Chapter Text
Prom went by quickly. Quicker than Ben could catch up with and suddenly high school had ended. The moment he tossed his graduation cap into the sky, the weight of the real world came crashing down on him.
A year later, he married Lola.
It wasn’t some grand love story. He married her out of a half-hearted attempt to meet his mother’s expectations, and to make up for his half-assed attempt of being her boyfriend.
Lola deserved better, and in some corner of his mind, Ben thought this might be the way to finally give it to her.
Ben had popped the question clumsily, his hands clammy and fumbling through his words as if he were back in high school giving a presentation to his class.
Donna had practically planned the whole proposal, Ben merely showed up and played his part.
He proposed to her at the ice skating rink they were supposed to have their first date at. The date that would’ve happened if Ricky never got them stuck in that elevator shaft overnight.
Ricky.
Even now, the name curled like smoke in Ben’s lungs, akin to the cigarettes the other would light whenever he snuck into Ben’s room.
It was a slow-burning ache, a secret bruise that never healed. Ricky was the memory he buried deepest and visited most often.
His name alone made something forbidden twist in his chest—something raw, ugly and real. A stain he scrubbed at in the quiet hours, long after Lola had fallen asleep beside him. No matter how many times he tried to wash it away, it clung to him like ink.
A month after their highschool graduation, Ricky stopped showing up to Ben’s window.
At first, Ben assumed that the other had been busy with a new job, “Trying to earn enough to clean up my ‘ol girl” Ricky would coo about his motorbike, talking of repairs or saving for oil changes.
But after multiple days of radio silence from Ricky, Ben began to panic. He searched the streets, every shop in their vicinity. He even checked the park just in case the other had resorted to sleeping on that rugged old bench again.
It was as if Ricky had disappeared, vanished into thin air.
It wasn’t until a week after his disappearance that he heard what had happened from Skeeter. Ricky had moved away, leaving sometime during the night.
Bastard .
He had left, left Ben. Without even a note or explanation, Ricky had just packed up and moved away on a whim. Leaving Ben to pick up the pieces of their friendship.
Ricky’s disappearance wrecked Ben for months on end.
There was a stillness in the aftermath, an unnatural quiet in the spaces where Ricky used to be.
No sound of his bedroom window being carelessly thrown open in the evening. No gravelly laugh echoing off the walls of his bedroom. No greasy fingerprints on the edges of his textbooks where Ricky would pretend to help with homework but only ever ended up lying on Ben’s bed and staring at the ceiling.
Ben waited.
He waited through the heat of late summer, through the first cold snap of fall. Through the start of community college, which he only attended because everyone expected him to do something .
Through Lola’s patient smiles and Donna’s pitiful reassurances.
But Ricky never came back.
Ben became good at pretending. He smiled when people asked about the wedding plans, nodded when his mom said, “You’re doing the right thing, Ben.”
The small bits of praise from his mom made things slightly bearable but nauseating at the same time. He learned how to say the right things, how to show up, how to look normal.
Even while part of him had been scooped out and tossed away like Ricky had never existed at all.
But he had existed. And sometimes, Ben caught glimpses of him in the most inconvenient places.
In the way a stranger slouched against a fence post, or when the smell of cigarette smoke hit his nose. His heart would leap, for just a second, before reason caught up and yanked him back down.
Every time he heard the roar of a motorcycle engine in the distance, something in him braced.
Then cursed itself.
By the time he married Lola, Ricky had been gone for nearly a year. But he hadn’t left Ben’s thoughts for a single day.
The guilt, the confusion, the anger—it all brewed quietly beneath the surface. A storm he couldn’t speak about. Not to Lola. Not to anyone.
Because how could he explain that the one person he wasn’t supposed to miss was the only person he truly did?
Life moved on without Ricky, the time passing faster than Ben could properly grasp. Ten years slipped by until Ben found himself at the grand age of twenty-seven, wondering how it had all turned out this way.
Perhaps he had rushed things with Lola. A marriage born more out of guilt and meeting expectations rather than passion.
Hastily sealed when they were just eighteen and still too young to understand what forever really meant. Traded his dreams for a steady paycheck, exchanged his wild ambitions for a mortgage and a minivan. But wasn’t that what a man was supposed to do?
He’d made plenty of mistakes, no denying that. But on paper, his life looked solid, respectable even.
A wife who managed their home with warmth and grace. A daughter, Reagan, who lit up every room she entered with her laugh and her stubborn sparkle. A job that paid well enough to keep the lights on and put food on the table. It should’ve been smooth sailing.
But it wasn’t.
He didn’t want to admit it, but his marriage with Lola felt superficial. He loved her, of course he did, but not with the kind of deep, soul-stitching intensity he was taught love was supposed to bring.
