Chapter 55: Option Three

BEN

-- THURSDAY, JULY 2, 2009 --

No.

Dawn’s words hung in the air between us, letters taking visible form in ALL CAPS that flickered neon pink. And the longer I gawked at them with wide eyes, the bigger and bigger the question mark on the end became as it wobbled left and right and got closer and closer and closer to me.

Only then did I blink and pull my head back, and then blink a few times more. Each blink was like a dried-out whiteboard eraser streaking most of the letters off the board but not all, and I must’ve blinked a dozen times before the letters were entirely gone.

Also gone was the smile from Dawn’s face. She stared up at me with pretty big eyes herself, an expression of shock freely running across her face as if she couldn’t believe she’d asked that question herself.

Eventually, I found my voice. “I’m confused. Am I supposed to say, ‘Yes, I’ll marry you’? Or am I supposed to pull out, grab my clothes, and angrily stomp back to camp muttering about you being a stupid fucking moron?”

Still wide-eyed, Dawn covered her gaping mouth with her right hand. Her eyes searched mine and she read my expression. A moment later, she winced and gave me a look that said nervously, You’re mad.

I sighed and shook my head, my expression now saying, ‘I’m not mad. A little confused, but not mad. I love you. I’ll always love you.’

But you don’t want to marry me.

‘I’m not convinced you want to marry ME.’

“Of course I want to marry you!”

The sudden sound of Dawn’s actual voice breaking the silence jerked my head back, as did the vehemence in her tone. Those neon pink letters took visible form in ALL CAPS between us: OF COURSE I WANT TO MARRY YOU, and I started to wonder if this wasn’t a dream. After all, neon pink letters don’t take visible form in thin air.

“I’ve always wanted to marry you,” she whimpered aloud. “From the time I first knew what marriage was, I’ve wanted to be married to you. You’re my best friend. You’re my first lover. You’re the man of my dreams. You’re the man of my reality. You own my heart, have always owned my heart, and will own my heart for all eternity. You’re my soulmate. We belong together, have always belonged together, and I will do EVERYTHING in my power to ensure we NEVER get separated again!”

Her volume had gone WAY up at the end there, with such raw depth of emotion that I instinctively knew I had to focus on that. “You can’t lose me again,” I stated in understanding. “You still feel the fear of losing me.”

“I CAN’T lose you again,” she sobbed, suddenly crying. “I just CAN’T.”

“I’m not going anywhere. Haven’t I made clear that you’re one of the pillars of my existence? -I- will do everything in my power to ensure we never get separated again.”

“That’s good to know.” Dawn sniffled. “That’s why I know you’ll marry someone else.”

I blinked twice and then furrowed my eyebrows. “Ten seconds ago you insisted that you wanted to marry me and now you’re saying you know I’ll marry someone else.”

“That’s right.”

I sighed. “I feel like I’m getting mixed messages here.”

Dawn closed her eyes and planted both hands over her face. She took deep, shuddering breaths before shaking her head slowly and then reaching up to wrap her arms around my shoulders. I was still buried inside her, our mingled orgasmic fluids soaking into her womb, and she raised both legs to wrap them around my lower back and clutch me to her chest with all four limbs.

I wound up with my forehead planted onto the blanket while Dawn twisted to kiss my cheek. She whimpered and sighed, relaxing for just a moment before squeezing me with all four limbs again. And I patiently waited her out, letting her process for a moment.

But eventually I couldn’t wait her out any longer and I pushed upright so I could stare down at her again. “You can’t deflect me anymore,” I said softly. “Not here. Not in this place. You promised me at Golden Gate Park last Sunday that you’d talk all I wanted once we got to our clearing.”

“I know...” she sighed, exhaling slowly and then taking a few more deep breaths.

“Look, I’m really tired of you being a shitty communicator, alright? I’m REALLY tired of telling you my true feelings and then having you call me a fucking moron while walking away.”

“You ARE a fucking moron because you never listen to me.”

“I’d listen if you stuck around to talk.” Planting my right elbow, I leaned over to rub my forehead. “Look, I’m not trying to pick a fight with you. You’ve made absolutely clear that you’re one hundred percent opposed to getting legally married with the government paperwork and all. But every time I try to talk to you about it, you shut me down, call me a moron, and get mad at me for bringing it up.”

