“Ribbon, string, little pieces of lace. Candles.”
“Wasn’t that a fire hazard?”
“Probably. Sometimes we’d string popcorn, and once we strung berries, but it was a mess.”
“And you had gifts, I assume.”
“Sure, although not as many. My dad usually gave us candy. Toffee and peppermint.”
“They make peppermint Life Savers.”
Ben’s eyes lit up. “Does that mean you’ll bring me peppermint for Christmas?”
“Maybe,” Jason said.
They both knew he meant yes.
Jason woke December twenty-second to find Ben staring out the bedroom window. Normally the sun would have been shining in, washing away the top half of Ben’s image, but not this time. The sky was overcast and gray, and Ben’s expression was equally gloomy.
“Hey,” Jason said gently as he grabbed the globe to wind the music box.
Ben turned, trying to force a smile, but Jason knew it wasn’t sincere. “You’re awake.”
“I am. Is everything okay?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?”
“I think you’re lying. Something’s been bothering you lately.”
Ben’s smile fell. “It’s nothing.”
“Why won’t you tell me?”
Ben bit his lip, but his only answer was another question. “Will you take me outside?”
“Anything.”
Jason took the globe out right away, setting it on the veranda steps so Ben could wander through the front lawn. It was too cold to be out in his pajama pants though, so Jason went back inside and got dressed while his coffee brewed. He put on his coat and shoved his cell phone into his pocket—if Ben wanted to walk by himself, Jason would at least be able to check his email and browse the web. When he went back out, he found Ben sitting on the wooden steps of the veranda. Jason sank down next to him, coffee cup in his hands.
“Tell me what’s wrong.” Ben shook his head without meeting his eyes, and Jason set his coffee aside in order to wind the music box. “Talk to me.”
“It’s nothing. I’m just in a bit of a punk right now—”
“I think you mean a ‘funk.’”
Ben sighed, sounding utterly defeated. “A funk, then. And I know I shouldn’t be. These last couple of months have been the greatest days of my life, but I can’t stop thinking . . .” His voice wavered, and he stopped, biting his lip.
“Can’t stop thinking what?”
“It nothing. I’m being selfish.”
“Stop telling me it’s nothing. It’s clearly something.”
Ben took a deep breath—or appeared to, although it reminded Jason of the fact that Ben didn’t actually breathe. “I keep thinking about how unfair this all is, and how you have a life, and you’ve put it on hold for me, but I can’t expect you to do that forever. And someday you’ll get tired of me—”
“I won’t.”
“You will. Don’t you see? You have a job, and I know you deny it, but it’s you, Jason. It’s your whole life. You’re so gifted, and deep down, I know you love it. I know you’ll never be happy without acting. And no matter what else happens, whether you go back to acting or not, you’re going to keep on living. You’re going to keep on aging. You’re going to meet somebody else—somebody real—and fall in love and get married, and you’ll grow old with that person and die, and I’ll still be here. Except the best days will be gone. No matter how good they are now, no matter how grateful I am to have them, I’ll never top this. I’ll never get to have anything like this again—”
“Wait. Stop. You’re going way too fast. None of that’s true—”
“It is. Oh God, Jason, don’t you see? I’ve been so happy, and I want to keep being happy, but I’m so afraid—”
Brrrring.
“Shit!” Jason swore, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket. “Worst timing ever.” And then, seeing the hurt expression on Ben’s face, “I don’t have to answer.”
“Who is it?” Ben asked.
Jason glanced at his phone, and his heart sank. “Dylan.” And he had a feeling he knew why his friend was calling.
“You may as well talk to him.” Ben’s voice was bitter. “If you don’t, he’ll either call back in five minutes, or he’ll come running out here to check on you.”
“Okay,” Jason conceded, knowing Ben was right. “But this conversation isn’t over.” He lifted the phone to his ear. “Hello?”
“What the hell, Jase?” Dylan snapped. “I just got off the phone with my agent, and she tells me you still haven’t accepted the part for Summer Camp Nightmare 4. I took their offer because you swore to me before I left that you’d take the part, and now I hear you’re still holding out?”
