Ben had taken some Valium earlier, a bad habit he'd picked up from a kid at school who dealt out of his locker, who never asked questions, who took cash and handed over little white pills that promised oblivion or at least something close to it. His head felt woozy now, disconnected from his neck, floating somewhere above his shoulders like a balloon on a string, and his limbs felt like lead but in a good way, in a way that made everything slow and manageable and distant. The panic that usually lived in his chest had dulled to a manageable hum, and the thoughts that normally screamed at him had quieted to whispers he could almost ignore.
"Everybody Here Wants You" was playing through his headphones, Jeff Buckley's voice wrapping around him like smoke, and it made him feel even worse somehow, made the guilt sharper even through the pharmaceutical haze, because the lyrics were too close, too accurate, too much like what he felt every time he looked at her. He had put the song on repeat an hour ago and hadn't been able to make himself skip it, just kept letting it play over and over, letting it cut into him, letting it remind him of everything he wanted and couldn't have.
The city felt strangely ghostlike as he walked through it, and for that he felt grateful. Bellwood at four in the afternoon on a Tuesday should have been busier, should have had more people on the sidewalks, more cars on the streets, but today it seemed emptied out, hollowed, like everyone had evacuated and forgotten to tell him. The buildings looked faded in the strange red light that had been hanging over everything for days now, some atmospheric phenomenon the news kept talking about, particles in the upper atmosphere or solar activity or something he hadn't paid attention to because he'd been too busy thinking about her.
He imagined he wasn't looking like his best. His shirt was wrinkled and probably smelled like sweat and river water. His hair was a mess, still damp in places from lying by the water. His eyes felt heavy, the lids drooping, and he knew they probably looked wrong, looked like exactly what they were: the eyes of someone who'd taken something he shouldn't have. But he didn't care. Or he cared but couldn't make himself care enough to do anything about it.
He popped another Valium in the middle of the street, right there on the corner of Maple and Fifth, not even trying to hide it, just dry-swallowing the pill and feeling it stick briefly in his throat before sliding down. A woman walking her dog gave him a look, disapproving and concerned, but he ignored her, kept walking, kept moving toward home because that's where his feet were taking him even though he hadn't consciously decided to go there.
He was almost home now. Three more blocks. Two more blocks. One more block. The Tennyson house sat on a quiet street lined with oak trees that had been there longer than the houses, their branches forming a canopy overhead that filtered the red light into something almost beautiful, almost bearable. The house itself was a two-story colonial that his parents had bought before he was born, white with blue shutters, a front porch with a swing that nobody used anymore, a lawn that his dad mowed every Saturday with religious devotion.
Bellwood was the kind of town where everyone knew everyone, where you couldn't go to the grocery store without running into three people you went to school with, where gossip spread faster than wildfire and stuck around longer. It was the kind of place that felt suffocating when you were a teenager, that made you want to escape to somewhere bigger, somewhere anonymous, somewhere you could be anyone instead of being Ben Tennyson, Carl and Sandra's boy, the kid who'd been weird since that summer he turned ten and came back different somehow.
The downtown area was small, just a few blocks of local businesses struggling to compete with the mall that had opened two towns over. There was a diner where the waitresses knew your order before you sat down, a hardware store that smelled like sawdust and motor oil, a library where Gwen spent most of her free time when she was visiting, a movie theater with only two screens that showed films three months after they'd premiered everywhere else. There was a park with a playground and a basketball court and a pavilion where they held concerts in the summer, and there was the high school, a sprawling brick building that looked like a prison and felt like one too.
The neighborhoods spread out from downtown in concentric circles, getting nicer the farther out you went. The Tennyson house was solidly middle-class, neither rich nor poor, just comfortable, just normal, just the kind of place where nothing interesting was supposed to happen. The streets were lined with similar houses, variations on the same theme: colonials and ranches and the occasional split-level, all with neat lawns and two-car garages and basketball hoops over the driveways.