He thought they’d found that connection once, briefly, when Reagan was born early into their marriage. She was the best part of him, of both of them.
Their seven-year-old daughter, Reagan, a bubbly and compassionate young girl who was too cheeky for her father’s poor heart. She made the days brighter. She made the silence in his chest hurt a little less.
Despite his daughter being his whole world, Lola’s sweet steadiness anchoring him, Ben often felt like a ghost in his own life. Present, but not really there . Like he was walking through the motions, wearing a smile that never quite reached his eyes.
Tonight, he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t stomach the dinner table small talk, the TV humming in the background, the soft touch of a wife who didn’t know she was trying to love a man who felt oceans away.
As much as he loved his family, he couldn’t stand being in a house with them when he was upset. He needed to be alone. To breathe. To think. To sulk, if he was being honest.
So he walked, like he used to do when he was younger.
The late-night air was crisp, cool against his cheeks as he kicked at a loose stone on the sidewalk. His shoulders ached from the weight of another long day at work. His supervisors piling on more work than he could handle, the pressure gnawing at the edge of his sanity.
His feet led him to the local park. The terrain was mostly the same, scarce of any change despite a decade having passed.
Street lamps spilled soft amber light onto the path, just enough for Ben to watch his steps. The wind tugged gently at his sleeves, and for a moment, he felt like he was seventeen again, out too late, heart heavy with things he couldn’t say.
Ben kept walking, his steps slow and unhurried, as if the park itself was pulling him forward. His feet knew the way before his mind could catch up, toward that bench.
The same bench where he’d first found Ricky a decade ago, his face bruised and shivering in the cold night.
That night had changed everything. That was the moment Ben cracked himself open and said, Come sleep at my place . It was the first time he’d seen Ricky without the bravado, without the smirk.
He was just about to sit down when he felt a presence behind him. The hair on his arms prickled, the air shifting subtly, like something unspoken had entered the space.
He turned fast, reflexive and on edge, his fist half-raised out of habit more than intent—ready to bark or fight or run.
But then he saw him.
And the world stopped.
It was him.
Ricky.
Ben needed someone to pinch him.
He looked… the same, as if he had stepped out from their grade’s graduation photo.
A little more stubble on his jaw, sure. A new small scar running vertically along the left side of his upper and bottom lip.
Otherwise, it was as if he was frozen in time. His black hair still slicked back in that careless way that made it look like he never tried, that old cocky grin tugging at his lips, and those blue eyes.
It was Ricky, his Ricky.
“Shitbird.” He breathed, the endearing nickname spilling out of him like a laugh and a sob all at once.
Ricky’s grin widened into something that made Ben’s chest ache.
“Brookie,” he replied, voice low, warm, familiar. The kind of voice that used to say his name when no one else was around. The kind of voice that used to sooth him after an overwhelming day at school.
And those dimples. God. Those damn dimples.
Ben swallowed, hard. “You’ve got some fucking nerve,” he said, but the words came out cracked—worn down by emotion.
Ricky didn’t flinch. He just shoved his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket, the same kind he used to wear like it was sacred. “Yeah,” he said quietly, eyes locking with Ben’s. “I figured.”
Ben stood rooted to the spot, heart thudding like a drum in a too-small room. His body was frozen, caught somewhere between running and reaching out. Across from him, Ricky seemed slightly stunned as well, unmoving.
Then, with a familiar carelessness, Ricky lowered himself onto the old bench. The wood creaked under his weight just like it used to. He patted the spot beside him, his voice soft and inviting, “C’mon, Brookie. Talk with me.”
Ben hesitated only a moment longer before moving, his steps slow, wary. He sat down, leaving just enough space between them for the ghost of everything that had gone unsaid.
The quiet stretched out, not uncomfortable but heavy—thick with the gravity of what could’ve been, what still might be. The kind of silence that had always existed between them, even when they were younger.
Ricky broke it first, voice gentle. “So… how’s life treating you?” His eyes flicked downward, catching the glint of metal on Ben’s left hand. “Still with Lola?”
Ben chewed the inside of his cheek, fingers twitching. He forced a smile, “Married for nine years.”
Ricky let out a low whistle, eyebrows raising. “Nine years, huh?” He leaned back, smirking just enough to cover the way his gaze lingered. “Such a charmer. Caught one and couldn’t let her go, huh?”
Ben ducked his head and gave Ricky’s shoulder a light shove. “Shut up,” he muttered, though the corner of his mouth tugged upward.
Ricky laughed, that same deep, gravelly yet light sound that used to play on repeat in his head. He tilted his head, and his smile softened into something warmer.
