If Not For You

Chapter 4

It was the first day of the last year of school.  Senior year.  I guess you could say technically there was college but Ben knew there wouldn’t be any college for him.  He didn’t even kid himself into applying.  He was who he was and his family didn’t have the money for college.  Ben played football and was good at it.  Inside somewhere he worked hard and played harder for hopes of a scholarship, but he didn’t kid himself into dreaming.  He knew that would be the only way.  Besides it’s like his father yelled at him so many times, he was too stupid for college.  Ben didn’t need to save the world all he wanted in life was to spend time with his friends and not be his father.  His goal was just to simply get out.  Get out of his father’s house and get out of this town.  If he had to work slave labor to get there, that is what he was prepared to do. 

Ben made it to his homeroom and walked right past Kelly and sat down between Lena and Joe. Kelly walked over sitting in the empty seat behind him, “Can we talk?” she gave him pleading eyes.  He almost felt bad for her.  He looked down at his desk.  When he looked back up at her, he caught a glimpse of her giving Lena the death stare.  Any compassion he had for her disappeared.

“There is nothing to talk about and you and I will never be a we.”  He knew he was being harsh but he really didn’t care.  The only feeling of regret he had, as she got up to walk away, was the regret of not getting to hang out with Alex anymore.  Unfortunately Ben had to see her all throughout the day.  They had most classes together.  He could tell it was going to be a long year; she tried explaining herself at least four more times.  The best part of his day was finding that Jenna was in one of his classes. 

He found out that she was a sophomore but was pretty smart.  She had been going to boarding school because she didn’t get along with her parents.  She eventually convinced them to allow her to go to public school but not while living with them.  The compromise came with her living with her grandmother.  Since she spent all that time in a boarding school, even though she was only a sophomore she was further along in the curriculum than most of the kids in her grade.  She had quite a few junior and senior classes.  Needless to say in a small town like this she was quite the interest of most of the boys.  Most of the other girls in the school were quite promiscuous, so even if she were the school slut wherever she had come from here she was whatever she wanted to be.  For all they knew she was the Virgin Mary.

At lunchtime Jenna was sitting with Paul and Ben made his way over.  He sat down just long enough to hear the conversation of Paul convincing his cousin that she shouldn’t be dating because she wasn’t yet 16. 

Jenna bantered back, “I never said I was interested in dating. I only said that I had been asked out on a date.”  She rolled her eyes at her cousin.

“By whom?” Paul asked, luckily for Ben because he was wondering the same thing. “You can’t date anybody in this school.  All the guys here are douchbags!”

“Excuse me.  I am NOT a douchebag.” Jax yelled.

“Were you the one who asked her out?” Paul demanded from Jax.  When Jax replied no, then Paul replied, “Then I wasn’t talking about you.” Paul said this at Jax without taking his glare away from his cousin.

“Excuse me DAD,” Jenna said standing up taking a step towards Paul, “you are not my boss, you are not my dad, and believe me if you were you wouldn’t even be giving a second thought as to anything I’m doing.  So back off and let me be a big girl.”  Jenna pushed Paul back on his shoulders so he lost his balance on the chair and fell to the ground.  Jenna glanced at Ben before she turned and left the cafeteria.

“Good job Paul.  If you push her around she will only avoid you and then how are you supposed to keep an eye on her.”  Lena’s rational voice sang song her advice as she turned and followed Jenna out of the cafeteria.

“I see attitude runs in your family.”  Jax snidely replied.  “They are going to be in the bathroom for the rest of the period.  Now I won’t get to see Lena until after school.”

“Gees are you on your period?  Man you sound like Lena’s your girlfriend or something.”  Paul looked at Jax in disgust.  Jax looked at Ben to see if he was going to rag on him too, but since Ben knew how he actually felt about Lena he wasn’t going to make fun of him for it.  Jax looked grateful to him after he realized that Ben was going to keep his mouth shut.  They sat there the rest of the period talking about the girls that Paul and Joe slept with this weekend until the bell rang.