“I get mad at you for bringing it up because there’s nothing new to say. You keep saying you want to talk, but you already know all the answers.”

“Sometimes talking isn’t about finding out the answers. Sometimes talking is just about sharing and support and finding the meaning behind the answers.”

“I’m tired of defending my Oath of Ben-ogamy.”

“I’m not questioning that anymore. I have faith in you to make your own choices.”

“I’m tired of trying to explain why I don’t want to get married.”

“Because whether or not I would actually raise my expectations of you should you become my government-titled wife, YOU would raise your expectations of yourself, put additional pressure on yourself, and then stress out over the pressure and worry whether or not you’d crack.”

“See? You DO already know why I don’t want to get married.”

“Of course I know why. What I want to do is help you get over that fear.”

“To what end? So that we could finally get married?”

“Married or not, the only end I need is your happiness.”

“I AM happy with our best friends relationship.”

“So am I.”

“Then WHY do we keep having this same fucking circular conversation about whether or not we should get married?!?”

I stared down into my soulmate’s eyes, searching them for the truth. “Because deep down, you really do want to marry me. That’s why you asked me five seconds after we came together, right? You said you think about it fifteen times a day.”

She pursed her lips. “I do.”

For a brief moment, my heart seized up. I imagined standing at the altar with Dawn dolled up in a white dress, the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen at the most beautiful moment I’d ever seen her. I imagined the officiant asking, ‘Do you take this man... ‘ blah blah blah and her replying, ‘I do.’

It was my dream.

It was her dream.

It was OUR dream.

But I realized it was a dream that could never take place.

We could never get married.

Dawn had made clear that she could never be settled until -I- had finally settled down and gotten married. So there were only two ways to resolve our current impasse. No, three. There were three.

Option One: Marry Dawn. Done. Our dream together finally fulfilled. United body, soul, and spirit for all eternity. ‘Til death do us part. Happily Ever After. The End.

“We can’t get married. Not on paper. Not for real,” Dawn stated seriously, as if she could read my mind. “I never should’ve asked that question. The orgasms made me lose my head for a moment, but we both know Option One isn’t happening.”

“I know.” I took a deep breath and sighed, having already come to that realization myself. “I know.”

“So that’s why we need to go with Option Two,” Dawn began. “You marry Summer or Adrienne or Sasha or June or even frikkin’ Penny. I need you settled down and married to someone else so that the option of marrying you gets taken away and there’s no more angst about it anymore. Because as long as you stay unmarried, as long as I know that you and I could, I’ll never be settled myself.”

“Not happening.” I shook my head. “Not anytime soon, at least. Summer and I aren’t that far along enough in our relationship for me to seriously consider her as my forever wife. At the very least, we need to put some distance between ourselves and Yvaine’s death to put to rest any doubt that I was marrying her out of guilt. And I don’t have that kind of romantic relationship with any of the others for marriage to even be on my radar.”

“Not even Adrienne?”

I took a deep breath and shook my head. “Summer’s my girlfriend.”

Dawn pursed her lips. “So we’re stuck in this limbo until you and Summer get there ... eventually. I’m caught in this purgatory ... unable to marry you but unable to move on until you get married.”

I shook my head. “There’s an Option Three.”

Dawn silently arched an eyebrow.

“We get off the hamster wheel,” I explained.

Dawn blinked. “That statement didn’t make things clearer.”

Taking a deep breath, I did a full pushup, pulled out, and sat back on my butt. Crossing my legs and planting my elbows on my knees, I interlaced my fingers in front of me and gave my best friend a serious look.

“The answer is ‘no’,” I stated plainly. “You asked me right after we came together if I’d marry you, and do you know what my first thought was? It was ‘no’. Seriously, your question hung in the air in front of me as neon pink letters in all caps, and my very first thought was ‘no’.”

“Wait, what?” Sitting up straight herself, Dawn frowned as brought both knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. “You’d turn me down?”

