Whenever I wonder "how could I be with him" about Ben, it's in a completely different way than I wondered about Dahlia (though, admittedly, I thought many times that Dahlia might be wondering the same thing about me that I wondered about Ben - assuming any of it was ever real).
Dahlia turned out to be something frightening, sure, but from the outside she was perfect. Not just physically, even if it's true that she was flawless, but she came off as brilliantly sincere.
Ben never appeared to be perfect to me.
He was twenty-five when I met him. Tall, with a slightly hunched back and no definition. If I remember right, he'd already started balding by then, but often concealed it with combovers and hats. He wasn't ugly by any means - the sharp nose and deep brown eyes suited his features well - but he wasn't the type that you looked at and just fell for.
The moment I confessed to Kat that he had come on to me, she crinkled her nose.
"Don't tell me you went for it."
She had never approved of Ben. She disliked his attitude - a pseudo-intellectualism that he pushed across by being wordy and asserting his authority. She had commented more than once that he was an expert in nothing but entertainment, and that he didn't even understand most of that. I don't think I really noticed at first, even though I eventually realized she was right - Ben knew very little, but always offered up a lot.
I never saw him much during the day. Like a lot of highschool graduates in the area, he had settled into a retail job and didn't bother with any more education. It gave Kat time to talk about him.
I really wish I had spent more time listening, especially because of that night.
Because when he asked, "Are you in the game?" I would have just said no.
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