Jason grimaced, knowing Dylan was right. “I’m sorry. I meant to do it, but then I ended up in the hospital, and the entire thing slipped my mind.”
“Is that the only reason?”
“Of course.” The truth was, he’d been so caught up in Ben and their newfound happiness, he’d practically forgotten about the movie, but now, all his misgivings came back. How could he leave Ben behind, especially given Ben’s sudden outburst? Yet how could he take Ben with him? It’d be impossible to hide the globe from Dylan for the entire length of filming.
“So you’ll call and take the part as soon as we hang up?” Dylan prodded.
“I will.” But he lacked conviction.
“Say it.”
Jason sighed and glanced at Ben, who was watching him with a painfully guarded expression. “I’ll call Natalie as soon as we hang up and tell her I’m taking the part.”
Ben ducked his head and stood to walk several steps away from Jason, toward the woods.
“Wait,” Jason said.
Ben ignored him. Unfortunately, Dylan didn’t. “‘Wait’?” he said. “Wait for what?”
“Nothing. I’ll call today, I promise. I have to go.”
“Jason, what—”
But Jason clicked off. Ben was already disappearing into the trees. Jason muted his phone before sticking it in his pocket—yes, Dylan would call back, but he wasn’t going to be interrupted again—and chased after Ben.
“Wait!”
They were several yards into the trees before Ben finally stopped and turned to face him.
“I’m sorry we got interrupted.”
Ben waved his hand in an angry sweeping gesture, which, in the given context, Jason translated as either “it’s not your fault,” or “go fuck yourself.”
“I’ll turn down the part—”
No! The globe had wound down, and Jason had stupidly left it back on the veranda steps, but he’d gotten better at reading Ben’s lips. I don’t want that.
“Then what do you want? Tell me how to make you happy again.”
Ben gave him the same angry, sweeping gesture and turned to stalk away through the woods, heading uphill over the slushy snow, stomping soundlessly through a copse of trees.
“Ben!”
Jason clambered after him, slipping on the uphill slope, having to circle clumps of bushes and trees. It slowed him down, and he was fairly certain Ben was intentionally taking the hardest path. Jason looked up and saw Ben’s back briefly through the trees.
“Goddamn it, Ben, stop running away from me!”
Ben stopped, and Jason straggled up the last bit of the slope, breathing harder than he would have liked. Maybe he really should take up jogging. He finally drew even with Ben, who stood facing him. He didn’t seem mad anymore, but Jason almost wished he was, because anger was better than the horrible heartbreak that now clouded Ben’s face, and their incomplete conversation came back to him.
“Listen to me, all that stuff you said before, it’s all wrong. Don’t you see?”
It isn’t.
Jason sighed, frustrated by their inability to communicate. Yes, he’d grown better at lip-reading, but this wasn’t a conversation they could have one-sided. “Let’s go back to the house and talk about it
, okay?”
Ben shrugged halfheartedly, utterly dejected. It doesn’t matter.
“Of course it matters.”
I wish . . . But his lips stopped moving before he finished the sentence. He stared down at the forest floor, at his feet that seemed to disappear into the snow.
“You wish what?” Jason asked.
Ben shook his head angrily, biting his lip.
Jason took a stab in the dark, hoping he’d say the right thing. “I won’t leave you. Not ever.”
Ben’s head jerked up as if Jason had slapped him. He said something—something that even now, after everything they’d shared, Jason couldn’t read. Ben gestured toward the house. Toward the globe. His chin quivered, and he seemed to plead with Jason, his expression so anguished, Jason felt the need to do something—anything—to make Ben feel better.
“Hey,” he soothed. “It’s going to be okay.”
He reached for Ben, wanting to touch his cheek. To wipe his tears. He wanted to pull him into his arms and hold him and erase whatever was tying Ben in knots. But his hand passed right through Ben’s arms. What madness had made him think he’d be able to touch Ben here, in the real world?
