Ben didn't respond to her first comments not because he had nothing to say, but rather because he knew she would use whatever he said against him. Anything she could use to paint herself as the victim in this. As though he hadn't been trying! As though he was supposed to have known what to do when she locked herself in her bedroom for days on end, and when the only thing she ever bothered to tell him was how miserable she was. What was he supposed to say to that, when it was presumably their baby — a baby Ben desperately wanted, which Melody hadn't planned — that was making her so miserable all day? What was he supposed to have done? There was no right answer here. If he'd pushed in to her room and forced her to make conversation every night, he wouldn't have been respecting her boundaries. Since he hadn't, he'd abandoned her. If he'd been optimistic or aggressively cheerful about how she was feeling, he would have been insensitive and unsympathetic. Since he wasn't, he was apathetic. Nothing he could have said or done over the past two months would have been right.
The rest of this was just her trying to get a rise out of him, Ben thought. She was intentionally twisting what he'd said, using phrases he hadn't, in order to try and guilt him into backtracking, placating, apologizing. But he didn't want to apologize — he should be able to talk to other women. He should be able to confide in his friends. He should be able to step up and be a member of his family. Melody's existence didn't trump any of those things, and she wasn't going to get him to back down and agree to give up on all of that. Not anymore, anyway; he'd given up enough already.
It wasn't until she brought up the baby that he reacted to what she was saying. His throat tightened. It wasn't as though he'd sat down and schemed this out, trying to lure her through a pregnancy under false pretenses so that he could take the baby — but as she said it, he knew that he could, if it came to that. Aldous would find him a lawyer, and they'd win. Art had already suggested it. Ben didn't want that — had never wanted that — but he could. And given the way he was feeling at the moment, how much anger he had built up in his chest, he didn't think he could promise that he wouldn't try.
"It's my baby, too," he said thickly.
MJ made this <3
The rest of this was just her trying to get a rise out of him, Ben thought. She was intentionally twisting what he'd said, using phrases he hadn't, in order to try and guilt him into backtracking, placating, apologizing. But he didn't want to apologize — he should be able to talk to other women. He should be able to confide in his friends. He should be able to step up and be a member of his family. Melody's existence didn't trump any of those things, and she wasn't going to get him to back down and agree to give up on all of that. Not anymore, anyway; he'd given up enough already.
It wasn't until she brought up the baby that he reacted to what she was saying. His throat tightened. It wasn't as though he'd sat down and schemed this out, trying to lure her through a pregnancy under false pretenses so that he could take the baby — but as she said it, he knew that he could, if it came to that. Aldous would find him a lawyer, and they'd win. Art had already suggested it. Ben didn't want that — had never wanted that — but he could. And given the way he was feeling at the moment, how much anger he had built up in his chest, he didn't think he could promise that he wouldn't try.
"It's my baby, too," he said thickly.
MJ made this <3