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Jewell shook her head back and forth, slowly. Words formed on her lips as realization sank in. Her stomach flipped. "No," she whispered pointlessly.
"I don't know who I am anymore. I don't know what I am. Everything I ever thought has been thrown in a blender and shredded. How can I expect you to love me? How can you even know who I am when I don't know who I am?"
Jewell ignored his silent request to stay away. She moved to him and pushed his shoulder to make him stand and face her. The anguish in his expression was excruciating to her.
"Stop it," she demanded.
"I can't. This is…this is what I have to do."
"Benjamin, this is crazy. You just told me you love me, and now you're saying you want to end it?"
"I don't want to."
"Then don't." It was all Jewell could do to keep herself from screaming.
Benjamin grasped her face with his hands, his fingers pushing into her hair and his palms cold and damp against her cheeks.
"Tell me who I am, Jewell. Am I Benjamin Prescott Roth or am I Ben Prescott Junior?"
"I love you, not your name."
"But isn't that who I am?"
Jewell pushed back, anger flashing in to mix with the tumult of emotions raging through her. "Who do you love, Benjamin?"
He stared at her, furrows creasing his brow, and he shook his head slowly.
"Are you in love with Frances Louise Shackley?"
The furrows deepened and his eyes squinted. "Who the hell is Frances Louise Shackley?"
"I am."
"What the hell are you—" he began but stopped as understanding crossed his expression.
"Yeah," she shot back. "Tell me again how much a name means. Do you love me—Jewell Kincaid? Or do you love Frances Shackley? Would you love me if you knew me as Frances?"
He nodded slowly. "Of course, I would."
"Then why don't you believe I can love you?"
Benjamin pressed his fists against his eyes and sank into a chair. "I don't know. I don't know," he mumbled over and over again.
Jewell dropped to her knees and knelt before him, pulling his hands from his face. "Benjamin, don't worry about me. Don't worry about my ability to love you. I love you, that is all you need to know. I can handle whatever happens because I know we are doing it together."
"You shouldn't have to handle it."
"Neither should you. But you are. And so am I."
"Jewell, I don't know if I can get beyond the things that happened when I was a kid. They made me who I am?—"
She covered his lips with a finger. "Yes, they did. And I love the man you are."
"But I might have been a different man if they hadn't."
Jewell nodded. "You might have, that's true. You might have been a worse man. A man I would have never known. Benjamin, we can't live around what-ifs. What if my mother hadn't been an addict? What if she hadn't given me up? What if I grew up in a home of drugs and abuse? What if Cecil and Opal Kincaid weren't the ones who adopted me? Don't you see? Everything that happens can go another way. Every choice we make affects the rest of our lives. Everything, everything has brought us here. Brought us together."
He touched her cheek with his fingers. Jewell clutched his fingers to turn into his hand and kiss his palm. Benjamin leaned forward and gently touched his lips to hers. Relief burst in her chest and spread out through her limbs. She closed her eyes and relished the kiss.