Ben's street was particularly quiet, particularly tree-lined, particularly safe. Kids rode their bikes here without supervision. People left their doors unlocked. The biggest crime in recent memory had been when someone's garden gnome got stolen, and even that had turned out to be a prank by some middle schoolers who returned it with an apology note. It was the kind of place where nothing bad happened, where nothing interesting happened, where you were supposed to grow up normal and happy and well-adjusted.
But Ben had the Omnitrix. And Ben had secrets. And Ben had thoughts that would horrify every single person on this quiet, tree-lined street if they knew.
He walked up the driveway, past his mom's sedan and his dad's truck, past the basketball hoop where he used to shoot hoops for hours to avoid thinking, to avoid feeling, to avoid being alone with his own mind. The concrete was cracked in places, weeds growing through, and he focused on that, on the physical reality of broken pavement and persistent plant life, because it was easier than thinking about what waited inside.
He climbed the three steps to the front porch, each one feeling like a mountain, his legs heavy with the Valium, his body moving through molasses. The porch swing creaked slightly in the breeze, a sound he'd heard his entire life, a sound that meant home, that meant safety, that meant everything he was about to destroy by walking through that door.
Ben entered his house in a relaxed manner, or what he hoped looked like a relaxed manner, trying to move normally, trying to act like everything was fine, like he was just coming home from hanging out by the river, like there was nothing wrong with him, nothing different, nothing that would make his mother look at him with that particular expression of worry and disappointment that he'd seen too many times lately.
The house smelled like it always did: coffee and whatever his mom had been baking, probably cookies, probably the chocolate chip ones she made when she was stressed about something. The entryway opened into the living room on the right and the dining room on the left, with the kitchen visible beyond, and stairs leading up to the second floor directly ahead. Family photos lined the walls, chronicling his life from baby to now, and he avoided looking at them because they reminded him of who he used to be, before the Omnitrix, before the summer that changed everything, before he started feeling things he shouldn't feel.
His mother was stood chatting in the living room, her voice carrying that particular tone she used when she was being polite but not entirely comfortable, the voice she used with door-to-door salesmen and telemarketers and relatives she didn't particularly like. He heard her briefly before she saw him, heard her saying something about the weather, about how strange it had been lately, about how she hoped it would clear up soon.
Then she said, "Oh, there he is. Ben! Gwen's here!"
His heart dropped to his feet, plummeted through the floor, kept falling into some bottomless pit in the earth's core. The Valium haze shattered like glass, adrenaline flooding through him, fight-or-flight kicking in even though there was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, nothing to do but face this, face her, face the fact that she was here, in his house, right now, when he was high and vulnerable and completely unprepared.
He went into the living room slightly swaying, his balance off, his body betraying him, and there she was.
Standing there like a goddess, like something carved from marble and brought to life, like every fantasy and nightmare he'd ever had made flesh and placed in his living room to torture him. Her hourglass body tempted him into sin, curves that shouldn't exist on someone so young, proportions that seemed designed specifically to drive him insane. Her hair was pure fire and passion, that impossible red catching the light from the window, glowing like it had its own internal heat source, falling in waves past her shoulders, and he wanted to touch it, wanted to bury his face in it, wanted to wrap it around his fists and pull.
She was wearing her uniform, the one from her private school back in Friedkin, the one that made her look like she'd stepped out of some Catholic schoolgirl fantasy that he definitely shouldn't be having. A red jumper, fitted, clinging to her torso in ways that made his mouth go dry, the color matching her hair, matching her lips, matching the sin that burned in his chest. A smart-looking pencil skirt, black, ending just above her knees, professional and modest and somehow obscene in how it hugged her hips, how it suggested the shape of her legs beneath.
She looked so perfect, so appetizing, like something he wanted to consume, to devour, to take into himself until there was nothing left of either of them. Her red ruby lips looked like they were highlighted, glossy and full and slightly parted, and he wondered if she'd put on lipstick just before coming here, wondered if she'd looked in a mirror and thought about how she looked, wondered if she had any idea what she did to him just by existing.
