A few weeks later, Ben rang me one Sunday and asked me if I wanted to have lunch with him. It was a Sunday and I was bored, so I obviously jumped at the chance. I spent at least half an hour deciding what to wear and in the end opted for a peach summer dress that, to be quite honest, made me look like a teenager. When Ben picked me up though, he seemed to like it, in spite of this. Although I very much wanted to look like the beautiful women in his world, Ben wanted the complete opposite (obviously apart from the fact that he wanted me to get my lips pumped!). He loved the girl next door, no make-up look that I had perfected over the years. When I got in the car, he mentioned that he just needed to go to one of his buildings to do some maintenance. At first, I was not keen, but when he said it was on the rooftop and you could see the entire city, I saw a photo opportunity.
When we got up to the rooftop, the view certainly was amazing. You could see the entire city, including the Harbour bridge. As the wind blew my cute little summer dress around, Ben grabbed me and I imagined he was about to kiss me, like in some sort of film scene. He did not kiss me, however. Instead, he very roughly grabbed me by my hair and dragged me to edge of the railing.
I was so shocked I didn’t move.
He then forced me to look down and whispered in my ear in a very threatening voice, ‘If you ever leave me, I will throw you off.’
As he said it, I couldn’t help myself and for one split second I stopped breathing. He had caught me by complete surprise, and my mind was going into overdrive as my head began to hurt from the tight grip he had around my ponytail. After literally five seconds, I strangely burst into a fit of giggles and did not stop for at least five minutes. It was the kind of laughing that actually hurt, and I had to crouch down on the floor to catch my breath. I guess my subconscious was 100% confident that he would never intentionally hurt me, even if it did cross my conscious mind for a moment.
When Ben released my hair, he started laughing too. To this day, I am still not certain whether he meant to laugh, but he did all the same.
Things seemed to be going so well, and a few weeks after this, Ben arranged some drinks with his friends in a bar in the city, and of course I was invited. They weren’t meeting until 10pm, and since I couldn’t find any willing girlfriends to go out with me, I spent hours getting ready and had a few drinks at home before I headed out. I left the house feeling a little tipsy, happy to be going out with all my favourite men but, as always, a little self-conscious although quietly confident that I was beginning to fit in just a little.
When I got to the bar, the boys were all drinking and having a good time and I joined in, faking it like I totally belonged there. After a few hours, all five of the boys disappeared to the toilet but before Ben went, he slipped his phone into my handbag and told me to look after it. I made myself comfortable at a nearby table and tried not to make eye contact with anyone, knowing full well what Ben would do if he came back to me sitting with a table full of strange men.
As I was sitting there alone, something went through my mind that I had never ever thought of before; it crossed my mind to go through Ben’s phone. Now, I knew our relationship was not a conventional relationship in the slightest, and I use the word ‘relationship’ really for want of a better word. Plus, let’s be honest, I so far had been no saint with the bonus of also having a ‘relationship’ with someone who had become my best friend, but I was curious. I looked up, exciting butterflies all of a sudden in my stomach, and saw no sign of Ben or his friends, and so I did something I had never even dreamt of doing before with anyone. I turned his phone on and like some crazy, insane, jealous, teenage girlfriend, I began to glance at some of the text messages.
The first few messages were from me, arranging our night out, but the next few messages made my stomach turn. I don’t really know what I expected to find on his phone that night, but I guess the little girl inside me wanted to find messages about how much he liked me and such fairy tale stories! However, the text messages were from someone saved in the phone only as ‘Ang.’ It was clear from the messages that Ang was a woman, and it was obvious they had been in contact for some time. As I began to read more and more, the messages became more and more affectionate. Some of the messages arranged meetings, while others exchanged compliments. I was unaware of it at the time, but tears began to stream down my face. Then I read the message that broke my heart a tiny little bit; Ang had texted him, saying, ‘If you aren’t with Cassi tonight, why don’t you come over?’
My whole body went numb as I realised I must have known her—and worse, she knew me. All of a sudden, I was filled with anger, firstly at myself for letting that happen all over again. To me it was so similar to what happened with Guy I was furious at myself. Secondly, full of dread because I felt like I had just lost my best friend. It was like the world had stopped and I could no longer hear the loud music or the people talking around me. I felt completely empty inside, but I knew I only had myself to blame for reading the phone in the first place.
Suddenly, someone tapped me on the shoulder, and I was brought back to reality. It was a well-dressed man who was having dinner with his friend at the next table. He very kindly asked me if I was ok, and unaware that I was silently crying, I told him I was fine. As I turned away from the man, I saw Ben, out of the corner of my eye, launch himself at the well-dressed man and there was a slight scuffle. The bouncers rushed over, but Ben had walked off and everything seemed calm again.
Not really knowing what to do or say, I stayed perfectly still. I didn’t think Ben had realised that I had been, and still was a little bit, crying. He came over to ask if I was ok, but I was filled with anger and as he approached I got up, threw his phone on the floor and walked away. He grabbed my arm, and I couldn’t help but shout abuse at him.
It took him a few seconds to realise what I had done, and at first, he looked guilty and somewhat sorry that I was upset, but his guilt soon turned to anger as I walked away from him. I heard a loud crash behind me. I turned around to see he had flipped over the dinner table I had been sitting at, glasses and all. The whole bar turned to look, and I was filled with dread as four bouncers rushed over and tried to apprehend Ben—with little luck, as he smashed and punched everything in sight. I stood frozen to the spot as his friends started screaming at me to stop him. Why they were asking me I had no idea. I had put myself between him and a lot of men he was threatening since we had met, but I had never seen him that destructive before.
