Email from: deelilah33

Email to: ridsdenvers

Received at: 1/08/13 at 21:08 PM

CADET DENVERS,

Am I the oooonly one who is absolutely haaaating the holidays right now? My dad and step-mum are very enthusiastic to show off their one and only daughter who studies two sciences in Oxford and it gets worse every time they do it. YES!! I GET IT!! YOU ARE VERY PROUD OF ME!! BUT PLEASE!! STOP!! Safe to say, I've had enough of my family and I'll be glad to be going back in a few weeks soon. I WILL SURVIVE!! JUST FOR YOUR SAKE!!

How are you, though? Is everything OK with you and your guy friend Ben?? (I don't know why I added 'guy' to it. Like how many women do you know whose name is Ben? I'm stupid. I hate typing. Blergh.)

Okay, going to go now. Dad's calling me down to introduce to me to his in-laws who have a son that goes to Cambridge. *sighs* Why do I have a feeling this is going to end with all of them heatedly debating whether Cambridge is a better Uni than Oxford?? Pray for me, Denvers. Pray for me hard.

Hugs and kisses and rainbows and unicorns,

Dee xxx

-----------------------------------------------------------

Email from: christofur_

Email to: ridsdenvers

Received at: 5/08/13 at 8:17 AM

Hiyahiyahiyahiya RIDSIE!!!!! *insert juvenile smiley faces with a few winky ones in between*

This is actually the only time I've ever used e-mail since, what, 2006? I can't text you like a normal person because I'm in Holland with Mother Bear and Father Bear and my cousin Perrie and the WiFi here is SO BAD! (I'm sending this e-mail to you using a very old computer in a rundown cyber café and there's this creepy guy with a huge septum piercing staring at me like I'm a piece of meat. Gulp.)

I've sent an e-mail to Tweedle-Dee (Geddit?? I came up with a nickname for her just a few days ago during a phone call and she goes absolutely mental if I ever bring it up!) but she hasn't replied to me yet.

Anyway hope you are doing great and having a great summer and how's it going with that Benjamin lover of yours? Has he impregnated you yet?? ;)

Christopher (Chrissy) xx

-----------------------------------------------------------

"RIDLEY DENVERS, GET YOUR ARSE OUT INTO THE LIVING ROOM THIS INSTANT!" yells Marcy and Ridley jumps and quickly logs out of her e-mail account before rushing out of her room.

"RIDLEY!" Marcy yells again and Ridley rolls her eyes as she fastens her pace on the quick journey to her living room. What is up with Marcy, right now? Did she leave her bra lying around like last time again? Ridley groans. Or was it another empty packet of crisps that she forgot to throw in the bin? Why does Marcy have to be so uptight about keeping the living room clean? It's always so spick and span anyway so she doesn't understand why-

"Benjamin." Ridley didn't mean to say his name out loud, she didn't mean to say it in a high-pitched, sickeningly girlish way and she definitely didn't mean to look like this when she wanted to first see him after a whole year. But we don't mean for a lot of things to happen and sometimes life has a way of making them happen anyway. And there he is, in her living room, taller than she remembers him, handsomer even, and he is smiling his Benjamin Butler smile and for a moment Ridley is sure she has stopped breathing.

"Benjamin!" she repeats and she glances sharply at Marcy, whose eyes are as wide as an owl's. Why didn't you tell me HE was coming? Ridley wants to yell. I would've taken a shower! Put on a pretty dress! Maybe dabble with some lip gloss! I did not want to look like a homeless woman on crack!

"Rids." He walks over to her and Ridley wants the ground to swallow her up, already. And when he puts his arms around her she stiffens, just for a second, before she realizes that it's just Ben-silly old Ben who has seen her look worse before. It doesn't matter. They're just friends now, even though she really, really doesn't feel that way and hasn't felt that way for a long time now. She wraps her arms around his waist and buries her face into his chest; she shuts her eyes and takes a deep breath. How much she has missed his smell. How much she has missed his comforting, gentle arms. How much she has missed him. And when she looks up to meet his eyes - his eyes, oh finally!-she notices that they look very sad. Why do they look so sad?

"Carrots, hello," he whispers. Ridley opens her mouth but nothing comes out. I love you, she thinks but, of course, she isn't quite as silly to say it out loud. Instead she smiles and hugs him again.

"Idiot," she finally says before pushing him away - gently, of course, in a way that she hopes is friendly. "Why didn't you reply to my e-mail, Ben? The one where I apologised?" she asks him, after an awkward pause. Suddenly, Ridley glances sharply at Marcy, whom she has forgotten is still standing in the room, and her cheeks flush at the thought of Marcy having just witnessed an intensely intimate moment between Ben and Ridley. Marcy, understand Ridley's expression, nods and walks out of the living room, muttering something about 'getting the toilet cleaned.'

"Ben." Ridley's attention diverts back to him and now her ache, her longing to see him, to smell him, to touch him has been replaced by the anger and frustration that she has felt for these past few months. "Well?" she demands when he does not reply. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

"I, er..." He tilts his head awkwardly. "I was very busy, Rids."

"With Jenna?" She spits her name out with venomous hatred.

"Ridley I-" Ben stops and stares at her and, much to her irritation, a playful smirk begins to form on his face. "My, my," he whispers, shaking his head in mock-disbelief. "Is my carrots actually-oh, I can hardly say it-jealous?"