"Hey there, doofus," her low voice purred toward him, and the sound of it went straight through him like electricity, like a physical touch, making his skin prickle and his stomach clench and his hands shake slightly at his sides.
Her eyes were strangely red, he noticed, not their usual green but bloodshot, like she'd been crying, and something in his chest twisted at that, protective instinct warring with desire, wanting to comfort her and wanting to corrupt her in equal measure. He looked at his mother, who smiled at him, but the smile stiffened once she saw how his eyes looked, once she registered the dilation of his pupils, the heaviness of his lids, the slight glassiness that meant he wasn't sober, that meant he'd taken something, that meant her son was high in the middle of the afternoon.
He knew that she knew. He could see it in her face, in the way her smile faltered, in the way her eyes narrowed slightly, in the way she glanced at Gwen and then back at him, calculating, worrying, probably already planning the conversation they'd have later, the lecture, the disappointment, the concern. But she didn't say anything, not in front of Gwen, not in front of company, because Sandra Tennyson was nothing if not polite, nothing if not proper, nothing if not determined to maintain appearances even when everything was falling apart.
He couldn't do anything about that. Couldn't take back the pills, couldn't make his eyes look normal, couldn't pretend he was fine when he so clearly wasn't. So he didn't try. He just stood there, swaying slightly, looking at Gwen, drowning in the sight of her, in the reality of her presence in his house, in his space, close enough to touch.
Ben cleared his voice and with a slight slur said to Gwen that they should go to his room. The words came out wrong, too slow, the consonants soft, and he saw his mother's expression tighten further, saw her mouth open like she was going to object, like she was going to suggest they stay downstairs, like she was going to chaperone because she knew, she had to know on some level, that leaving them alone was a bad idea.
But Gwen was already moving, already saying goodbye to his mother, already thanking her for letting her come over, and then she was walking toward him, toward the stairs, and he was turning to follow her, to lead her up to his room, and his mother was just standing there watching them go with an expression he couldn't read and didn't want to.
He boldly grabbed her by the arm as they reached the stairs, his fingers wrapping around her bicep, feeling the warmth of her skin through the fabric of her jumper, feeling the solid reality of her, and she let out a grunt at that, surprised, maybe annoyed, but she didn't pull away, didn't tell him to let go, just let him pull her up the stairs, up to the second floor, down the hallway to his room.
His room was a mess, as always. Clothes on the floor, books scattered across his desk, posters on the walls of bands and movies and aliens he'd transformed into. His bed was unmade, the sheets tangled, the pillows askew, and he felt a brief flash of embarrassment that she was seeing it like this, seeing his private space in all its chaotic glory. But the embarrassment was distant, muted by the Valium, overwhelmed by the fact that she was here, in his room, close enough to touch.
He threw her on the bed, not roughly but firmly, and she landed with a small bounce, her skirt riding up slightly before she tugged it back down, her hair spreading across his pillow like a halo of fire. Then he threw himself in there after her, collapsing onto the mattress beside her, the springs creaking under their combined weight, and suddenly they were lying there together, on his bed, in his room, alone.
She giggled slightly when he pulled her across his chest, a sound he'd never heard from her before, light and surprised and almost happy, and it made something in his chest expand and contract simultaneously. He arranged her so her head was resting on his chest, her body pressed against his side, her hair tickling his neck and jaw, and she let him, didn't resist, just settled against him like this was normal, like they did this all the time, like there was nothing strange about cousins lying in bed together like lovers.
She smacked him lightly on the chest and asked, "The hell are you doing, Ben?" But there was no real anger in it, just curiosity, just confusion, just that slight amusement that meant she wasn't actually upset.
