Beware of Love in Technicolor (28 page)

             
I changed into a baggy sweatshirt. leggings, and warm, wooly socks, and headed upstairs to hopefully watch some late night TV by myself for a few hours. I was hoping all the guys had either passed out or found themselves a companion for the evening. No such luck, of course.

             
“Greer, what are you doing up?” Ben asked me with a smile. He was sitting on the kitchen counter, and still wore the white shirt, and beaded necklace. His chest was tan, even at the end of October. Jared and his girl-of-the-month were just excusing themselves to Jared’s room as I passed by them to the living room.

             
“Still tripping,” I answered, taking a seat on the couch.

             
“Where’s John?”

             
“Passed out.”

             
He nodded and smiled and moved over to the couch next to me. I liked watching Ben move, admiring his nicely defined shoulders and chest under that flimsy white shirt. Somewhere in the room, I noticed the phone was ringing.

             
“I vote the machine gets it,” he said, leaning back and closing his eyes. “Crazy night, huh?”
              “Yeah, I don’t think I need to trip again anytime soon,” I said, drawing my legs up under me and watching him as he relaxed and smiled and kept his eyes closed to my stare. He carelessly ran a hand through his messy, wavy hair, and I was surprised when I thought about running my own hands through his hair. The phone was still ringing.

             
On the sixth ring, the machine finally picked up.

             
“Hey, you’ve reached Cloud 9, but
nobo
dy wants to talk to you. Leave a message and we’ll discuss your worth before calling you back. Maybe.”
Jared’s voice crackled out of the machine on the table beside the couch.

             
“Uh, hey John,” a girl’s voice came out of the machine. “Nice greeting. Anyway, it’s Abby, returning your call. You said to call whatever time, and it’s um, late, but I thought I’d catch you after that party you were going to. Uh, just call me back, I guess.”

             
I stared at the machine next to us, trying to make sense of what I had just heard. I looked at Ben. He looked down.

             
“So that’s how it is, huh?” I asked, somewhat dazed. I swam through my head, trying to find some way to come up for air. I could handle the flirting game at parties, knowing that we’d be leaving together, and knowing that just as many guys flirted with me as girls with him. And I had figured that the anger over the magazines would fizzle out in a day or two, and he’d be kissing my ass to forgive him. But this was more than I was ready for.

             
Abby. Once again, I didn’t see her coming.

             
“You ok?” Ben asked. He was sitting so close our knees were touching. His gaze was steady, quiet. He was close, but at the same time, he gave me space to process what I had just heard.

             
“Yeah,” I said with false bravado. “Honestly, I wish I could say I’m surprised,” I lied. “Ex-girlfriends, you know.” I laughed awkwardly, and he took my hands. I couldn’t look up at him.

             
“You want to talk about it?” he asked.

             
“Not really,” I smiled weakly. He smiled back, and I forgot, for a split second, why we were talking.

“Do you
want me to leave you alone?”  He leaned back a bit. Since the day I met him, I always thought it funny how he was a person who was regularly allowed to violate people’s personal space. It was like it just didn’t exist for him, and nobody seemed to mind. Even guys.

“Not really,” I smiled. It was true. I absolutely did not want him to leave me alone.

“Ok,” he said, letting go of my hands, and absently tucking his waves behind his right ear. He thought for a moment, giving me time to appreciate his face. It almost hurt to look directly at him, he was so goddamn good looking. I was appreciating the strong line of his jaw when he spoke again.

“Let’s watch a movie,” he said. “You like movies, I know you do. You can’t say no to me.”

Why on earth would I want to?
I wanted to say aloud, but I restrained myself, and just smiled. He got up from the couch and walked to to the small television set in the corner.

“What do you feel like watching?” he asked, thumbing through a box of cassettes. “We don’t have much of a selection, but there’s a Godzilla movie,
Scarface
,
Krull,
some
Fritz the Cat
videos, a documentary about Woodstock, or
The Wall.
How about
The Wall,
since we’re still sort of tripping?”

“Hm,” I started, not at all satisfied with my choices, but not wanting to be whiny. “
The Wall
is a little heavy for me tonight. I think I left my copy of
Alice in Wonderland
up there somewhere.

“Alice it is,” he said, finding the tape behind a stack of CDs. He walked back to the sofa, grabbed the thick, blue toned Mexican blanket off the back, and sat back down next to me. He draped the blanket over both our laps.

“I have to say, Greer,” he began as the movie started, flashing its FBI warning at us. “I don’t know what the problems are with John, and he’s my friend and everything, but we all think he’s been acting like a jerk lately. And we’re all your friends around here, too. You are always welcome around here.”

“Hm,” I shook my head. “I can think of a couple of your roommates who would be happy to see less of me.”

“Well,” he said quietly. “I’m not one of them.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that. Without thinking, I placed my hand on his knee. Even through the thick weave of the blanket, I could feel him tense up at my touch. I removed my hand as quickly as I had offered it, and tried to regain my composure. We both turned to the movie, and I did my best to concentrate.

As Alice’s world got curiouser and curiouser, Ben and I got more and more comfortable under the blanket. Each time I felt a surge of guilt course through my veins, it was quickly sent away.
Anyway, it’s Abby returning your call,
I thought as I leaned back and rested my head against Ben’s chest.

You said to call whatever time
, I played over and over in my head as he began gently, absently, stroking my hair.