Even though there were four bouncers, they were finding it impossible to remove Ben from the bar. Eventually though, and very reluctantly, after he had destroyed everything he could find, Ben agreed to leave of his own accord, as long as I went with him. The bouncers all looked relieved and told me I had to leave too. Because I was hurt and because I wanted to be a pain in the ass, I told them I wouldn’t get in the lift with him. That, of course, drove Ben insane, but the bouncers got him to agree to go downstairs and they would escort me down in the next lift.
As soon as the lift doors closed, with Ben, his friends and all four bouncers inside, I turned right back around, still shaking all over, and made a beeline for the bar. With the entire bar eyeing me cautiously, I ordered another drink. I tried to ignore the stares I was getting and sat at the bar, silently, by myself, trying to figure out what had just happened and trying to work out whether it had been all my fault. After a while, two of the bouncers came back up and were extremely shocked to see me sitting at the bar having a drink. As they approached me, they said, ‘It’s time to go,’ and again, because I wanted to be a pain in the arse and because I wanted to hurt Ben, I refused.
Now the bouncers were in quite a predicament: If they made me leave, they would look like compete assholes, as one, I really hadn’t done anything wrong and two, what if I turned up the next day chopped up into tiny pieces in a dumpster? I guess, not wanting to take the risk, they cautiously glanced at each other, shrugged and walked away to radio down to their colleagues that I was refusing to come down. The bar was pretty loud again by that point and so I remained at the bar, pondering silently what to do next, thinking that Ben had probably left when I hadn’t come down. After ten or fifteen minutes, I decided it was probably just easier if I got the bus home, as I really didn’t think I was in any state to be out drinking alone in Sydney. Especially when I had such a short tight skirt on.
As I got up to leave, I turned around, and to my amazement, Jack was standing in front of me, with blood pouring from his nose. He was escorted by one bouncer who had a cut to the top left hand side of his head, which was also bleeding. At first, I thought maybe they had been in a car accident, but when Jack started pleading with me to go downstairs before anyone was killed, I came to the realisation that Ben was still going mental and he was no longer being selective about who he took it out on. Jack looked like he was about to break down, and with the whole bar staring at us again, I agreed to go downstairs. I knew Ben and his friends had sent Jack up because they knew I wouldn’t be able to say no to him! Part of me hoped the police were there already, but when I got downstairs they weren’t, and Ben was being pinned against the wall by two of the bouncers. As soon as he saw me, Ben stopped struggling and just stared at me.
I stood frozen to the spot, not really sure what to do or where to look. This is all my fault, I thought to myself, and I was so embarrassed. All those people got hurt and all that fuss because I was doing something I shouldn’t have been and because I was making the ‘relationship’ into something it wasn’t. After knowing Ben for a while, I was now pretty sure he wouldn’t hurt me, so I walked straight up to him and asked him what the hell he thought he was playing at.
He didn’t really give much away but the relief in the room was overwhelming. He managed to struggle free of the bouncers, who were in shock that he seemed to be some sort of Incredible Hulk man who could appear normal at any time. At that point, everyone was silently staring at me and so I reluctantly announced, ‘Let’s just go home,’ so that mess could just all be over. The bouncers stood back, and with ultimate relief on their faces, let us all walk past them while I apologised over and over again for what had happened. I obviously got no response and everyone stayed very silent, no doubt hoping the police didn’t turn up just in time.
I got in the car with Ben, Jack and one of their friends, but I was not scared like I probably should have been. Instead, I was fuming mad! As soon as they pulled up outside my house, I got out the car without even a word, walked to the front of my building without looking back, let myself inside, fell into bed fully dressed and went to sleep.
I woke up the next day very late; I had ten missed calls from Ben and deep down I felt happy that he was worried about me and was suffering. I lay in bed for another hour, not really knowing what to do or where to go, and after the fifteenth missed call, I answered the phone. As Ben lied and made up excuses, I put the phone down—not because I didn’t want to talk to him, because that’s all I really wanted to do, but because I was exhausted. After I had broken up with Guy, I really had put my body through hell, and I honestly did not know whether it would survive a second time around.
I spent that day lying on the sofa with Coco, stupidly feeling very sorry for myself. Even though Ben continued to call, I constantly ignored him, as I knew my heart was still very fragile. Looking back, it reminds me of the time I was lying on the mountain in Canberra after I had fallen over. Just like that incident, I was doing absolutely nothing to help myself and so eventually, late on the Sunday night, Ben called again and I decided to pick up. I was strong and calm when I answered the phone and gave him an ultimatum: Either you tell me the truth, or I hang up again.
As a woman, I think in a situation like this you just want the truth; you want your questions answered. But for a man, it is the complete opposite; he wants to pretend that everything is ok and so he will say anything (even outright blatant lies) for the situation to be ‘ok’ again. But that night, Ben took me by complete surprise: He owned up.
As I sat listening to his side of the story, I started to regain my trust in him and unexpectedly I started to respect him even more. He told me that he and Jack had met her having dinner one night and he had given her his number for Jack, as Jack’s phone wasn’t working at the time (that I at least knew was true). He said Jack had met up with her a few times, and I had met her once in a bar in the city, but after that it had fizzled out between them. Ben had then started flirting with her over text messages because he ‘wanted to give her a go.’ When he was telling me all that, all of a sudden, I came to the realisation that I too could really do whatever I wanted, within reason, and that filled me with excitement. After that incident, I felt confident that this man and I would always be friends, no matter what.‘Things are never quite as scary when you have a best friend.’ — Bill Watterson