Ben closed his eyes to take in her smell, breathing deeply, filling his lungs with the scent of her: vanilla and books and something floral, maybe her shampoo, maybe perfume, maybe just the natural smell of her skin. He hoped his bedsheets would smell like her now, hoped that after she left he could bury his face in his pillow and still smell her, still have this piece of her even when she was gone.
"Just getting comfortable, nerd," he said, his voice rough, his words still slightly slurred. "What's he done now?"
He felt her stiffen against him, felt her body tense, and he knew he'd hit the mark, knew that she'd come here because of her boyfriend, because of whatever fight they'd had, because she needed comfort and for some reason she'd chosen to come to him. The knowledge was bitter and sweet simultaneously: bitter because she was thinking about someone else, sweet because she'd come to him, because he was the one she wanted when she was hurting.
Gwen closed her eyes in shame at that, he could feel it in the way she pressed her face harder against his chest, in the way her breathing changed, in the way she seemed to curl into herself even while lying against him. She knew that he knew she came here for only one reason, that she only showed up at his house when things were bad with her boyfriend, when she needed someone to talk to, someone to hold her, someone to make her feel better about whatever was going wrong in her perfect life.
"We just got in an argument," she said, her voice muffled against his shirt. "I just feel so—so—" She groaned and buried her face deeper in his chest, and he could feel the warmth of her breath through the fabric, could feel the vibration of her voice against his ribs. "I'm sorry for bothering you so much."
Ben quietly responded, "You're really important to me, Gwen. I love that you come to me." And it was true, even though it was also torture, even though every time she showed up at his door it was like being given a gift and having it taken away simultaneously. He loved that she trusted him, that she needed him, that she chose him, even if it was only as a friend, only as family, only as someone safe.
He took his hand and started scratching at her scalp, his fingers sliding into her hair, finding her scalp beneath all that red silk, and he began to work his fingers in slow, deliberate circles, applying just the right amount of pressure, not too hard, not too soft, finding the spots that made her melt, that made her body go loose and pliant against his.
She let out a moan, deep and guttural and completely unguarded, and said breathily, "Fuck, Ben."
His technique was good, better than good, perfected over months of doing this, of learning what she liked, of paying attention to every small sound she made, every shift of her body, every sign that he was doing it right. He knew to start at the base of her skull, where tension gathered, where the muscles were tight, and work his fingers in firm circles there until he felt her relax. He knew to move slowly up toward the crown of her head, varying the pressure, sometimes using his nails to scratch lightly, sometimes using his fingertips to massage deeper. He knew to pay attention to the spots just behind her ears, where the skin was sensitive, where a light touch made her shiver. He knew to work through her hair in sections, making sure he covered every inch of her scalp, making sure she felt it everywhere.
He'd learned this for her, because of her, had researched it online like he was studying for a test, had practiced on himself to understand the mechanics, had paid attention every single time he did it to see what worked, what made her make those sounds, what made her body go soft and trusting against his. It was probably pathetic, probably sad, that he'd put this much effort into learning how to touch her in this one specific way, but he didn't care, because it gave him an excuse to touch her, to have his hands in her hair, to make her feel good, to be the one who could do this for her.
It did things to Ben it shouldn't have. Her moan, that breathy curse, the way her voice went low and rough with pleasure—it all went straight to his groin, made his stomach pull in slight arousal, made his body respond in ways he couldn't control and didn't want to. He felt himself starting to get hard, felt the blood rushing south, felt his jeans getting tighter, and he was grateful she was lying on his chest, grateful she couldn't see, grateful the Valium made everything slightly distant and manageable even as his body betrayed him.
She let out some slight drool on his shirt, her mouth going slack with relaxation, with pleasure, with the kind of unselfconscious comfort that came from feeling completely safe with someone. The wet spot spread across the fabric over his chest, and it made him feel even more aroused, made him think about her mouth, about her lips, about what else might make her drool, what else might make her lose control like that.
He let his hands drop slightly from her hair to hold her close to him, wrapping his arms around her back, pulling her tighter against his side, feeling every point where their bodies touched, cataloging it, memorizing it, knowing he'd replay this moment later when he was alone, when he could let himself think about it without guilt, without shame, without her there to see what it did to him.
