Depressed- homeless- pavement- sitter...

Ben came to the restaurant later that night. Needless to say, there was a commotion. The commotion was made worse by the fact it was a themed evening....drag queen night. You can only imagine.

"Right of admission reserved, bitch," were the words JJ (Dressed as Miss. Behave) used when stopping Ben at the door.

Waiters turned and looked. Patrons put their knives and forks down. One of the kitchen staff even stuck his head through the door and gawked. Bruce jumped up and pulled JJ away, who by this stage looked like he was going to bitch slap Ben to hell and back.

"Just stay away from Sera now," Bruce said in a much more diplomatic tone. "There's no need for a scene."

"Oh yes there is," JJ said, stepping forward and doing some finger snapping.

"Just let me explain, Sera. Please!" Ben screamed his plea across the restaurant.

"No!" I shouted back.

It was turning into a soap opera. Luckily the clientele at Beef Cakes were used to such histrionics—and were always interested. Heads turned from him to me, and everyone looked giddy with excitement, like they had a front row ticket to the season finale of The Bachelor.

"Give me ten minutes," Ben persisted, "and then after that, if you don't want to talk to me again, it's fine." Heads swung around and looked at Ben, then back to me. They were hanging on every word.

"No!" I shouted back again. Some of the patrons and staff looked disappointed by my reply. Clearly they wanted more drama to play out.

"Okay, let me explain it to Bruce then and let him tell you what he thinks."

I looked to Bruce and he shrugged.

"You can explain it to me." JJ said, stepping up again, claws out. Our audience grew extra excited.

Ben looked momentarily panicked, but collected himself, turned to JJ and managed a confident, "Okay."

JJ pranced out the door indignantly and the two of them took up positions on the pavement outside. Everyone in the restaurant looked out the window. Some even got up for a closer look. Bruce came up behind me and slipped his arm around my shoulder. We both watched Ben as he desperately tried to explain his side of the story. JJ didn't look impressed. He tutted and scoffed and switched his hand from hip to hip a few times...but then something changed. His face started to relax, so did his posture. He started looking at Ben with a strange look and by the end of it,JJ was hugging Ben and wiping tears from his eyes. Ben too looked like he had a tear—WTF?

Bruce and I exchanged looks.

JJ walked away from Ben and came back inside looking like he'd just watched Steel Magnolias. "It's good. It's really, really good," he said wiping a tear.

"What is?"

"His reason. It's a really good one."

I looked out the window; Ben was sitting on the cold, hard pavement holding his head in his hands. It was freezing outside and he looked like a sad, sorry, pathetic mess. I wasn't sure if he was trying to illicit sympathy by pulling the depressed-pavement-sitter act on me.

"Go and talk to him," JJ said, taking me by the arm and shoving me out the door. I clearly had no choice in the matter. JJ closed the door behind me. It was freezing and I shivered immediately. Ben stood up and looked at me. His eyes looked a little red, as if he'd been crying—Crying?!

I wasn't sure how to feel about this—My dad always cried when he was sorry. Standard practice at our house really.

"I'll never gamble again. I'm sorry (cry, cry, cry) I promise. (cry, cry, cry)"

Ben started walking towards me slowly. I rubbed my arms as the icy wind blew through me. Ben took his jacket off, and without saying a word, draped it around my shoulders. He did it so quickly I didn't have time to protest, even though the last thing I wanted was an item of clothing that smelled like him anywhere near my body.

We stood in silence for a while before he spoke. "Thanks for agreeing to listen to me."

"Whatever," I said belligerently.

There was another silence as Ben looked like he was readying himself. He took a deep breath and began.

"Mei is my ex-wife," he finally said.

"Ex-wife?!" This wasn't starting out well at all. "How old are you?" I didn't know what shocked me more, the fact that he had an ex-wife, or the fact that he was in his early twenties with an ex-wife AND a child!

"We've been divorced for four years already. Truth is, we should never have gotten married in the first place."

"So why did you get married?"