“Shit!” He stared down at his hand, feeling it had betrayed him. “I can’t believe I forgot that wouldn’t work.” All this time together, and yet suddenly the terrible barricade had seemed to disappear. He’d been so sure he would be able to touch Ben this time. He’d truly believed Ben was as solid as the trees around them. The reminder that he wasn’t felt like a kick in the balls. He’d longed to touch Ben many times, but none of those instances had frustrated him as much as this one. “Christ, why does it have to be this way?”
Tears welled up in Ben’s eyes.
“Ben, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
But Ben had already disappeared, winking out of existence. Jason waited, expecting him to flicker back. He glanced around, wondering if Ben had missed his mark and appeared a few feet away. “Ben?”
But there was no sign of him. Only the bare, dead trees below a pale-blue sky and the cold winter breeze whispering across the snow-covered ground. “Ben?” he called again, even though it was in vain. Even if Ben answered, Jason wouldn’t be able to hear.
He waited nearly ten minutes, his feet growing colder by the second, but there was no sign of Ben. Finally, Jason began the slow walk back. He emerged from the woods into the clearing around his house. The globe still sat on the top step of the veranda, where he’d left it, along with his coffee cup. On the bottom step sat Ben, seemingly perched in exactly the right place for once—not floating above the wooden step, or sinking below its surface. He glanced up, acknowledging Jason’s presence with a halfhearted wave, before ducking his head to stare at his hands, clasped in his lap.
“What happened?” Jason asked. “I thought you’d come back.”
Ben shook his head. He gestured toward the globe, then slumped, shaking his head.
Jason took the globe and wound the key all the way to the end. He sank to his knee in front of Ben, even though the snow immediately soaked through his jeans. He forced Ben to meet his eyes. “Talk to me.”
It took a second for Ben to obey. “I couldn’t find you,” he said at last. “I left so quickly, and I’ve never had to manifest myself so far from the globe before. I couldn’t do it. I ended up back here.” He bit his lower lip, and Jason knew he was trying to stop it from trembling. “I couldn’t remember which way we’d gone exactly, and I couldn’t call out to you, and I can’t wind the box myself, and I suppose I could have looked for tracks but—” His voice shook and he stopped, biting his lip again.
“But why did you leave to begin with? What happened?”
“I didn’t . . . I didn’t want . . .” He wiped angrily at his eyes. “Damn it, it didn’t do me any good anyway. I didn’t want you to see me like this.”
Understanding dawned as Ben’s words drifted away. “You didn’t want me to see you cry?” He’d seen Ben cry once before, but that had been when Jason had found his way into the globe. It had been an emotional response to finally being touched again. He hadn’t been embarrassed then, but it seemed that in Ben’s mind at least, this was different. “I’d never think less of you for that.”
New tears spilled down Ben’s cheeks, and he ducked his head further, turning to the side as if he could bury his face in his own shoulder. “My dad always said it was a shameful way for a man to behave.”
“To hell with that.”
Ben wiped his cheeks again but didn’t respond.
“Listen to me: I don’t ever want you to think you have to hide from me. Whatever you’re feeling, whatever you’re thinking, whatever’s going on with you . . .” Jason’s voice floundered, and Ben finally met his gaze, waiting for him to go on. “Everything about you, Ben. I want to be part of it.” He swallowed hard, his heart pounding. “And I know you think I’m going to get tired of you and move on, but that’s never going to happen.”
Ben blinked, spilling tears down his pale cheeks. “You can’t promise that.”
“I just did.”
“Why? With the whole world out there, why waste your life stuck here with me?”
“Because you’re fun, and fascinating, and amazing. Because you’re the best thing in my life. Because you deserve to have somebody with you, and I want that person to be me.”
Ben shook his head and started to speak, only to find his time had run out. He waited, tears running unchecked down his cheeks as Jason wound the globe. “You have a life,” he said at last. “You’re not the one trapped here, Jason. I can’t keep expecting you to give up everything else for me when I’m . . . I’m stuck here, and I’ll never be free—”
“Don’t say that. We’ll find a way. There must be a way.”