"Go on, Gwen," he said, his voice rough. "What's Kevin done now?"
Gwen let out a sigh, long and tired and frustrated, and he felt it against his chest, felt the rise and fall of her breathing, felt the weight of her against him. "You know, just boyfriend-girlfriend stuff. Like telling me what to wear, what not to do—"
Ben let out a scoff, sharp and dismissive, cutting her off. "Just break up with him."
Gwen went quiet at that, went completely still against him, and he knew he'd crossed a line, knew he'd said what he always said, what he always thought, what he wanted her to do even though he knew it was selfish, knew it was wrong, knew he had no right to want her single and available when he could never have her anyway.
He took her chin in his hand, his fingers spanning from her jaw to her cheekbone, his hand looking huge against her face, making her look small and delicate and breakable. He tilted her face up toward his, forcing her to look at him, and he looked deeply into eyes that mirrored his, the same brown eyes that ran in the Tennyson family, the same eyes he saw in the mirror every morning, reminding him of his sin, reminding him that they were family, that this was wrong, that he was wrong for wanting this.
Her eyes dropped down to his mouth, and he felt it like a small win, like a victory, like maybe she was thinking about it too, about what it would be like, about what it would feel like, about crossing that line that neither of them should cross.
"He doesn't deserve you, Gwen," Ben said, and he muttered her name reverently, like a prayer, like a curse, like something sacred and profane all at once.
Her eyes looked strangely intense, focused on his mouth, on his lips, and he could see her pupils dilate slightly, could see her breathing change, could see something shift in her expression that made his heart race and his mouth go dry.
"You take something?" she asked him quietly and sweetly, and the question was gentle, concerned, not judgmental, just worried about him, just wanting to know, just being Gwen.
Ben let out a groan at that, at her sweetness, at her concern, at the fact that even now, even like this, she cared about him, worried about him, wanted him to be okay.
Gwen exploded out of his arms and straddled him, moving fast, moving with purpose, pinning his arms above his head, her hands wrapping around his wrists, her weight settling onto his hips, onto his lap, right on top of where he was half-hard and getting harder by the second. She was small, barely five-foot-four to his five-foot-ten, and he could've broken out anytime, could've flipped their positions, could've overpowered her easily, but why would he? Why would he move when she was on top of him, when her thighs were bracketing his hips, when he could feel the heat of her through their clothes, when this was everything he'd ever wanted even if it was happening for all the wrong reasons?
"Ben, you should've seen the look on your mom's face," she said, her voice sharp now, angry, disappointed. "The hell's wrong with you? You think you're cool doing that stuff? Huh?"
She continued with her lecture, her voice rising, her words coming faster, talking about responsibility and health and how worried his mother was and how he was better than this and how he needed to stop, needed to get help, needed to do something before it got worse. But all that he heard was static and ringing, white noise, meaningless sound, because all he could focus on was her lips, on the way they moved when she talked, on the way they shaped words, on the way they looked glossy and full and perfect.
He licked his lips, his tongue darting out, wetting them, and he saw her eyes track the movement, saw her falter slightly in her lecture, saw her lose her train of thought for just a second before she recovered and kept going.
His drugged-up mind made a decision for him, bypassing all the rational thought, all the guilt, all the shame, all the reasons this was a terrible idea, and just acted on pure want, pure need, pure desperate desire that had been building for months, for years, for his entire life it felt like.
"Gwen," he begged, and his voice came out broken, pleading, desperate in a way he'd never let himself sound before. She stopped, her eyebrows furrowing in confusion at his tone, at the raw need in his voice, at the way he was looking at her like she was the only thing in the world that mattered.
"Please, let me. Just once."