"She was my girlfriend at school and she got pregnant when she was 18. It was an accident. I thought marrying her was the right thing to do." Ben looked at me. "It wasn't. We weren't compatible, and getting married made things worse." He paused and ran his hands through his hair again. "We fought constantly, and I was young and dumb, and I was a shitty husband. I...I..." He paused again and took a deep breath before dropping the bomb, "I was always partying and out with friends, I wasn't ready to settle down and didn't really take my duties as a husband seriously... and I, cheated."

"What?" I screeched so loudly that one of the car guards on the other side of the street turned to stare. "You're not doing a very good job of redeeming yourself right now." I said, folding my arms across my chest.

"I know. Not my finest moment."

"Finest moment?" Well that's an understatement if I've ever heard one!" I was appalled.

"Okay. It was disguising. It was wrong, I was stupid. I was a dick, bastard....is that better?"

I didn't respond. What was one meant to say to that anyway?

"But in retrospect, I was way too immature to get married. But I was always a good dad. A great dad. I loved Li from the second I found out Mei was pregnant. I was the one who had to convince Mei to keep her, and I think that was part of the problem. She resented me for that, because she wasn't ready to be a mother at 18. Who is, I guess?"

"Maybe she resented you because you were a lying cheat." I snapped back and he looked up at me. He looked genuinely hurt. He started pacing up and down the pavement now, looking agitated.

"The whole marriage was a mess and such a mistake. But then Li arrived and I held her in my arms for the first time, and I knew she wasn't a mistake..." he trailed off and I saw his eyes getting moist. "Even though we were so young, I knew she wasn't a mistake."

He stopped pacing and smiled to himself, as if he was recalling a memory. "I was obsessed with her from day one. We were inseparable. Mei hated this, so she threw herself into her work, and I threw myself into being a dad. Soon all we did was fight and resent each other. It was bad for Li, and that's when I..." He paused and looked pained. "It was a one time mistake and when I told her about it, that's when everything exploded."

"Sleeping with another woman will do that!"

"I didn't sleep with her." He jumped in quickly and loudly. Once again the guard across the street turned to stare. "I did not sleep with her." He repeated the words slowly putting emphasis on each one individually. "I didn't."

I scoffed loudly. "I find that hard to believe."

Ben stopped talking, pacing and moving about. A sad, defeated looked washed over him. Like a beaten dog. All that Ben confidence and bravado was gone. I wasn't used to seeing this side of him and it made me feel very uncomfortable.

"Believe what you like Sera. I wasn't a great husband, but I was a great dad...I was a great dad."

He kept saying that.

"But Mei couldn't keep those two things separate. I think her ego wouldn't allow it, so, when I she for divorce, she decided to punish me, and she knew where it would hurt the most—Li." He started wringing his hands together as if the mere memory still haunted him.

"She pulled out every dirty trick in the book, telling the attorney that I was a wild party animal, and general all around irresponsible, cheating bastard. Some of the stuff was true, but the rest was blown out of proportion until she made me look like some partying, alcoholic sex addict. By the time she and her lawyer were finished with me, no judge was letting me near Li unsupervised. The irony is Mei didn't even want to be a full time mother; Li was living with her grandparents half the time. I should have gotten custody, but she just did all of it to punish me."

Ben stopped. He looked like he was in so much pain that, despite myself, my heart went out to him.

"Then she decided to move back to China with her parents. She got this big job there, and I tried to stop her. I threw every last cent I had at lawyers. I basically bankrupted myself doing it. But she had custody and she could go wherever she wanted. She tried to leave the country without letting me say goodbye to Li, but I found out and went to the airport."

He stopped talking again and turned away from me as if he couldn't bear to look at me. "I reached them in time, but Mei got her parents to take Li onto the plane. Li was screaming and crying for me, but they wouldn't let me see her. And then she told me I would never see her again. I tried to reason with her, 'just let me say goodbye, let me hold my baby and let me kiss her goodbye.'" His voice was quivering, and I couldn't see his face, but I was pretty sure he was fighting back tears. "I tried to stop her and that's when things got bad."

He paused again for a long time, kicking a small stone into the road. "I tried to push through the boarding gate, but the security guards stopped me and that's when I lost it. I fought back, and I didn't stop fighting until they had to taze me and hold me down. I was arrested. I broke three of one guard's ribs and the other guy's nose."