“I DID turn you down. Honestly, that shouldn’t come as such a surprise, right? I’ve asked you to marry me, or at least at Valentine’s I didn’t ask, but I told you that I wanted to work with you towards getting to that point. Not anymore. I’ve come to realize what we mean to each other ... and what we don’t. We’re best friends. We’re soulmates. You’re a pillar of my existence and I’ll do everything in my power to ensure we never get separated again. As partners. As siblings. As ... twins.”

“Twins?”

“Maybe the word ‘twins’ isn’t quite accurate, except for Eden and Emma. But we’re definitely pair-bonded: you and me, Brooke and DJ, Brandi and Dayna. We’ve both been saying it all along, but in the back of our heads we always kept the option open to getting married. None of them are gonna get married to each other, but we clung to the possibility solely because I’m a guy. This is California. Nothing’s stopping any of them from getting married to each other if they wanted.”

“None of them are actually gay.”

I shook my head. “Doesn’t matter. I don’t want to be married to you. Even if you wanted us to be a real husband and wife, -I- don’t want you to be my wife.”

Dawn turned pale. “You don’t mean that.”

“I totally mean that. I mean, I get that I was always the more romantic dreamer of the two of us. I was the one who wanted picket fence houses and 2.5 kids and all that. I know you’ve probably spent the past year assuming that if you ever got over your aversion to being married on paper, that you could ask me for real and I’d obviously say ‘yes’. But the answer is ‘no’. I’m taking us both off this hamster wheel for our own good. You asked me to marry you. The answer is: No, I don’t want to marry you. Ever.”

Dawn couldn’t have looked more shocked if I’d physically slapped her. Her mouth gaped open like a fish and waggled up and down before she finally managed to choke out, “How can you say that?”

“Because when you stop and think about it, we are NOT a good fit for each other. Look at all the angst we’re going through right now. Look at how badly our relationship has deteriorated in the past year with this uncertainty hanging over our heads. This same time last year, our relationship was great.”

“Because I was your de facto girlfriend, your constant, spending most nights in bed with you even though I officially lived in The Birdhouse. Adrienne and Sasha were still in San Francisco. You weren’t letting Summer into your life just yet. And Eden hadn’t started her Secret Girlfriend period yet.”

“No. It was because I felt utter and complete honesty from you,” I corrected. “It wasn’t about time together or the frequency of sharing my bed or even the presence of other girls in my life. I loved that period of our relationship because I felt like I could ask you anything and know you’d give me a straight answer instead of deflecting.”

“Name one question I haven’t been able to give you a straight answer for.”

“You mean like the ‘Why won’t you marry me?’ question?”

Dawn pursed her lips and averted her gaze.

“We were better off last year, but it feels like we’ve been going downhill ever since. The needle in the back of my head after I caught you with Summer. Our fights over your Ben-ogamy. Your little test telling me you’d slept with Bert.” I sighed and shook my head. “Let’s face it: our relationship has gone to shit lately.”

Dawn’s eyes were big and she was shaking her head sideways. “No, no. Our relationship has been fine. I love you. You love me. We still talk and make love and if I could just get over ... I mean ... We could totally still make it work, couldn’t we? How can you say our relationship has gone to shit?”

“Okay that’s probably over exaggerating it. But you certainly can’t say our relationship is the best it’s ever been.”

“Is it the distance thing?” Dawn was breathing hard. “Like, the fact that I’ve been spending weekday nights at my parents’ house?”

“No, not really. I mean sure, I’d love to have you around more often, but I wouldn’t say that our relationship is worse than before just because you took your internship. I’m not complaining about the amount of time we spend together.”

“Then what ARE you complaining about?”

“Let’s start with you always calling me a ‘stupid fucking moron’. Great way to demonstrate our relationship is just amazing,” I mocked sarcastically.

Dawn winced, put a hand to her forehead, and rubbed it. “I’m sorry about that. I ... I’m sorry...”

“Apology accepted. I probably should’ve said something sooner. It never really bothered me until I stopped to think about it and sorta realized, ‘Hey, that’s not right.’”

“I’m sorry,” she repeated.

