Benjamin could feel his heart being ripped out of his chest as she said the words, “I’m sorry, Benjamin. It’s over.” Benjamin heard the words reverberating within his mind, concentrating to a sharp point which landed softly onto his soul and rested in a place that would ache for the rest of Benjamin’s life. Jennifer quietly handed Benjamin a hand-written letter that expanded on the two words “It’s Over” for a full page.
“Is it…Is there someone else?” Benjamin asked Jennifer, with a lost gaze as Benjamin stared at Jennifer’s letter held in the palm of his left hands. Benjamin noticed the red envelope with the hand-written “Benjamin Arbor” on the front, addressing the contents of a broken heart directly towards Benjamin.
“No.” Jennifer recoiled inside herself after the lie escaped her mouth. She had met a Doctor while on vacation near the North Shore of Martha’s Vineyard, and after a short summer fling, Jennifer now found herself 4 months pregnant.
“What…why…what did I do?” Benjamin began probing his new darkness with a flashlight, searching for any answer that would ease the pain currently overpowering him.
“Benjamin…” Jennifer began to search for any consoling words she could find. Inside Jennifer a war raged between the truth and her lies and rationalizations. She couldn’t tell him the truth, it would destroy him. Jennifer promised herself she would tell Benjamin anything. Anything except the truth. “I haven’t been in love with you for the past 2 years.”
Benjamin’s mind immediately began racing, to the wedding in Santa Barbara, to the initial meetings in Phoenix, all of the previous two years flashed before his eyes and he began searching for clues, any sign that what Jennifer said was true.
“What do I do now? Where do we go from here?” Benjamin, always the action oriented individual that Jennifer fell in love with, began to develop a strategy to overcome his newest challenge.
Jennifer began to consider what her future would be like, carrying a child due in 6 months that would soon begin to show. “Benjamin, we can stay friends.” With these words, Jennifer mixed the hemlock with honey and poured the sweetest lie that is told in the end of every relationship.
Benjamin sat, paralyzed and frozen, beginning to slowly survey the thousands of pieces of his life that he must put together one by one, which at that time, seemed to be an exceedingly daunting task. As Benjamin began to open the red envelope to read Jennifer’s letter, she began to walk away. Her heels made a click on the cold, hard tile floor. As Benjamin watched her walk through the door and disappear, he knew that it was the last time he would see her, and a rush of energy spread through his body and exploded into a shower of tears, landing on the red envelope and slightly smudging her handwritten words “Benjamin Arbor”.
Sensually Desired 