LOVE TO HATE YOU

I love you. Okay. Whatever.

JJ was right about one thing, accepting help had always been hard for me—Especially financial help. It always made me feel inferior, and I hated feeling like that. I hated feeling like I couldn't do it all, that I couldn't fix it all myself. To accept money meant that I would have to accept who I really was. And that would mean having to accept what people had once called me at school, 'poor trailer trash'.

I'd been so determined to prove them all wrong, to prove that I could rise above my situation, no matter how bad it was. But this had come at a terrible cost for me: A hand-to-mouth existence, debt up to my eyeballs, no savings and nothing to call my own—except a car that I might as well trade in for scrap.

It was also hard for me to accept that Bruce and JJ wanted to do this for me because they considered me family. My idea of family was not like that at all. Families destroy, they don't help. They break things, they don't fix them. They are cruel and hurtful and do more harm than good. I was determined to break that cycle with my sister. But, more than that, I felt that I needed to do it on my own, to prove to the world and especially to my father, that he hadn't broken me.

Going to Ben's place now felt like the last thing on earth I wanted to do. Knowing Ben, with his magical spidey sense, he would know something was up the second I walked through the door—Which, of course he did.

"What's wrong?" he asked after we got into his apartment. He'd come back with a bag full of chocolates, which I'd started digging into the second he handed it to me. I barely tasted anything as I unwrapped two bars at once, taking bites out of both at the same time—I even shoveled a few M&M's into my mouth for good measure.

"Have the chocolates done something to offend you?" Ben said with a slight smile. I shook my head.

"I think I just had a fight with JJ and Bruce"—Mars Bar smashed. Kit-Kat gone. Next?

"Really?" he sounded surprised. So was I. I was more than surprised. I was downright floored.

"First fight we've ever had," I said and stopped eating. I felt sick—Too much, too fast.

"What was it about?" he asked leaning in and wiping a smudge of chocolate off my face.

I scoffed and rolled my eyes. "They said I don't accept help. That I take on too much." I held my stomach as it made a kind of grumbling noise in rebellion over the sugar assault.

"They're right."

"What?"—Great. Was Ben in on this too now?

"Remember your car? And how you are at work?"

"Work?" Suddenly I felt attacked—Had the three of them had some kind of secret conference and decided to have a go at me today?

"I've watched you. You do other people's work instead of letting them do their part. You take on way too much. That's why you're there first and leave last." Ben slid into the seat next to me, "Don't get me wrong. It's an admirable quality. I wish more of my staff were like that, but it's too much. You have to let others help you."

I stared at him, startled. I'd almost forgotten Ben was my boss. That thought had somehow escaped my mind somewhere along the way.

"That day you came to work upset, and I asked you what was wrong, you didn't talk to me about it. Maybe I could've helped? Even if it was just to listen while you ranted?"

Now I was more convinced than ever that Ben had chatted to the guys. I didn't like this, and I certainly didn't need it from Ben too. But he continued...

"Sometimes you walk around with a dark cloud looming over your head. If you just let people in...," Ben said trying to reach over and take my hand. I pulled it away quickly.

I was furious.

"Jesus. I can't believe you're also on my case. I didn't expect this from you. Did you and the guys have some kind of secret meeting? Did you all agree to give me shit about this? Because I don't really need this right now, okay? I came here thinking that we were going to have a perfect, romantic, amazing night together after the day we had, which was awesome, by the way. I certainly wasn't expecting this. Now I'm angry and shouting when I was sure I was going to be telling you that I loved you and—"

I stopped myself—I said it—I hadn't meant to say it like that. I'd had such different expectations for this moment and now it had come out clumped together in an angry rant.

"Could you repeat that last part?" Ben asked with a smile that practically lit up his whole face, "I'm not sure I heard it."

I blushed at the thought of repeating myself. " I said I love you. Okay. Whatever." I shrugged, as if that would some how make the statement seem more casual—It wasn't. It was definitely one of the most 'un-casual' things I'd ever said.

Ben leaned towards me with that dangerous twinkle in his eye, "Okay?...Whatever?" he asked.

"No. Not whatever. Okay?" I chuckled at the absolute lameness of that sentence and tried again. "I've fallen in love with you, Ben. I'm in love with you." I felt so vulnerable saying those words out loud.

Ben didn't say a word; instead, he stood up and took me by the hand, pulling me to my feet and marched me down the corridor towards his bedroom.