I waved her off. “It just feels like ... ever since I came back from New York to your little test to see how I’d react to you having sex with Bert, we’ve both been a bit on autopilot. We had our little talk about expectations, you promised you wouldn’t try to sort out your demons on your own but would instead ask for help from the people who cared about you, and ... that was it. Summer became my girlfriend, you took a step back from being my constant, and ... and that’s it.”

“And you’re calling that ‘our relationship going to shit’?” Dawn flung both hands out at me. “I took a step back to give your relationship with Summer room to breathe and grow! Didn’t the tension about my Ben-ogamy go away? We still spend a lot of time together when I’m not in Cupertino. We still make love when we’re alone, and it’s just as amazing as ever. We fuck like bunnies with the girls. We have our quiet conversations about your relationships with the others. And we still have those moments when I feel like I can hear your thoughts in my head and vice versa!”

“We do. And I cherish those.”

“And you know I’ll readily drop everything in a heartbeat for you and come rushing when you need me.”

“I do know that. When Toby first showed up at The Nest, you dropped everything to be here for us, even blitzing the Seventh Circle of Hell known as Bay Area Rush Hour Traffic each day. Likewise, you’ve been nothing but supportive of me and Summer ever since we lost Yvaine. You’ve been great. Really great.”

Dawn whimpered, looking stricken. And in the back of my mind I heard her asking, Why are you saying that word like it means the exact opposite of great?

‘No, I’m not.’

Yes, you are.

I sighed and shook my head. “We’re on autopilot right now. No major issues. Nothing to fight about. We’re still best friends, even if we’re the kind of best friends who remain best friends despite not spending nearly as much time together as we used to, but that’s not a BAD thing.”

Dawn grimaced and gave me a look that clearly said, And yet you say that like it IS a bad thing.

‘It’s definitely not a GOOD thing,’ I silently insisted.

Dawn shook her head, the first teardrops rolling down her cheeks. “I thought things were going great. You and I stopped having endless circular conversations about whether or not I might ever have sex with another man. I felt a warm sense of comfort in you every time we were together, and I never felt angst when we were apart.”

I sighed again. “Because we’ve spent the last year avoiding all the serious issues. We haven’t been able to talk to each other.”

“We talk all the time,” she insisted.

“About other people. About what’s going on in our daily lives. You don’t talk to me about you. And despite your promise to confide in others rather than sort out your demons on your own, when I ask Summer and Adrienne ... you’re always deflecting them, too.”

She vehemently shook her head. “Why do you wanna stir up all that crap? Why are you rocking the boat?”

“Why are you being chickenshit? You can’t keep bottling this stuff up inside. You promised me you wouldn’t bottle this stuff up inside. The whole point of getting you to talk to Adrienne and Summer ... or even a therapist like Iris ... is to get you to stop trying to hide your root perfectionist issues and actually share with me, discuss with me, and have faith in me to work together to overcome them. But clearly that’s still not happening.”

“Because we’ve had other shit going on, alright? This isn’t the time! Summer just lost her mom. -I- lost one of my best friends!”

I blinked. “Is THAT it? Have I not done enough to support you in grieving over Yvaine?”

“No, no...” Dawn grimaced and bowed her head, planting her forehead on her knees before sighing. “You’ve had enough on your plate supporting Summer.”

“Doesn’t mean you need to shoulder your burdens on your own. We’re your friends. I’m supposed to be your best friend. You’re supposed to be able to share anything and everything with me, not hold back the really important stuff because you’re worried about stirring up shit or rocking the boat.”

“I don’t ... It’s not that ... Ben, please understand, I can’t--”

“You can’t lose me. You’re terrified of losing me. You’ve forgotten how to be ‘unafraid’.”

She shook her head firmly. “I was never NOT unafraid. That was your word, not mine. I can’t believe that Destiny will save us no matter what. I know I have to work at it, have to do better, have to BE better.”

“That’s Perfect Dawn talking again.”

“I know I’m not perfect. I’m not trying to be perfect.” Her voice cracked, and her next words came as a whisper, “I’m just trying to be good enough.”

