If Not For You

Chapter 11

When Ben woke up as soon as the dawn was breaking he looked over to Jenna.  At first he thought she was gone, her head wasn’t poking out the top of the sleeping bag.  But after he sat up from lying there he realized she was completely at the bottom of the sleeping bag in fetal position.  He spoke softly and tried to shake her gently, calling her to get out of her sleep.  He was cautious because he wasn’t sure what kind of sleeper she was.  If you wake Jax out of a dead sleep he wakes up swinging.  Slowly she crawled out of the sleeping bag onto the dewy grass as if she were a bunny crawling from her hole in the ground.

“What time is it, good grief?”  She rolled back from her knees to sit down on her butt.  She was squinting her eyes obviously not ready to take in the sunlight.   When her eyes adjusted and she made contact with Ben, she immediately perked up. “What no coffee?  No eggs?  This isn’t looking too good for you Benny.”  She smiled softly, clearly amused by her own witty sarcasm.  She reached deep into the sleeping bag to pull out her messenger bag.  After sticking her hand in there and searching around for a few moments, she pulled out a granola bar.  Not the granola bars that are smothered with peanut butter and chocolate, but some healthy raison flax seed crap.  She pulled off the wrapper and split it in half, thrusting the other half in Ben’s direction.

“Um, no thanks, I’m good.”  Ben looked at the “food” she had just offered him and knew he would rather go hungry than eat that crap.  He was used to being hungry anyway.  When you have a large family and small income and a father with an even larger ego, it seems keeping up with the jones’ is more important than food on the table.

“You know Benny, you better watch it or I’m going to start thinking you’re a diva.  First my alcohol’s not good enough for you and now my food.”  She finished the whole bar and stood up stretching out her sore muscles.  From where Ben was still sitting on the ground he could see her belly button poke out from underneath her shirt as it pulled itself up while she was stretching.

“So what’s the game plan?    Will you be allowed back in now?  I can give you a ride.”  Ben stood up too and started collecting the blankets, all that was left of their night together.

“Well I have everything I need for school in my bag.  I’m just not sure where I can shower.  I am definitely not going home until tonight.  My grandmother plays cards on Monday night, so I can get in while her friends are there.  She will be sweet as pie to me as long as there are people there.  I can just lay low in the basement.  Her friends stay until late and she never goes into the basement anyway.”  Jenna stood there staring at her shoes while she spoke to Ben.

“Well I have a key to the weight room.  Coach gave me a key last year.  We can get into the showers in the boys locker room through there. ”  He was prepared to convince her that he would be nothing but a gentlemen and let her have the whole communal shower all to herself first, but she didn’t have any objections to what he was saying.  She also didn’t ask him why the coach would give a student a key to the school.  She had just turned and started walking towards his car.

When they got into the locker room Jenna walked around checking everything out.  Ben handed her a towel from the closet.  She told Ben that it was exactly like the girls locker room except backwards and they had tampon machines.  When she made it over to the showers she stepped into the stall and turned on the water.  After she backed out of the stall she started taking off her clothes.  With each layer she took off, the pile of clothes on the floor got bigger.  Ben stood behind her, shocked, just staring at her bare back.  She was wearing a thong and she left that on as she stepped into the stream of water.  She just stood there with the water pouring over her.  She had a bottle of body wash in her hand that she used to slather all over her body and her hair.  As she went to turn around to face Ben he quickly turned his back to her.  He could feel his face and ears searing red.