BENJI. (a guide to being normal)

Maybe She's Not the One

When the two had exited the bar, they cramped together into a red phone booth. They closed the door behind them (with much difficulty) and began tittering, arguing, and fighting over the correct address. Copper kept assisting they should visit the London company while Benji persistently said they should go directly to the house.

“If we go to the company, we can just ask where she is, they won’t find it suspicious!” Copper repeated.

“Fine, fine, we’ll go there and ask. No, I’m going to be working there soon, they’d find us suspicious. In fact, we shouldn’t be doing this anyway, especially since I’ll be working there. We should sack the idea.” Benji closed the phonebook and squeezed out of the phone booth.  “I should Facebook her.”

“Is it fine to friend your future employee, slash, boss?”

“Yeah, it’s fine. You’ve friended all your postmen friends. But do you think I should wait till she friends me?”

Copper groaned. “No, women will take forever because they assume the man will friend them first. Unless she’s not one of those girls, maybe she’ll friend you first. Then again, it’ll be awkward if she’s your boss and she did make the first move on you, right?”

Stroking his chin, Benji paced the sidewalk. “Yeah, you’re right. You think I should? Maybe from a business standpoint? Maybe I should pray about this.”

“No! Don’t be silly, you pray about disasters—,”

“This is a disaster! He’ll understand anyway!” Benji shouted back with frantic hand gestures. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Don’t be. Come on. Just send her the button, I mean, friend her.”

“What if she doesn’t respond? What if she thinks I’m bothering her? What if she doesn’t want me to friend her?” Benji stopped and stared out into the street.  The thought of an ignored Facebook request frightened him.  Copper came up behind him and clamped his hands onto his shoulders.

“Aww, come off it! Just friend the girl, you’ll never know—,”

“If you don’t try, yeah, good news. I’ve tried and I’ve tried and I’ve tried. And what do I get? Backhand smacks in the face, that’s what I get. And you know I’ve tried, I’m not complaining. I’ll give myself to any girl, if I had the courage.”

“And that’s just it!” Copper exclaimed, “You’re scared, and I understand that, all right? But you’ve got to treat her like she’s your first, yeah? Put the past behind. Whenever you got that nagging voice, push it away and stand on its bloody head! You’re never going to move forward if you keep hanging on. Come on! Just send her a request and then you can stalk her, all right?” Copper patted Benji’s face until he smiled.

“All right, all right. I’ll do it.” Benji pulled out his smartphone and loaded the Facebook application. As it loaded, his face glowed red, sweat trickled down, his knuckles grew white, his heart palpitated, and the nerves in the back of his leg began shaking.

“You’re okay, lad, you’re okay,” Copper assured, rubbing Benji’s back as he stood faithfully beside him.

The page loaded and Benji navigated to the search bar. Slowly, he typed in: K. r. i. s.  M. a. d. i. s. o. n.  A refreshment of the page took place and the circular wheel began spinning. Benji’s jaw shifted from side to side and his teeth chattered. Adjusting his weight in his shivering legs, he watched in terrifying anticipation as Ms. Madison’s page appeared.

“Go on, I can do it if you want.”

“It’s all right, I’ll do it.” Taking in a deep breath, Benji moved a thumb over the blue “send request” button. With a power in his muscles that he didn’t believe he had, he clicked the button and the request went through.

“There! You did it! How does it feel?”

Instead of replying, the poor boy keeled over and lay sprawled out on the pavement.

About an hour and thirty-two minutes later, Benji woke up in the comfort of his own room. Copper was sitting on the floor with the laptop in front of him. Benji sat up and rubbed the side of his head. In a groggy voice, he said, “What are you doing?”

“I’m stalking Kris Madison’s Facebook page?”

“Without me?”

“I wanted to be a good friend and make sure it was safe for you.”

Pursing his lips, Benji shrugged the covers off and tossed the ice pack off the mattress. “Is it?”

“Well, there’s a lot of pictures of her with a certain man,” Copper said in a drawn out voice. Knowing Benji was going to snatch the computer away, he handed him the machine.

Sitting down, Benji took it into his lap and began throwing through the album. “I can see she accepted. What time?”

“About ten minutes ago. You were out for about an hour or so.”

“Ah, she’s in a bunch of pictures with him. Maybe it’s her boyfriend.”

“Or her brother,” Copper said, trying to lighten the hit.

Benji looked up through half-mast eyes. “Oh yeah, Kris is definitely of Asian descent.”

“Oh, come on, maybe it’s her step-brother. Or cousin.”

“They’re awfully cuddly if they are. It’s got be her boyfriend. The dates are recent and this year.”

“Maybe she’s really friendly. I know Fiona is really close to some guys, but I know she’s loyal to me.”

“I don’t understand. She made that pass to me, so, what is this?” Benji turned the computer around to show a very intimate photo between her and Jon Wu. “They’re definitely together if not considering.”

“Well, maybe they broke up recently. You know, sometimes people don’t delete photos off their computer like you did with Shannon.”

“True. But still, who would go through five years of a relationship and delete photos or statuses, or whatever? Or delete the five hundred page diary of the time we met to the time we died? And who delete the twitter messages, texts, and can’t go to certain shops because it reminds me of when we first kissed, and when we held hands for the first time. Or, when we went to see our first cinema together? Or that time she laughed at a joke when it was obviously stupid? Or, how about when we walked to the park and watched a squirrel died and she cried on my shoulder? Or, or, what about those night time phone calls when we’d just talk about whatever? All of those moments counted in my life, and when she just left, I had to get rid of them. Is that normal?”

Copper wiped the tears from his eyes. He could hear the same pain in Benji’s voice when he had told him several months ago that Shannon broke it off. “You’re fine, Benji, I understand.”

Smearing the tears from his face, Benji let out a shuddering breath and stared at the screen. “It’s useless, Copper, I couldn’t end up with her. I always have this feeling inside of me when I like someone. It’s that feeling where I want it to happen, but I know it won’t, you know?”

“There’s someone lovely for you, Benji, it just,” Copper’s shoulders dropped and he said in one breath, “it just might not be her.”

As much as it pained Benji to hear those words, he knew his friend was probably right. Closing the laptop, he stood up with his head bowed, and crawled back under the covers.

Sighing, Copper stood up and walked over to the balled up heap. “Will you be coming out any time soon?”

“No.”

Like a true friend, Copper didn’t leave or yank Benji out of his hiding place, but instead flopped down beside him and stayed with him until he felt a little better.