What can I tell you about Ben?

Nothing to tell. He’s never going to be a love interest, because according to Dad I am going to join a Nunnery of one and die a virgin. Excellent.

I really think Dad needs to read some of my books, because that is the kind of attitude that is going to send me running straight into Ben’s arms. Well, not really, because I hope it is apparent that I am my own person and I am not going to make decisions that willfully ignore my father’s fears or blindly attend to Ben’s wishes.

Okay, so maybe I am not as logical as all that. You have read my entry on the fights dad and I have had? But you see what I am getting at.

Ben is…special. He is three years older than me. Older man – scandalous. Yeah – maybe, back in the day. But it means a bit more than that these days.

People of Ben’s vintage are rare. Even rarer than us ‘comfort babies’. He was a tiny child when this all started. Not quite small enough to carry everywhere or keep hidden, and too small to fend for himself. He would have been a danger and a liability. God, the things he would have seen and not been able to comprehend. For him to be alive right now – it would stand that many people died for him. When Mish comes to stay she always asks after him and watches him wistfully. Such a beautiful, haunting expression for such a scary lady.

He lives with his aunt and uncle. Whether they are blood relatives, it doesn’t matter. The concept of family has changed in the last decade and a half. He doesn’t have the same education as I do, and he is sometimes very angry, but mostly sweet. Pretty cute, I guess.

I don’t know how he got to write the letter. It would have taken some doing. It got me thinking. I like him well enough. But now I wonder what it would be to like him like him. Can it still be love if I didn’t even know it was there?