and I can see the regret sliding around his face, altering his features.  “That stuff between me and Lily is ancient history.  You have to understand why I never told you all of it.” 
    “ Ancient history?  It was a few months ago!  And, no, I don’t have to understand anything you tell me because this ,” I point back and forth between us, “is done so let’s not waste each other’s time by hashing out all the gory details.”  I want to take it back almost immediately, but anger and hurt are working tandem on me, pushing me further.  “I’m finished with you.”
    Ben grabs my elbows harshly.  He’s backlit by a street light.  “Ellie!”  He sounds almost as worked up as me.  “Will you just listen to me for one minute?  That’s all I’m asking you to do.”  When I don’t respond, he takes a deep breath and releases his hold on my arms.  “I didn’t tell you about Lily because it has nothing to do with us.  What’s happening between you and me is totally separate from all that shit! I didn’t tell you because I knew that it would freak you out and I was afraid, okay?  I was afraid that you would bolt and then I wouldn’t have you in my life.”  He lowers his head so that his eyes are at my level.   “And I want you in my life, Ellie.  I want you in my life so much that I didn’t think things through.”
    “Ben…”  I drop my chin, but he pulls it back up with his index finger. 
    “Don’t do this. ”  He says in a softer voice.  We’re so close that every time he breathes I can feel it on my face.  My skin starts to tingle.  My heart pounds even harder against my breastbone.  “Please don’t do this.  We’re right for each other.  I know it.”
    I blink.  Then I do about the stupidest thing ever.  I kiss him.  I kiss him like I won’t be able to breathe otherwise.  I press against him, and wrap my arms around his neck.  Ben hesitates for a fraction of a second, and then he opens his mouth and lets me inside, and the spinning all around me is centered in one place.  Strong hands go to my waist and pull me in, crushing me to his chest.  It’s like neither of us can get close enough.
    And for a few