“Then let me help you be good enough, because in plain simple fact, I agree with you: You’re NOT good enough. Right now? You’re not. You hide too many things from me. You deflect instead of making the effort to communicate. You gaslight me and call me a stupid fucking moron and then walk away instead of sitting down and talking to me. You bottle up your emotions under a veneer of ‘everything’s alright’ and ‘I can handle it myself’. You paired me up with a diagnosed co-dependent to distract me, took an internship that keeps you out of town every week, and secretly pine away for me wishing you felt good enough to marry me while bald-faced lying that you were a hundred percent opposed to marrying me!”

“That’s not a lie!” Fresh hot tears splashed down on her cheeks.

“It’s a mathematical certainty that it’s a lie when you claim a hundred percent while simultaneously saying you think about marrying me fifteen times a day and then asking me to marry you five minutes ago! So that’s why I’m making this simple! Zero percent likelihood of us getting married. The answer is NO. I don’t want a wife that hides shit from me, alright? I don’t want a wife who’s afraid to tell me her deepest, darkest secrets. I don’t want a wife who’s gonna call me a stupid fucking moron instead of trying to work with me!”

“Ben, please.” A few hot tears had become a stream.

“I’m not saying I don’t love you. I’m not saying I’m going to cut you off or anything stupid like that. It’s just that what we’re going through right now highlights why the whole question of ‘Will we or won’t we finally get over our issues and finally get married?’ needs to be put to rest. It’s getting in the way. The angst ... the anxiety ... the uncertainty of our relationship status? That shit needs to go.” I shook my head firmly. “We were better off last year. I could tell you anything. YOU could tell me anything. Hell, we could have foursomes and moresomes with Brooke and Andrew, and yes I realize I need to not go off on that tangent because I don’t want to get into another argument about Ben-ogamy. But the reality is that our relationship was better the way it was last year, and that it’s totally gone to shit ever since.”

“Ben ... please...” By now, Dawn was crying a river.

The fire inside me fled. The anger that had built up instantly cooled like lava pouring into the ocean. The resulting steam flooded up through my body and then out my flared nostrils, but as I sighed my shoulders relaxed, and I let it go.

“I’m not trying to punish you,” I told her quietly. “I’m not trying to hold up marrying me as a reward if only you’d mend your evil ways. It’s just ... marriage doesn’t make sense for us. Throughout the entire history of our relationship together, we’ve always functioned better as best friends. Intimate best friends, yes, but still just best friends. Trying to be boyfriend/girlfriend twice nearly ruined us. The first one you ended up leaving me for Ryan. The second one ended in the Dawnpocalypse. You’ve been right to want to hold back on making things official. This current tension has been MY fault. I’m the one to blame. You knew we were better off not being formally romantic and insisted we should never get married, and I’m the one who told you on Valentine’s that I wanted to marry you. Well it’s finally time I agreed with you.”

She shook her head slowly, clearly disagreeing with me, but I pressed on.

“This isn’t the end. We’re going to work this out. I want to fix our relationship, not destroy it. The way we do that is by getting off this hamster wheel of wondering whether or not we’ll get back together as an official couple. Option Three it is: zero percent. Not happening. Only then can we move forward.”

Dawn looked like I’d stabbed her in the heart, pulled out the knife, drizzled the blade in lemon juice, and then stabbed her a half-dozen more times. Tears were pouring down her cheeks, and when I took a deep breath, I realized that tears were pouring down mine as well. I hadn’t even noticed I’d started crying.

“I want my best friend back, my constant,” I continued. “You’re still the Air That I Breathe. I’ll still love you ‘til death do us part, but as my partner, as my ‘twin’. I want the bond we used to have before the romance shit got in the way. I want to be able to tell you anything. And I not only want to know that you can tell me anything, but to know that you will tell me anything.”

By now, Dawn had bent forward and braced her forehead on her knees. She kept sobbing and shuddering, unable to find the strength to respond. I didn’t have the heart to keep going, so I sighed, rolled up onto my knees, and crawled forward.

Spreading my legs, I scooched myself up behind her in a spooning position and pressed my chest against Dawn’s bare back. I wrapped my arms around her, giving her a fiercely tight hug. She continued sobbing and shuddering for what felt like a long while, and I knew I’d hurt her badly, right down to her very soul.

