An Ever Fixéd Mark by Jessie Olson Page B

they got beyond 495. “But the motivation.”
    “The motivation?” he glanced at her.
    “I slept with Mike – Jack’s drummer.” Lizzie
spoke before stopping her whim for honesty. “He has a girlfriend. I
knew that. But I went ahead and slept with him because he wanted
me. Because it felt good knowing he would choose me when he had
someone else. Because for so much of my life I didn’t feel wanted.
I don’t love Mike. I didn’t do it out of love. I did it to make
myself feel good for five minutes. It was stupid. It was cruel. And
it was not good.”
    Ben took in a breath. He clearly didn’t know
what to say. He was stuck in the car with her, on the Mass
Turnpike, with very little option to turn around and drive her back
home. “That doesn’t make you a bad person, Elizabeth.”
    “Yes, it does,” Lizzie looked down. She was
doing a great job towards retaining his interest and sympathy.
“That isn’t my only indiscretion. There have been a lot of
indiscretions…” Lizzie faded off and found a question forming in
her mind. Maybe she would ask it to cut to the chase and end it
before her hopes got the better of her. “You know that I’m
promiscuous. Is that why you are here?”
    “What?” Ben shook his head as he switched
lanes.
    “Are you just taking me out tonight so you
can get laid?”
    “Well, I’m not going to deny that I have
hopes for the end of this evening. I enjoy being with you,
Elizabeth. In your bed. And sitting in this car right now. I …” he
faded his conversation off to another gaze. “I think you are
beautiful and funny and smart. I think you are good. We all make
mistakes. We all do things to hurt other people – most often
because we feel hurt. I certainly can’t point my finger at you. I
don’t think less of you for what you’ve done. I don’t think any
less of your ultimate goodness. You spend every day helping to
raise money for a hospital. You are a devoted friend. You show
appreciation to those who help you... and you obviously care enough
to let it bother you enough to confess it to me.”
    Lizzie looked at Ben, who kept his gaze at
the left lane of the highway. She felt the anger and apprehension
she had about his character dissolve. “You really think I’m
good?”
    “Yes, I do.”
    “Even when half of the time we’ve spent
together has been in a bedroom?” Lizzie couldn’t believe she said
it.
    “You are good in the bedroom,” he turned his
attention away from the road long enough to smile. Lizzie met his
smile and breathed in deeply and confidently. He looked back to the
road, still grinning mischievously.
    She let silence slip into the car between
the next two exits. It wasn’t that uncomfortable silence of
uncertainty. It was a mutual comfort with one another’s company.
Like she had known him for a long time and such silences were
perfectly acceptable parts of the routine. She had known him for a
long while, much longer than she knew Nora and Meg. And yet there
was still so much mystery.
    “I don’t remember you being an athlete,” she
broke the silence after fifteen minutes. Her thoughts didn’t
venture far from his last comment.
    “In high school? I wasn’t,” he laughed.
    “But… you look like an athlete. Even in the
yearbook pictures, you have the same… well I didn’t really notice
it then. But…”
    “You were looking at our yearbook?”
    “A few months back – at Sara’s… she had an
awful spiral perm. I was really unattractive,” Lizzie wanted to eat
her words again, wondering if she hit a sore spot with mention of
Sara.
    “You weren’t unattractive,” he answered
without a pause at Sara’s name.
    “Your hair was longer… but not much else,”
Lizzie looked at him without fear. “But I don’t remember you being
athletic.”
    “I told you, I wasn’t.”
    “Then where does the muscle come from? Heavy
duty mouse clicking?”
    “We did a lot of work around the house back
then. I guess that’s…” he let his eyes