Gwen unpinned his arms, worried she'd hurt him somehow, worried that she'd been too rough, too aggressive, and his sweet girl, he thought, his sweet, perfect girl who worried about everyone, who took care of everyone, who was so good, so pure, so much better than him in every possible way.
He wrapped his arms around her midsection, his hands spanning her waist, feeling how small she was, how delicate, how perfectly she fit in his hands. And he pulled his face toward hers, closing the distance, eliminating the space between them, and his lips touched hers.
Her lips were soft, softer than anything he'd ever felt, softer than silk or rose petals or any of the stupid poetic comparisons people made. They were warm and slightly sticky from whatever gloss she was wearing, and they tasted like cherry, artificial and sweet, like the lip balm she always carried in her purse. They were full and pliant against his, yielding, not quite kissing back but not pulling away either, just there, just present, just real in a way that made his entire body light up like he'd been electrocuted.
The texture was incredible, smooth and soft with just the slightest bit of friction from the gloss, and he could feel every tiny detail, every microscopic ridge and valley, every point where their lips connected. Her bottom lip was slightly fuller than her top lip, and he focused on that, on the way it felt against his mouth, on the way it gave slightly when he pressed harder, on the way it seemed designed specifically to drive him insane.
Ben expected a slap, expected her to shove him away, expected violence or anger or disgust, expected her to recoil from him like he was something toxic, something poisonous, something that would contaminate her just by touching her. But he was surprised when she hesitantly ran her fingers through his hair, her touch tentative at first, uncertain, like she was testing something, like she was trying to decide something, and then firmer, more confident, her fingers sliding through his hair and gripping slightly, holding him in place.
He sighed into the kiss, a sound of relief and pleasure and desperate gratitude, and his mouth opened slightly with the sigh, and that's when everything changed.
Gwen opened her mouth and he instinctively opened his wider, and then her tongue was entering his mouth, sliding past his lips, and she was devouring him, consuming him, taking control of the kiss in a way that made his brain short-circuit and his body go rigid with shock and pleasure.
Her tongue was hot and wet and aggressive, pushing into his mouth like she owned it, like she had every right to be there, like this was something she'd been thinking about too, something she'd wanted too, something she'd been holding back from too. It slid against his tongue, rough and smooth simultaneously, the texture strange and perfect and overwhelming. She tasted like cherry from her lip gloss and something underneath that was just her, just Gwen, something he couldn't name but would recognize anywhere, would crave forever.
She explored his mouth thoroughly, her tongue sliding along his teeth, tracing the roof of his mouth, tangling with his tongue in a dance that was more battle than romance, more claiming than sharing. She kissed like she did everything else: with complete commitment, with total focus, with an intensity that left no room for half-measures or hesitation. She kissed like she was trying to memorize him, like she was trying to take something from him, like she was trying to prove something to herself or to him or to the universe.
The sensory feeling that Ben was going through was overwhelming, too much, not enough, everything all at once. He could feel her tongue against his, slick and hot and moving in ways that made his entire body respond, made his hips jerk up involuntarily, made him fully hard now, pressing against her through their clothes, and he knew she could feel it, knew she had to know what she was doing to him.
He could feel her breath in his mouth, hot and quick, mixing with his own, creating this shared space between them that felt intimate beyond anything he'd ever experienced. He could feel the vibration of small sounds she was making, little hums and sighs that went straight through him, that made him want to make her make more sounds, louder sounds, sounds that meant she was feeling this too, that this was affecting her the way it was affecting him.
He could feel her weight on top of him, her body pressed against his, her breasts against his chest, her thighs gripping his hips, her hands in his hair pulling just hard enough to hurt in a good way, in a way that made him want her to pull harder, to hurt him more, to mark him, to claim him, to make him hers in every possible way.
His hands moved on her back, sliding up and down, feeling the curve of her spine through her jumper, feeling the way her body moved as she kissed him, feeling the heat of her skin through the fabric. He wanted to touch more, wanted to slide his hands under her clothes, wanted to feel her skin directly, wanted to map every inch of her body with his hands and his mouth and his tongue.