“There isn’t! And the more you talk about it, the worse I feel. Every time you mention getting me out, it reminds me that I can never be enough—”
“That’s not true.” And hearing Ben say it, Jason was overwhelmed with guilt. He’d only been dreaming of giving Ben the greatest gift he could imagine—freedom—but he’d never once realized how twisted the words sounded in Ben’s ears. “You are enough. You’re more than I deserve. And I swear to you, even if we never find a way to get you out, I’ll still be the happiest man alive.”
Jason rose on his knees, bringing himself nearer to Ben’s projection—close enough they could easily have kissed if only the universe would let them. He put up a hand as if he could touch Ben’s cheek. He held it there, hoping that somehow, Ben could feel it. “And I’ll cherish every moment you choose to spend with me.”
“It’s so unfair to you.”
“To me? Are you kidding? You’re the one stuck in a tiny little cabin with no escape. You’re the one—”
“But I’m used to it. And I have no other choice. But you—” He shook his head and shut his eyes tight. “You deserve more. You deserve to be with somebody real.”
“You think I’ve ever met anybody more real than you? Certainly not in Hollywood.”
“Don’t joke, Jason. I’m serious.”
“So am I,” Jason said, suddenly feeling a hint of anger—not at Ben, necessarily, but at the horrible circumstances that would cause Ben to doubt him. “Listen to me: I’ve never been happier in my life than I am right now. And I don’t care how impossible it seems. I don’t want anybody else. I don’t want to be anywhere but where you are. Do I wish we had more? Of course I do. Do I wish I could touch you when we talked, or hold your hand when we walk together? Do I wish I could wake up next to you the morning after we make love? God yes, more than anything. But I won’t let the things we’re missing ruin the things we actually have.
“You make me happy. You remind me to have fun. You’re the reason I get up every morning, and the last thing I think about every night as I fall asleep. I love you. God, I love you so much, I can’t believe I haven’t said it until now. And if that means spending the rest of my life with that damn snow globe in
my pocket, then . . . well, I’ll have to buy clothes with bigger pockets, but damn it, Ben, I’ll take it. I’ll take any little bit of you I can get. Because as imperfect and frustrating as this all may be, it’s the best thing by far that’s ever happened to me.”
He leaned closer, wishing he could kiss Ben, yet determined to prove that physical contact had never meant less to him. As long as Ben could hear him. And as long as he could see him and know he meant what he said. “I won’t let the things we’re missing overshadow the things we have. And I’ll never mention getting you out again if that’s what you want. I can’t touch you when I want, but I still love you. And nothing you say is going to change that.”
The confession felt perfect. He hadn’t planned to say it—hadn’t even thought about his feelings for Ben enough to put words to them—but now that it was out in the open, he experienced a peace so profound, it took his breath away. And Ben?
Ben’s cheeks were still damp, but he smiled through his tears. Jason had talked so long that the box had run down, but he didn’t need it to discern Ben’s words.
You love me?
“God, yes. More than anything.”
Ben bit his lip again, torn between laughter and tears. But what about—
“No. I don’t want to talk about the parts that make it hard. I want to talk about the parts that make it easy. Do you love me too?”
Ben’s grin grew, finally touching his blue eyes. He nodded emphatically. More than anything.
“That’s all that matters to me. We’ll figure the rest out as we go, like every other couple in the world.”
Ben laughed—silently, and yet Jason knew the sound by heart. He still heard it in his mind, if not his ears.
Ben sobered slightly. He held his fist up near his temple and turned it in a circle, in the way Jason had taught him meant “movie” when playing charades. His raised eyebrows turned it into a question.
“I don’t want to leave you.”
He thought Ben would argue, but he didn’t. Instead, he batted his eyes, somehow both nervous and flirtatious at once.
“What is it?” Jason asked.
And Ben said four simple words: Take me with you?