If Not For You

Chapter 18

Paul and Ben more or less made up by the time football practice came around that afternoon.  Although Jenna wasn’t talking to either of them.  “I really don’t know what she was talking about when we were growing up.  I mean if something bad happened to her, why wouldn’t she tell me?  Why wouldn’t she ask me for help?”  Paul said walking out of the locker room towards their parked cars.  “Has she said anything to you about it?”

Ben shrugged.  He wasn’t sure if Jenna was referring to the shit with their grandmother or if there had been more.  He hated to think that there were more bad things that had happened to Jenna than a psycho grandmother and parents that didn’t care.   As much as he didn’t want to admit it he knew from the sadness he had seen in her when they were alone together there had to be more.  “No, she doesn’t really talk to me about too much important stuff.”  He knew now was not the time to tell Paul about them meeting up in the woods.  They just made up and after the look Jenna gave them both before exiting the cafeteria he wasn’t sure that there was anything more going on between him and Jenna.

“I mean you’re her cousin, you have to know something.  How was she growing up?”

 Paul looked out at the land that surrounded their school.  “I don’t know.  We grew up close.  She was always a happy kid I remember always playing around.  After our grandfather died a couple years back she seemed to be a little out of control.  My aunt and uncle couldn’t deal with it.  They sent her to boarding school.  I rarely saw her much after that.  We chatted online.  She always seemed to be okay.  But I wasn’t really in her life.  I wasn’t that surprised that she wanted to come back and live with our grandmother.  They had always been close when Jenna was growing up.  She would come in the summer and spend months up here with them and I’d spend a lot of my time over there too.  We were more like brother and sister than cousins.  Our family has always been close.  I don’t know what changed between her and her parents.  I never really could understand how parents could send their child away.”

It was awkward for Ben to hear Paul talk about how close Jenna and her grandmother were with him knowing the truth.  Knowing that wasn’t the case anymore.  It made him wonder what could have been so bad to change a relationship so drastically for a grandmother and her grandchild.  He knew that she didn’t like talking about it.  And he couldn’t believe how someone like Paul and his parents could be so close to the situation and know nothing at all.  How could all these people who loved someone so much and know nothing about what was going on?

Then he thought back on his life.  His mother and his father and the way they lived.  So many people knew about that and no one did anything.  I guess it’s not that hard to believe.  He remembered a saying he once heard, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” And he now understood what that meant.  Ben’s aunts and uncles, they knew.  They knew because they saw.  And they did nothing.  His mother surely had to have had friends at some point.  He vaguely remembered there being some when he was a child.  And they had to have known.  How could they have never done anything?  He immediately thought of his coach.  Coach gave him a key to the weight room knowing that he would sometimes need a place to get away.  Yes he gave him a place to stay but he didn’t really get involved.  He wondered what he could’ve been in life had he not had to be so afraid to be himself.  He spent his life only being a quiet shadow in the corner that he never was able to be something real.

All these thoughts inside made him confused and saddened.  He didn’t want to think about these things.  He made it this long without feeling sorry for himself.  He just didn’t think about it.  If you don’t try to analyze it then you don’t realize that it’s wrong.  You don’t come to realize anything at all.

”Look Ben it’s not about you that I don’t want you to be with her.  I know you think I don’t think you are good enough or something, but you are my best friend and she is my cousin and if this goes bad I don’t want to have to choose.  I know you and I know her and I can’t help but know this is going to end badly.”  Paul was being sincere and Ben appreciated that.  This was the talk they should’ve had a week ago instead of the fight that happened.  “If you hurt her I will kick the shit out of you and then we can go back to being friends okay.  Unless you like hurt her, hurt her and then I will kill you.  But I know that is not the guy you are so I trust you.  But if she hurts you, which is probably the way this will go down, I do not want to hear a word about it.  Don’t come crying on my shoulders.  Deal?”