Stanislas

"What do you want from me?" I heard myself whine, and I was appalled at the pathetic cliché I was turning into.

Ibtissem looked at me with fierce eyes, and she left.

Suddenly I felt a wave of panic. I stayed paralyzed and didn't even call for her. As long as she was screaming at me, I knew she cared. But the silence? For the first time, she had just left. Was it the turning point? The moment when she had enough of me? My heart clenched.

I had a brief moment when I envisioned my life without her piercing eyes and Benjamin's soft smile. And the loneliness hit me like a truck. I couldn't breathe.

"You can be a real pain in the ass," a deep voice said behind me. Benjamin.

I turned slowly towards him and met his brown eyes. "I'll leave you alone," I managed to say. "You won't hear about me anymore."

Benjamin rolled his eyes and sighed. "You're so dramatic. My wife is temporarily frustrated with you - for good reasons. It doesn't mean you have to vanish from our lives."

I threw my hands in the air, but the tension in my body decreased a little at Benjamin's casual tone. Maybe I hadn't lost them yet. "Enlighten me then on what's the correct response," I said.

Benjamin laughed. "She's telling you to stop pushing everyone away and then what you do is pushing her away. The correct response is not very hard to guess."

'Cut the bullshit' had been Ibtissem's exact words. She was always more... to the point than Benjamin.

"If I'm that unbearable, why the hell are you trying to convince me not to leave?"

"Good question," he snorted. Then his face turned serious again. "Because you are not always unbearable. Because you are our friend."

He said it so naturally, like it was obvious, that I almost took a step back as if I were punched in the chest.

His face softened. "Don't look so shocked. We are not even your only friends. Elise likes you too. That's the whole point of this discussion."

I felt at the edge of a cliff. If I acknowledged that, my previous life was over. And the rest was uncharted territory.

Then again, my previous life was over. It had been over for a long time now. Since Elise's warm light. Since her embrace.

Benjamin searched my eyes, but he didn't push me.

And that very look: it said everything, right? Someone as tender as Benjamin, who had been chosen as her partner by one of the bravest women I had ever known, was looking at me like that. With care. Like a friend. Didn't I have my answer?

My voice was so low, it was almost a whisper. "Do you really think I have anything to contribute with at Elise's shelter?"

He didn't hesitate. "Yes, I do."

I closed my eyes for a second, and when I opened them, Benjamin tilted his head, almost as a challenge.

"Okay, fine," I said. "I'll do it then."

***

If you want to know how Stanislas met Ibtissem and Benjamin, you can read the bonus chapter "The possibility of a friendship" (Link in the comments).