chapter 21

Almost there (one more chapter after this).

+

Ben gaped at her for a full ten seconds before wordlessly standing back from the door and gesturing inside. He still didn't say anything as she dropped her carrier bags, shucked off her coat and sat on his sofa, her hands folded in her lap. Still nothing as he went to the kitchen to put on the kettle, then came back with two cups of tea - milk for his, two sugars for her.

She took it with a smile of thanks, though it faded rapidly.

Ben dragged a chair from the kitchen table to sit across from her. He sat down so fast he nearly scalded himself with his tea.

'I...' He stopped and licked his dry lips, his dry mouth. 'I thought you'd be leaving for your honeymoon.'

She frowned and slid her tea onto the coffee table, then reached into one of the carrier bags and brought out a bag of familiar jam-filled donuts, then set them next to her tea, flicking the sticker open with a finger.

'Do I look married?'

She reached into the bag and brought out the first donut with carefully spaced fingers, the tip of each nail pristine with a fresh French manicure.

And Ben realised--there was no ring on her finger, wedding or engagement. There was only a pinched-in circle where one had once sat, slightly paler than the rest of her hand.

_Did they have to cut it off?_

In those weak moments Ben had thought of Tessa, particularly Tessa as she might have been, all but a shut-in in her own home, he'd imagined her huge, massive, pinned by her own weight to the floor. It had stopped being erotic at this point, especially because even in his head Guy was still lurking in the background, rubbing his hands and laughing maniacally. Not to mention that it would have made Tessa absolutely miserable.

So no, she wasn't that big. But was she bigger?

He wasn't sure. He hadn't expected this. Her: here, in his flat, the night of her wedding. Plump and rolling and like a dream, just as stunning as ever. He also hadn't expected her to be this...well...thin. Not that she was. Certainly not. But had she gained a pound since she quit her job and submitted to her fiance's desires? It didn't look like it. On the contrary, it looked like she had lost weight. Not a lot. Just a little. A few rebellious pounds lost for...what? To show Guy that he couldn't control her? To prove something? To show that she could?

The sight of it - the sight of her - filled Ben with simultaneous feelings of triumph and disappointment.

She finished her donut in three neat bites, then reached into the bag for another.

_She's not married,_ Ben thought, the fact not quite sinking in. He still didn't understand.

'So?' Ben asked.

She slid her empty left hand to her deflated belly as she licked sugar from the corner of her lips.

'What happened?' she asked. She smiled, just a ghost of one. 'I didn't get married.'

'Why?' Ben asked. His throat was dry. He tried to clear it but it only made it worse. He took a sip of his tea, which tasted suddenly bitter.

'Do you want one reason?' she asked, dark eyes set directly on him, not blinking. 'Or all of them?'

Ben scooted forward in his chair. He took another sip of tea.

'Let's start with one,' he said.

He couldn't take his eyes from her lovely face: her bright eyes, her lips, her sweet, soft chin, the sugar once more on her lips as she finished off her second donut like it was nothing, like she was starving. Ben braved a look into her gaping carrier bag and spotted several more packs of cakes, biscuits, various bakery goods and fried treats.

He sat up a bit straighter, a bit stiffer...confused, wonderfully confused.

'We wanted different things,' Tessa said.

'A career,' Ben said.

'Or immobility,' Tessa responded with a nod. 'In fantasy? Sure. In real life? No, thank you.'

Ben nodded his agreement.

'Second,' Tessa said, counting off Guy's transgressions on a sugar-dusted finger. 'I didn't want to feel like I'd owe him for the rest of my life. He was sweet when my mother died. He's not a hero.'

Ben nodded again, trying not to agree to fervently unless she took that for a sign that he thought she was an idiot for sticking with Guy for so long. Besides, he was getting a bit light headed, and still couldn't quite believe she was hear, with him, on his sofa, on her wedding day. With _him_.