“He doesn’t deserve you,” Ben said quietly as the Mad Hatter’s tea party went round and round. I sighed heavily. Even as the mushrooms faded into memory, my brain still bore the cluttered cobwebs of a frightful Halloween. There were more twists and turns than I liked in my everyday life.

“What can I do?” I asked, sitting forward and turning to look at him.

“I don’t think you want my answer to that question,” he replied. He reached out his hand and gently touched my cheek. I closed my eyes.

I teetered. I tottered. I played out the movie in my head. I had long wondered what kissing Ben would be like, but never intended, really, to find out. Or did I? Hadn’t this moment been in the making all night long? But John was downstairs, and how could I be justified in my anger over Abby if I cheated on him with his roommate?

I guess Ben misunderstood my hesitation, because he leaned in for the kiss. Despite the devil sitting on my shoulder, I backed away.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, when a confused look flashed across his face. “It’s not that I’m not tempted, believe me,” I said. I looked at him sitting there, inches away. He smelled good, faintly like cologne after a long night. It would have been so easy to give in. His shoulders slumped but he did not drop my gaze.

“I guess I expected as much,” he said softly. He leaned forward and placed a kiss on my forehead, lingering for a moment. He pulled away slightly, looked at me again,
and then rested his forehead against mine. My eyes were closed, and I had to focus on breathing. He was so close. So close I could feel his breath on my face. His left hand was on the back of my neck, firm but comforting, holding us there in that close but oh-so-very-far-away position. I sighed. He sighed. We both laughed short, shallow laughs tinged with disappointment.

“You’ve been so nice to me,” I said finally, breaking the silence between us, bringing reality back into focus. We both sat back, the moment gone. I tried to regain my composure. “I need to get a grip on what’s going on with John before I go confusing issues even more. There’s just too much history,” I trailed off.

Ben nodded and smiled slightly, and my stomach dropped and I asked myself just one more time if I was really sure I didn’t want just one little taste of him.

He motioned for me to lean back against his chest once again so we could resume watching Alice trip her way through Wonderland.

“No pressure,” he said.

I took him up on that offer.

At some point near the end of the movie, the two of us fell asleep together under the blanket. I woke somewhere near four a.m., with a fuzzy TV in the corner and Ben’s arm still around me. I sat up carefully, taking care not to disturb him. A small smile flashed across his perfectly formed lips, and he turned a bit before settling back into slumber. Even in the flickering, surreal glow of the television, he was arresting. I gently removed the blanket from my legs and stood up. I covered him back up, snapped off the TV, and made my way downstairs to John’s bedroom.

Chapter Sixteen

The next morning, when John finally got around to getting up, he apologized for being so insensitive. He made a big show over throwing the magazines in the trash.

“I’ve been feeling out of sorts lately,” he finally explained in a moment of semi-honesty. He was sitting at his desk; I was seated on the bed, pulling on my boots. We were expecting John’s car, and Topher along with it, any moment. I was dying for a Diet Coke, and a hot breakfast.

“What’s wrong?” I asked with some hesitation. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, but I was distracted by my own drama, innocent in nature if not in intent. I was relieved to put the focus on him.

“I’m not sure you really want to know,” he said.

“Does it have anything to do with Abby calling last night?” I asked point-blank. He looked up at me, surprised.

“She called last night? How do you know?”

“Ben let the machine get the call,” I explained, thinking about Ben’s touch on my cheek. I blushed thinking about it, and hoped John wouldn’t notice. “You were passed out.”

“It’s not what you are probably thinking,” he started, taking a seat on the bed next to me. I looked up at him, and for the first time in a long time, we actually made eye contact. Real, genuine eye contact. It had been so long since we had connected.

“It never is, is it?” I asked cryptically, sadly, of him. He bristled.

“She had an abortion,” he said bluntly.

“What? Who did?” I asked, confused.

“Abby. She got pregnant with that Zeke, or Zak, or whatever the douchebag’s name is, dropped out of school, got kicked out of her house, had an abortion anyway, and is living with him now in some dump in Manchester.”

“Oh, my God,” I stammered, suddenly feeling bad for the girl I had once compared to the antichrist.

“She’s just throwing her life away,” he stated angrily, through clenched teeth.

             
“That’s something she needs to deal with,” I started, trying to be kind without being a fool. I didn’t want him running off to try and save her.

             
“She’s too smart for this, Greer. She’s working at an earring store, for fuck’s sake.She should be in school.”

             
“You’re really upset by all this,” I stated flatly.

             
“How could I not be? I spent two years of my life with this girl, and yes, our lives have gone in different directions, but how do you just stop caring about someone so tied to your past?”

             
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, weakly.

             
“I’m not in love with her, if that is what you are worried about,” he said, taking hold of my hands. “It’s just, well, here I am, skipping my classes all the time, sleeping all day long, wasting my parents’ money. I’ve been a total jerk to everyone around me for weeks, and if you had any sense, you would have left me by now.” At that he looked at me and studied my reaction to everything. I tried to remain open but unmoved.

             
“I don’t know,” he continued. “None of it seems fair.”

             
“Never expect life to be fair,” I said. “Just try and enjoy it when it seems to be going your way.”

             
“That is awfully jaded, Miss Bennett.”

             
“No, just realistic.. Penny’s favorite saying was always, ‘
Expect the worst and you’ll never be disappointed.
’ Now that’s jaded.”