Ben exhaled slowly, the tightness in his chest loosening just enough.
“I have a daughter too,” he said, his voice quieter now, steadier. “She’s seven this year. Her name’s Reagan.”
That made Ricky pause. His gaze turned thoughtful, his smile faltering just slightly. As if the mention of a child made the years between them stretch even farther, reminding him that they were now two different people with entirely different lives.
They weren’t seventeen anymore, trying to beat each other to a pulp or sharing a bed late in the night.
“Seven,” Ricky repeated, his voice more breathless now. “Damn, Brookie. You’re a dad.”
Ben nodded slowly, a wistful pride settling into his expression. “She’s… everything. Smart, stubborn as hell, always trying to get into fights.”
“So, a lot like you then,” Ricky said with a grin, though his tone was soft, an underlying sense of sadness beneath the teasing words.
Ben chuckled, the sound tired but real. “Yeah. I guess she is.”
The air hung with the most dawning question that Ben didn’t even need to ask. Ricky, ever the one to dodge before a strike, filled it in first. “I left for personal reasons,” he said, his voice quiet, his accent thickening with emotion. “Kinda impulsively.”
A gust of cold air stirred the trees above them, and Ricky instinctively pulled his jacket tighter around himself. It was like Ben was getting deja vu.
He could envision Ricky on the same bench, his right eye swollen and black from their fight during school. Shivering like crazy in his leather jacket with a guarded look on his face. New bruises in places where Ben hadn't hit.
Ricky leaned forward, elbows on his knees, running a hand through his slicked-back hair, now windswept and tangled at the tips. “Had a fight with my old man that day,” he muttered. “One of the bad ones. I packed my shit, hit the tavern, got absolutely wrecked.”
Ben didn’t interrupt. He couldn’t. His voice was locked somewhere in his throat.
“I said some things I shouldn’t have,” Ricky went on, his voice faltering just enough to betray the weight of the memories. “Thought some shit I didn’t want to admit. It felt like everything was closing in. So I ran. I needed to get away before I did something stupid.”
“I’ve had some time to learn to accept some things about myself.” He let out a humorless laugh, breath fogging in the cold.
Ben scoffed, “Some time?” he echoed. “Some time my ass, Shitbird. Ten years. That’s more than some time.”
Ricky chuckled, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Fair,” he said, a little sheepish. “But I missed you, Brookie.”
That did it.
Ben’s heart stuttered. Sudden repressed, old feelings that he tried so hard to keep hidden bubbled up.
This had to be him just missing his best friend.
There was no other explanation for the sudden warmth in his chest at the other’s words. No. It couldn’t be what it felt like. This was just nostalgia. Just… the aching familiarity of a friend he’d once cared about more than anyone else. This wasn’t—
“I missed you too,” he said, softer than he meant to. “A lot.” His voice cracked slightly. “I looked for you everywhere. I thought you’d come back. I really did.”
Ricky’s expression shifted, shame and something deeper clouding his eyes. “And I didn’t.” His voice was barely above a whisper. “I’m sorry. I wanted to… But I wasn’t ready.”
He looked down at his boots, then exhaled hard and forced a crooked smile onto his lips. “Look, we don’t have to get into it now. It’s late, and you’ve got a family to get back to. We can talk more tomorrow, or whenever you want.” He punched Ben’s arm lightly, the touch familiar, grounding.
But something in Ben’s chest twisted. Disappointment rising too fast in his chest for him to tamp it down. “You can stay at mine tonight,” he blurted, too quickly.
“Like old times. We’ve got a guest room. It’s clean, and it’s better than some motel or… wherever you’re staying. Besides, I wouldn’t want you stuck somewhere unfamiliar.”
Ricky swallowed, observing the other’s face in the dim moonlight before shaking his head gently. “I shouldn’t.”
Ben opened his mouth to protest, but Ricky beat him to it, lifting a hand.
“I appreciate it, really. Shows how much you care.” He tilted his head, teasing again, trying to lighten the weight between them. “Guess I really did mean something to you, huh?”
Ben didn’t laugh. His eyebrows drawn together, expression unreadable.
“You still do,” he said quietly.
Ricky paused before looking away, jaw working like he wanted to say something but couldn’t. There was a flicker of something behind his eyes—longing, maybe. Or fear.
“Goodnight, Brookie,” he said, rising to his feet with that same effortless grace he always had. “I’ll see you around.”
And with that, he turned and walked off into the night, boots crunching on the gravel path, leaving Ben sitting alone on the old bench again. Only now with his heart cracked open and the weight of ten years pressing in.
This time, Ricky hadn’t disappeared.
But it didn’t make it any easier to watch him go.