I gasped at this.

"Of course Mei just used this against me and filed a restraining order, even though we weren't even in the same country. She told the lawyers that she was afraid of me, that I was abusive and dangerous and aggressive...I just wanted to see my daughter."

"Jesus," I said.

"They dropped the assault charges, but the courts made me go to anger management and I've been jumping through hoops for years trying to prove that I'm not some evil, aggressive person and that I'm a good father. I got a good job, worked my way to the top, paid my taxes, bought a house, acted like a responsible grown up and stayed out of fights. I still wasn't allowed to see my own daughter, though. I wasn't even allowed a fucking phone call. I would have given everything for a minute with her. Anything. Everything I do, every day, is for her."

I stood listening to him, but I had no idea how to respond to any of it. It was just so much to take in at once.

"Then she came back to South Africa eight months ago and after more lawyers, and more fighting and more courts, I was finally, finally allowed to start seeing her again. I thought she would have forgotten me, but she hadn't, she..." Ben teared up again and I stood there shocked as I watched a small tear travel down his cheek. "She remembered me and when she hugged me, it was as if no time had passed. But it had, I'd missed out on three whole years, THREE whole years, of my daughter's life."

"But you're allowed to see her again?" I asked.

"Yes. Sort of. At first it was supervised, with a court-appointed social worker or her parents or Lerato. Lerato likes me and I think she sees how close Li and I are, so she turns a blind eye to us spending time together alone. But that could come back to seriously bite me one day. The other Saturday night when you came over, Mei was there inspecting my new house to decide whether Li would be allowed to have sleep over visits. My lawyers and my parents' lawyers have been hitting her hard and continuously for joint custody, and I think she's starting to get tired of fighting, not to mention seriously financially drained. But I know her. She's looking for one slip up, anything to use against me. And I know what she's like with other women—"

Ben looked up at me and sort of managed a small smile,"—especially women who are more beautiful than her. And especially women that I like. That's why I sent you away on Saturday."

I was stunned, there was just so much information for me to take in right now I wasn't even sure where to begin. I felt like I still had a million questions and no idea where to start.

"Why...why didn't you tell me any of this before?"

"Because I like you. More than like you, Sera."

I shook my head. "That makes no sense. If you liked me, you would have told me the truth."

"The truth? That I have an ex-wife, that I was a bad husband and cheated, that I have a daughter, that I was arrested for beating up a security guard, that I'm in anger management, that I have to check in with a psychologist to make sure I'm fit to see my daughter and that I'm not some aggressive lunatic, that my ex is watching my every move and waiting for me to fuck up in the slightest, that I'm engaged in constant, time consuming and fucking soul destroying legal battles."

He started shaking his head. "That makes me sound like the last guy on earth you should date. But I swear, I'm not a bad guy. I just wanted the opportunity to prove that to you before you made a judgment based on my past." He paused. "I just wanted you to go on one date with me, just one...I wanted you to get to know me before I dropped this on you. I know that was wrong and manipulative, and I'm so, so sorry." He shook his head. "My life is so messed up and anyone who gets involved with me is going to have to put up with—"

He stopped talking and it looked like something dawned on him. He stood there, deep in thought for a few moments, before he squared off and looked me straight in the eye with an expression I suddenly couldn't read. "It's too much," he said. "You're right not to go out with me. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have dragged you into this. I'll just mess up your life. It was selfish of me...but you came along and I wanted to be with you so badly...I'm sorry, Sera. I'm bad news. You're too good for me."

He walked up to me and without asking, he hugged me. He held onto me so tightly that it was difficult to breathe. He lowered his lips to my forehead and kissed me. Then he cupped my face and kissed me. The kiss was short, but so full of meaning. I could tell it meant 'goodbye.'

I watched him walk away and I wasn't sure if I should stop him or kick him. I didn't know if I was angry with him, or felt desperately sorry for him. I didn't know if I wanted to hug him and hold him and tell him everything was going to be okay, or I wanted to fuck him, or kick him again. He stopped when he got to the car and looked at me. He smiled.

"I'm still totally in love with you though." And then he got into his car and drove off.