Ben felt a flood of relief as she explained the cause of her concerns. He should have been a little more present and active in her life, he supposed, to avoid concerning her, but this at least could be easily explained away. It wasn't as though she'd caught on to anything that he didn't want her to know. He took another drag of his cigarette and held the smoke in as he cast his eyes around for an ash tray to put it out; it was down to the last bit of tobacco anyway and he didn't want it to actually burn him the next time, or light one of his papers on fire when he accidentally let hot ash fall all over his desk. After a moment of searching he found it, stubbed out his cigarette, and exhaled the smoke in a large cloud towards the window.

"Sorry. I've just been busy," he said, which wasn't even entirely inaccurate. Spending too much time thinking about the anonymous letters and condensing his normal work down into whatever hours remained in the day had left him busy, indeed. "It's nothing," he continued. "Nothing serious. It'll pass."

This, of course, was less accurate. Ben couldn't say that it wouldn't pass, but he couldn't say that it would, either. He'd never expected an announcement like this, and he couldn't have anticipated the way it had suddenly taken up residence in his brain, lurking behind every other thought. But he was so close to figuring out at least one part of the riddle. He knew he hadn't slept with anyone the year he'd met Melody — he'd spent all summer flirting with and then pining after her, and then he'd spent the fall and winter in Canada. He'd been on his best behavior in Canada, trying to convince Aldous to let him come back sooner rather than later, so there wasn't any possibility of anything having happened. He hadn't even been drinking much, those months.