RE: Passenger Side -
Reuben Crouch - May 8, 2020
Why had he asked this? He realized as soon as Art started to answer that it had been a mistake. Ben didn't know that he'd ever been in love before, and now it seemed unlikely he ever would be. That hadn't bothered him a few months ago, when he'd been a bachelor; he was quite content to have fun with girls and then move on, for the most part. Some of them he genuinely cared about (like Melody,
before), and some were merely flirtations, but either way the word
love had never crossed his mind. Now that he knew he was going to spend the rest of his life with one person, though — now that spending it with the person of his choosing wasn't an option any more — the whole concept of
love just felt depressing. He would probably never have a chance to be in love with someone, but even if he did, he wouldn't be able to
do anything about it. He was married to someone else. Forever.
Ben took a long drink. "If I'd had a time turner on February fifteenth," he started, but realized that wasn't something he could say out loud, even to Art, so he stopped short of completing the thought. It wasn't even something he should have been thinking, really; it was a dark train of thought, and speculation on
what if scenarios wasn't going to help anything. What was done was done.
"Don't tell anyone I said that," he told Art with a short sigh.
RE: Passenger Side -
Arthur Pettigrew - May 21, 2020
Sometimes, being Ben's friend include trying to pull him back off the ledge of his own bad decisions, so that was Art's first instinct - he opened his mouth to say something, but stopped. Because they didn't have a time turner to February 15th. The only way out of Ben's marriage was through.
So in this case, being Ben's friend probably involved pretending that he didn't know how miserable he was.
"Yeah," Art said, "Alright."