She was proverbially falling into his lap, surely. His decision was made for him. It took heartache and despair, but here she was. And he hadn't had to do anything.

Suck on that, Maria.

'And before the last thing,' Tessa said, grimacing in a way that made the light headedness evaporate and Ben's stomach drop. 'I need to tell you something.'

Ben wiped his hand on his trousers. 'Yeah?'

'I'm leaving,' she said.

Ben blinked. 'Oh,' he said. 'But you already-'

'I'm leaving London,' she said. She sat on her hands, though her eyes momentarily found the four remaining donuts. 'I'm going back to Durham. They're letting me finish my course.'

'Tess...' Ben struggled for words. 'That's...that's _amazing_.'

'That's not what Guy said.'

'Fuck Guy.'

Tessa allowed him a little sideways smile, then took another donut.

'You really think so?' she said. 'You don't think I'm an idiot for trying again, after everything?'

'I was hoping you would,' Ben said. He meant it, he really did. He was aching, his brain simultaneously trying to measure the distance between Durham and London in miles, hours, and train fare, but he didn't care. Truly. The smile said it all.

'Tess,' Ben said. 'I'm so proud of you.'

She blushed and finished off her third donut, then pulled a box of Jaffa cakes from her bag.

She slid it onto the table by her mug, then looked up at Ben, sliding her fingers back beneath her plump thighs.

'Ben,' she said. 'That last thing...the reason I didn't marry him.'

Ben's heart was beating in his ears. His tongue was sticking to the roof of his mouth. Somewhere in the depths of the flat, Bill was coughing up a hairball onto a rug. He didn't care. It was happening. Something so much better than those secret hours, than the eroticism of their feedings. Connection. Potential. What he'd always, always wanted.

'I love you,' he said at last, and it was like every grey concrete bit of him had broken apart. He'd wanted to say it before she did, and he had. For the first time in his life, he'd pulled up his trousers and did what he was always too afraid to do. Said it forthright: 'I love you, Tessa.'

Tessa, for her part, only blushed harder, and busied herself with the flap of the box.

'I love you, too,' she said quietly to her tea. Only then did she look up at him and say it again, so he could hear her properly: 'I love you, too.'

Ben was grinning like an idiot. And suddenly Tessa was, too. And there was a coffee table between them, and two mugs of cooling tea.

Neither of them made a move. Maybe they didn't have to. Maybe there didn't need to be a heated embrace - not now, not with everything that had happened, not with Tessa's separation from her fiancé so fresh. Ben sat where he was, quite sure that, for once, his inaction was not cowardice, but the right thing to do.

'It's a long way, Durham,' Tessa said. 'I'm not going to be back often.'

'I know,' Ben said.

'And I've heard from someone that you used up your holiday for the year.'

Maria, Ben thought, with a sudden rush of affection for his friend. He suddenly wondered whether she'd played therapist to both of them, and whether or not they'd both be here right now without her, however delayed it was.

'It might be a while before we see each other, when I leave,' Tessa added.

'We'll have to make the most of it now, then,' Ben said.

She bent forward, belly bunching, breasts swelling, pink face the happiest Ben had ever seen it, and pulled open the wrapping around the tube of Jaffa cakes.

Then she turned to the bag and brought out fairy cakes, eclairs, Swiss roll and chocolates; ginger cake, roulade, Dairy Milk and midget gems. Finally, a bag of Doritos, and a two litre of full fat coke. They sat on the table like a banquet, and Tessa sat there plump with potential, vibrant with energy, and finally, in her own way, _his_.

'I'm starving,' she said, sitting back on the sofa, folding her hands neatly in her bulging lap.

Ben slid so far forward he almost fell from his chair. He picked up the tube of Jaffa cakes, the cellophane feeling almost unreal in his hand.

He unstuck his tongue and bolstered his courage:

'May I feed you?' he said.

She grinned, chin doubling. 'I thought you'd never ask.'