The Hardest Cut by Jamie Bennett (book club recommendations .TXT) 📕

“Oh, sure,” I said.  “I guess I should.”

She giggled, totally on cloud nine.  “I still can’t believe we made it!”  She looked down and tugged up her breasts so they sat higher in the halter.  “We’re Woodsmen Dames!  Or whatever they’re going to let us pick.”  She started throwing out ideas.  “What if we were the Woodsmen Dolls?  Or the Woodsmen Chicks?”  I shook my head no to those terrible ideas, but I followed her voice as I floated again, across the field toward the tunnel.  I tried to think of what I should do next.  I had to call Hallie, for sure.  But the person I really wanted to see was—

“Oh, G, look!  I think he’s here for you,” Caitlyn said, and nudged me.  “Look!”

I stopped, because Ben was standing in the end zone with a huge smile on his face.  “Does that beautiful orange uniform mean that you made it?” he called, and before I knew it, I was running across the field, and then I jumped into his arms.

“I did!  I made it!”  He spun me around and I started to sob as I hugged him.  “I did it, Ben.  I did it!”

He slid me down to my feet and kissed me, and that was when I heard the cheering.  Twenty-nine other Woodsmen dancers were standing at the mouth of the tunnel, clapping for us and yelling their heads off.  I waved, then hid my face on Ben’s chest and to stop crying.  The voices faded as they left, chanting, “W!  O!  O!  D!” until we couldn’t hear them anymore.

“I’m so happy for you, honey.”  I felt him kiss my head.  “I’ve been running around trying to find you and hear what happened, but for some reason there were police crawling all over the stadium so I couldn’t get down here for a while.”  He tilted my chin up to kiss me again, and then he held my face in his hands to look at me.  “Where have you been?  I was worried about you.  I think I sent you twenty messages and called you a dozen times.”

It had been fourteen, because I’d counted.  “I was avoiding you,” I admitted.

“Because of what happened on your birthday?”  His eyebrows came down.  “Are you sorry about what we did?”

“I’m only sorry because I think it meant something different to me,” I explained.  “And because I lied to you.”

“What?”  I felt his body stiffen.

“I didn’t know that it was a lie when I said it, but it was.”  I took a deep breath.  “I told you that I didn’t want to be in a relationship again, but actually, I do.  I want to get married.  I want to have kids.  For months, I’ve been trying to be honest with myself but I wasn’t admitting that, because I didn’t think that I deserved it.  I didn’t think I deserved to have those wonderful things.”

“Why?  Why would you think that?”

“Because I did something really bad.  Like what your wife did to you,” I said, and my voice cracked.

His arms fell away from me and he took a step back.  “What are you talking about?”

I told him.  I told him everything.  I started out with the story of falling in love with the vice-principal and went through my awful history with the wrong guy, the old guy, the jailed guy, and all the others.  And I led up to meeting Shep.

“I wish I could take it back,” I said.  “I wish I hadn’t been so stupid and immoral and all the things you said about someone who’s a cheater.  I should have had more character.  I should have believed the evidence right in front of my eyes instead of closing them and hoping for something else.  I’m so sorry I did that.”  I took a deep breath.  “But I can’t punish myself for it anymore.  I can be sorry, but I can’t tell myself that I don’t deserve to be happy.  I think I do.”  I looked at him, meeting his eyes for the first time since I started this speech.  “I think I want to date someone, and marry him, and have a bunch of babies, and be really happy.”

I paused but he didn’t speak, so I forged on.

“So, that’s what I did in my past, and that’s what I want in my future.”  I stopped again, a little hoarse because I had said a lot.  “That’s it.”  I waited.

“You dated people in prison?”

“Well, one was in a halfway house, and yes, one was in actual prison.  I don’t have a great track record,” I admitted.  “Until now, I mean.  Because you’re just…you’re everything that I could ever want, and I do.  I want you.  But on Saturday night, when you wanted me to leave, I thought—I thought I had made the wrong choice.  Again.”  I looked down at my shoes.  “However you feel about me, I had to be honest with you.”

Ben stepped toward me and tilted up my chin.  “I knew you were upset about that, about me rushing you out after we were together.”  He shook his head.  “I mean, I realized that you were upset, but only the next day when I thought about how it must have felt for you.  Like it didn’t mean anything to me, and that wasn’t true.”

I waited.  Hoping.

“This is all pretty new to me, too,” he continued.  “You’re the first woman I’ve ever wanted to bring home like that since Tessa was born, and I didn’t know what to do.  I made you leave, but I really wanted to keep you there forever.”

“Did you?” I asked.

He wiped under my eyes.  “I did, but also I didn’t want Tessa to be confused by it.  I didn’t want her to think that you were going to be at our house every night, or that you were going to be something more in our lives than her favorite babysitter and her dad’s friend.”

“Oh.  Yes.  Confusion.  I get it.”  Stop crying,