The Valium made everything slightly distant and dreamy, made the edges soft, made the guilt that should have been screaming at him quiet to a whisper, made it possible to just feel this, just experience this, just exist in this moment without thinking about consequences or morality or the fact that this was his cousin, his family, someone he should never touch like this.
Her hair fell around their faces like a curtain, blocking out the world, creating this private space that was just them, just this kiss, just this moment. He could smell her shampoo, could feel the silky strands brushing against his cheeks and neck, could feel the weight of it, the reality of it, the fact that this was happening, this was real, she was kissing him back.
She was kissing him back.
That thought cut through the haze, sharp and clear and terrifying. She was kissing him back. She had opened her mouth. She had put her tongue in his mouth. She had her hands in his hair. She was making sounds. She was pressing against him. She was participating, not just allowing, not just tolerating, but actively engaging in this, actively kissing him, actively wanting this on some level.
The realization made him kiss her harder, made him tilt his head to deepen the kiss, made him suck on her tongue when it slid against his, made him grip her tighter, made him pour everything he felt into this kiss, all the want and need and desperate love that he'd been carrying around for so long.
Gwen stopped and broke the kiss, pulling back suddenly, and strings of spit connected their lips, thin and glistening in the light from his window, stretching between them like evidence, like proof of what they'd just done, like something obscene and beautiful and damning.
She pushed him off, or pushed herself off him, scrambling backward on the bed, her eyes wide, her lips swollen and red and wet, her hair messed up from his hands, her chest heaving with quick breaths. She looked shocked, looked horrified, looked like she'd just woken up from a dream and realized it was a nightmare.
She hurriedly grabbed her purse from where she'd dropped it on the floor, her movements jerky and panicked, and she tried to leave, tried to get off the bed, tried to get to the door, tried to escape from what they'd just done, from what it meant, from the reality of it.
Ben ran after her before she could leave his room, his body moving on instinct, on desperation, on the need to not let her go, not like this, not with that look on her face. He grabbed her arm, his fingers wrapping around her bicep again, holding her, stopping her, trying to make her stay, trying to make her talk to him, trying to make this okay somehow.
"Let go of me," she said venomously, her voice sharp and cold and full of hate, hate for him, hate for herself, hate for what they'd just done.
"Please, Gwen, can we—" he started, but he didn't know how to finish, didn't know what he was asking for, didn't know what he wanted except for her not to leave, not to hate him, not to regret this even though he knew she should, knew they both should.
Gwen screamed at him, "No! We fucking can't, Ben!" Her voice was loud enough that his mother probably heard it downstairs, loud enough that the neighbors might have heard it, loud enough to shatter whatever was left between them. Her eyes teared up, filling with water that made them look even greener, even more beautiful, even as they looked at him with something like disgust, like betrayal, like grief.
She ripped her arm away from his grip, yanking hard enough that he had to let go or hurt her, and he let go, watched her stumble backward, watched her turn toward the door, watched her leave his room, leave him standing there with his lips still tingling, with the taste of her still in his mouth, with the feeling of her still on his skin.
His front door slammed shut, the sound echoing through the house, final and damning and absolute.
His lips tingled. They burned. They felt alive in a way the rest of him didn't, in a way nothing else did, in a way that made him want to touch them, to press his fingers against them, to try to hold onto the feeling of her mouth against his for just a little longer.
He stood in his room, alone, high, his heart racing, his body still aroused, his mind spinning, and all he could think was that he'd kissed her, he'd finally kissed her, and she'd kissed him back, and now she was gone, and he'd ruined everything, and it had been worth it, and he hated himself, and he wanted to do it again, and he never wanted to see her again, and he needed to see her right now, and everything was broken, and nothing would ever be the same, and his lips still tingled with the memory of her mouth, and that was all he had now, just the memory, just the ghost of her taste, just the knowledge that for one brief, perfect, terrible moment, she had been his.