All That Matters ❁ Benny Rodriguez

11

Friday, June 19, 2015

An entire week had passed by after the fair. Luke and Skylar were officially a couple, and I still had a hopeless crush on Benjamin Franklin Rodriguez. I was stupid to think there was even a slight chance that he liked me back. The way his sister acted, and the way he acted when the guy at the fair kissed me gave me hope, but he still made sure to point out that he didn't care about relationships.

Baseball was his life. I had to face it — Benny would never like me, and he would never be mine.

As pathetic as it sounded, the thought always put me in a depressed mood at night. Because at night time, I had time to think about everything. And Benny was always one of the main topics.

After a long day at the sandlot, we all headed home. Luke finally stopped driving us there by his car every morning. Actually, he didn't even come to the sandlot every day now. He was more worried about spending time with Skylar, and I couldn't blame him.

I was sitting on my bed, scribbling on notebook paper I had left over from my last year in school. I never knew why, but I had never been able to throw stuff like that away, especially not blank paper. Aside from baseball and music, writing was my escape from reality.

Before I had even fully processed what I'd been drawing, I was staring down at a drawing of Benny's name is fancy graffiti letters with a baseball beside it. I hooked my bottom lip in between my teeth. I need to stop obsessing.

The moon approached. The sky would be dark in less than an hour, and I had absolutely nothing to do.

In attempt to get my mind off of the boy I had completely fallen for, I grabbed my phone, plugged in my earbuds, stuck them in my ears, selected a random song, which turned out to be Say Goodbye, and I sang along to Chris Brown's beautiful voice.

This continued for about half an hour before an old song came on — Stand By Me by Ben E King. I'd always had a thing for 50s and 60s music. Sometimes I felt like I was born in the wrong generation, and I wished so badly that I was alive in those years.

I sang along to the song, and by the time I was done, my throat started getting dry. I paused the music, ripped my earbuds out, and threw my phone on the bed. As I made my way toward my bedroom door, I heard a few pairs of loud footsteps scrambling downstairs. I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion.

I twisted my doorknob and pulled my door open, looking out into the empty hallway with a frown set on my face. I thought Luke was the only one home, but now I wasn't so sure. All I was wearing was my dad's Bob Marley T-shirt, which stopped at mid-thigh for me, and my green, red, and yellow HUF knee-socks, but I didn't feel like changing, so I tiredly made my way downstairs.

To my confusion, when I entered the living room, the room was completely empty of people. I probably imagined the noises, or maybe Luke was being stupid and he fell or something. The sound was loud enough to possibly be that.

I made a left to enter my kitchen, and when I did, I saw four boys sitting at the dinner table — Luke, Bertram, DeNunez, and Benny. My mouth dropped wide open.

"What are you guys doing here?" I blurted, suddenly becoming insecure about myself. I knew they'd seen me in a bathing suit, so this was nothing, but still.

"I invited them over," Luke answered quickly. "Skylar is out with family tonight."

"We've been in here the whole time," DeNunez added in a quick and higher pitched voice.

"Yup," Benny agreed, nodding his head vigorously, along with the rest of the boys.

All of a sudden, it clicked in my head. After putting two and two together, I realized that they were upstairs. My eyes widened, my heart drops into my stomach, and I felt my cheeks beginning to burn.