Virgin Lips

Epilogue

"You okay?" Ben asked for the billionth time.

I rolled my eyes, albeit smiling. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. It's just ..." I glanced at the building one more time. "It feels weird, that's all."

"It's normal, you've lived here a long time." He said, loading the last piece of luggage.

"Yeah." Four years of my life. Of course, the last ones were odd, but the first two ... it was a shoe box, sometimes stuff didn't work and the landlord didn't want to pay for it, but in the end it's been my home. The one place I called home because I was all by myself and free.

Living alone is not the same as living with family, you know. Family has a tendency to invade your personal space, in one way or another. I may be an only child, but between relatives and neighbors, not to mention family friends, I never really had privacy. So, this place was my true home. And to leave it now, after everything that's happened even, it feels odd.

Ben put his arm around my waist, and kissed my cheek. "We're still in time to change our minds." He said comfortingly.

I looked at him smiling, knowing full well he was just trying to make me feel better. "You know we can't." I reminded him. "I have a new job, you have new clients, Elle has been enrolled in a new school. Hell, even my cats have said goodbye to their old home!" I chuckled. "It's done."

"No second thoughts?"

I shook my head. Ben nodded, and placed a soft kiss on my forehead. We'd have lingered more in that mushy moment, but Elle knocked against the window from the back seat, anxious to arrive. I smiled when I looked at her.

I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to wrap my head around it, but I'm lucky. Not only my stepdaughter – as weird as that word sounds to my ears – has accepted me without problems, but she's a sweet, smart kid. Of course, she's a bit of a hurricane, hyperactive, as most kids are, but it's not that difficult to handle. If anything, it makes me feel ... more alive, if that makes sense.

I pulled away from Ben, reminding him: "We better get moving, there's a lot to be done." He agreed, so we parted, but he still managed to steal a kiss before getting into the car.

These have been some crazy months. It's been a full year since Ben and I confessed what we felt for each other. What followed, differently from fiction, wasn't pretty.

✧✧ ✧ ✧ ✧  

A YEAR AGO

"Well, I can't say I was expecting it." Jeremy said flatly, shaking his head. "I thought we had something."

"We did!" I protested. "But ..."

"But Ben is Ben?" He scoffed.

I sighed. There was no way this could go well. After I told Ben what I felt, I made clear that before everything else, I would need some time to talk to Jeremy.

Deep down, I hoped the breakup would be civil, which it was, but I could have never been prepared to the heartbreak brimming in Jeremy's eyes. "I'm sorry ... I really am," I said for the billionth time. "I wasn't ... I didn't expect it either. I ... what you and I had, it was real and I enjoyed it. But ... in the end, I ... well ..."

"Please, spare me the excuses, Joanna." Jeremy stood up, then dusted off his jeans, as if he'd been sitting somewhere impure and ghastly. I couldn't blame him, I felt disgusting.

"Jay ..."

"I want to be happy for you, Jo, I really do." Jeremy said, tears choking up his voice. "But ... I don't deny this is a lot to take."