Status Updates From Cursed Boys and Broken Hearts

But we're jumping into our futures together. Miles away, but together.
The next morning, the blizzard outside hits so hard, the air itself has body. Through the whiteout, I can barely see Ben's frost-colored rose sitting in a vase by the window.
Waking up next to Ben is shocking. Not that I thought he'd leave in the night, I'm just not used to this alien feeling of security.

In the basement, today, Ben lovingly. plays with the curls on my neck. I shut my eyes on another painful throb.
I have to be strong and do this for us.
"Ben, I can't lose you again," I say weakly, my neck collapsing in shame.
"Hey." Ben swirls his hand across my back. "You're not gonna."
I wriggle free of his touch. I can't let his sweetness top what I need to do. Ben clocks what I did, his eyes narrowed in fear.

Mama Bianchi's pie stand is a small canteen behind the former sculpture garden, just before the Vero Roseto property gates that lead into the dense thickets of Valle Forest. In the declining last few years, the neglected pie stand has become a vermin lair, so it needs a severe cute-ening. While I vacuum cobwebs from the corner, Ben leans against the pie stand's windowsill.
Things are getting...easy between us.

Despite our so-far platonic friendship, Ben still surprises me with tiny touches like this. Sniffing my hair. Poking my cheek. A hand on my back when he's squeezing past me.
When Ben's fingers come near me, my skin fizzes like I'm holding an ice cube too long.
Always shocking, never relaxing.
This isn't good for me. Being anything more than friends with Ben isn't good.

Ben crosses his arms over the hoe to lean against it. "You don't want to kick my ass?"
"No."
"Liar."
"I'm not lying."
"So, what do you want?"
"I want"--I take a step toward him, so we're inches apart--"to offer you a cool beverage because you look like you need a break. Now can I get you an iced tea or not?"
Ben smiles. "Sure."
Minutes later, I return from the kitchen to the yard with cans of Brisk iced tea.