Ridley's jaw drops. The very idea!

"Of course not!" she lies and she shakes her head very vigorously to prove her point. Ridley's hair, which had been piled up into a very unflattering bun, falls out, and she has to blow some of her curls out of her face to stare at Ben with her determined, glittering green eyes. "I'm not jealous!" she huffs. "I'm just annoyed you kept me worrying for so long. I thought we weren't friends anymore, you know." She turns away. "You scared me."

His smile drops and he steps closer to her again. She turns so that her body is facing his again, her head still down, but Ben's hand reaches out to tip her chin upwards, so that her eyes meet his once more. "Oh, carrots." He chuckles and his eyes flit to her ginger hair and the smile is back again, his lips arching upwards into that adorable, playful grin. He wraps his finger around one of her curls and tugs at it very gently. "Your hair," he says in an awfully uncanny impression of his four year old self. "Red, ain't it?"

Ridley rolls her eyes and mimes whacking him. They both laugh.

"I thought you said you dyed your hair blonde?" Ben asks her quizzically. She shrugs.

"It wore off quickly," she says. "And I decided to keep it ginger. You're right. It looks better when it's red."

"It really is."

For a moment there is silence and Ridley can hear nothing but the sound of their breathing - both slow, and steady and calm - though, of course, she doesn't feel calm at all. She wants to tell him how much she wants him and she wants to ask him if he still feels the same way, though, of course he wouldn't because it's been so long and he's probably met much prettier, funnier girls than her and, of course, he deserves better.

"Why?" she murmurs quietly. "Why didn't you talk to me for so long?"

And then, she can feel the tension between them rising again. The anger, the frustration, the hurt, the sadness, the love; they all come crashing down on both of them like an unstoppable tsunami of emotions and she can feel it in his eyes, and he can feel it in hers. They immediately step backwards from one another and Ridley feels as though she is not staring into the eyes of her old chum, her one true love, but into the eyes of a complete stranger who looks at her in the same way.

"I needed-" Ben takes in a huge breath. "I need to stay away from you."

But why? She wants to cry. Why, oh why? I love you! I love you, god damnit!

"I see," is all she can say and fuck, it sounds so heartless. And she can see that Ben thinks so too as his face turns pale, colourless. Ridley feels stupid and hopeless. It's like that one time she was so ill with tonsillitis and she had tried talking to Marcy but she couldn't and all she could let out was painful little whimpers. That's what she's doing now. Oh, how she wants to cry out to him, just tell him how she feels but she cannot-what the hell is wrong with me? Ridley thinks. Just tell him!

"I...I need to go Rids-I-"

"No!" Ridley shouts before he can make his way to the front door. "No! Please stay with me, Ben!"

"Ridley, don't you think I want to? Don't you see what you're doing to me? I-"

"Ben - please - I -"

"I have to go. I thought I could handle this after a year, but apparently I can't so I-"

"Ben, god fucking damnit, will you just hear me out-"

"But you've nothing to say, Ridley! You've told me everything I needed to know, Rids, and I thought time would help me move on but god, I can't. I need more time, Rids, please, can you just-"

"I LOVE YOU!"

Silence.

Ridley's eyes widen and her heart starts to pound against her chest. Ben is rendered speechless. His mouth moves wordlessly as both of them stare at each other.

"W-What?" Ben asks her after an agonizingly painful ten seconds.

Ridley rolls her eyes. "You heard me the first time, idiot!" she hisses as hot tears begin to spill out of her eyes. "I love you. I love you. Damnit, Ben, I love you and I'll say it a thousand times over if I have to! I love you. I've been a fool, Ben, I've been such a fool to not have realized this before but fucking hell, I love you. I do."

"You love me?" Ben strides towards her and Ridley is puzzled as to why he sounds angry. "Oh you love me, do you?" he spits as his own tears begin to spill. "You love me, huh? Isn't this convenient. The moment I'm in a relationship, you decide that you love me! The moment I'm not giving you as much attention as before, you love me! Oh, how very convenient, Ridley Denvers. You know, I was always suspicious you might try to do this to me but I never fully believed you could be this selfish-"

"I am selfish!" cries Ridley. "I admit it! There! I am selfish. I want you, I admit it, I want you but it was never because you decided to get a girlfriend! It was never because of the attention. You can't say that, Ben - not before you hear me out. I've always been so stupid. I've always - always dreamed of finding my own Gilbert Blythe but I never realized that I already-"

"Oh, you and your Gilbert Blythe!" Ben throws his hands up in the air and laughs. "You see, Ridley? You don't love me. You didn't love Sawyer. You don't love anyone but your Gilbert Blythe." He smiles at her but it is a smile that expresses nothing but pain. "I'm not Gilbert Blythe, Ridley," he whispers. "I can't be a fictional character. I can't be - be this idealised version of me that you've invented in your head. I can't - I can't rescue you on a boat or - or give up a teaching job at some school or - or whatever Gilbert Blythe did that made you love him so much."

"Ben, you..." Ridley shakes her head. "You've got it all wrong. I never expected-"

"You did, Rids." He nods. "Oh, you did." He's walking away now. Towards the front door.

"Ben, don't!" Ridley begs in a soft whisper.

"I'm sorry." Ben's lip trembles. "I can't do this anymore."

And he's out the door before she can stop him.

→ → → → → →