And yet I couldn’t help but also feel like I’d done the right thing. I kept using the phrase “hamster wheel”, which I’d long associated with telling DJ outside our Lake Tahoe cabin that she couldn’t be in love with me anymore because I’d always choose Dawn over her. I knew then that I’d hurt DJ just as badly, and probably even more. But I’d also felt a sense of conviction doing so.

And I felt that same sense right now.

I loved Dawn and I knew she loved me. Here ... in our special clearing ... there were so many memories of our life together: Our first kiss. My first handjob. The first time I put my mouth on her pussy. The first time she put her mouth on my dick.

I remembered the non-sexual moments: talking about her boyfriends, talking about my girlfriends, catching up on each other’s lives after being apart for eleven months out of the year, and simply holding each other in our arms.

I remembered the fights and the arguments. I remembered wicked hot makeup sex. And I remembered inviting our sisters to join us here as well.

I remembered the good times and the bad times away from this special clearing. I remembered Dawn giving me her virginity on her bunk. I remembered kneeling on the floor hurling my guts out when I’d thought she’d slept with Professor Rutledge for a grade. I remembered Dayna’s blindfold party and Dawn briefly sucking my dick when she thought I couldn’t see her. I remembered her singing My Valentine to me while dressed as Emma Frost’s silver-haired White Queen. And I remembered her raining overhead downward hammer beats against my forearms while she screamed at me for daring to suggest we someday get married.

That last one steeled my resolve. Option Three had hurt her; I knew that. Option Three meant realizing we’d never be husband and wife the way we’d always wanted back when we were young and naïve. But it was better this way. We didn’t need that anxiety in our lives anymore. We didn’t need those fears fucking up our perfectly good best friends relationship.

We didn’t need the expectations of a relationship weighing us down.

There was nothing left to say. No more words.

None were needed.

Now, all my Dawn needed was my love. All she needed was the reassurance that we hadn’t irreparably damaged our relationship. All she needed was to know I would always be here for her, no matter what. All she needed was to understand that our future together was NOT dependent on any promise of marriage or Happily Ever After.

She’d said it herself: we couldn’t depend on Destiny to keep us together. We had to work at it, and work at it we would. Today was the first step: letting go of the dream. Waking up to the uncomfortable reality that we really were better off as best friends. Getting over that initial heartache and instinctive reflex to not wanna let go.

But we had to let go.

I held her in my arms and willed her with my mind to understand, and as the minutes marched on, her breathing slowed and her shuddering stopped. The rivers of tears dried up, and she turned her head to set her moist left cheek down on her knee. I kissed her shoulder and then set my right cheek down on it so that when she pulled her gaze back towards me, she could look into my eyes.

I gave her a warm smile of reassurance. ‘I’m still here,’ I told her. ‘And I’ll never, ever leave you.’

I know, she told me in return. I know.

My smile broadened, and I started to think everything would be alright.

But not quite yet. Dawn’s face scrunched up in a grimace of pain.

And then the rivers of tears started flowing again.

Eventually Dawn calmed down again, and this time she rolled forward out of my embrace and went over to my backpack to fish out a few napkins to use as tissues to wipe her eyes and blow her nose. After that, we both got dressed in silence and then sat back down side-by-side, facing the creek.

Neither of us spoke for a long while. There were no words yet. None were needed. I wrapped my left arm around her lower back and she set her right hand on my thigh. After perhaps ten minutes she took a deep breath, told me I was right, and understood that our relationship had been strained for a long time, although she definitely disagreed with my use of the phrase “gone to shit”.

I wasn’t entirely sure how much I believed her. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d put on a brave face while hiding her true emotions from me, which just sorta proved my point that we were NOT on the same page anymore.

But rather than push her at a time when we both felt emotionally wrung-out, I let it go. We both got dressed and we packed up for the short hike back to camp so that we could rejoin the others. Knowing how special The Clearing was to me and Dawn, the group had collectively agreed to give us this morning alone together, but we’d told them we’d be back before lunch and agreed to rendezvous at the main cabin by 11:30am.