If Not For You

Chapter 19

Friday came and the guys won their game.  The next week went by and Jenna still hadn’t spoken a word to Ben.  They sat at the same table at lunch and everyone else tried to pretend that it wasn’t awkward.  Paul and Lena had tried to intervene but they got nowhere.  They eventually gave up when she stopped talking to both of them and sat at another lunch table for a couple days.  They both apologized to her and promised that they would stay out of it.

Ben was a mess.  He was acting like a man with no will to live.  He had attempted to call her every day and text her every night for a week.  He tried talking to her when he saw her at school.  He would look for an opportunity to pull her aside in the hall and talk to her, but it always turned into him talking at her.  It was a one sided conversation.  She always just stood there looking at the floor.  He eventually gave up.  He went to school and went back home.  His father was enjoying having him home more and was relentless with the list of things for him to do.  And Ben did them without thought.  It kept him busy.  Every night before bed Ben took a ride out to the woods, to make sure she wasn’t there alone.  To make sure that he didn’t need her.  But she was never there.  He had hoped that it meant her grandmother hadn’t put her out but he knew that even if this was the only place she had left to go she wouldn’t come here.  Knowing that she might run into him.

Jax and Lena tried to get him to engage back into life but he wasn’t interested.  They let him go for a week but today was the last day they were going to take it.  They had had enough.  “Hey man, my parents are out of town and I’m having a party after the game.  You have to come.  Don’t even bother saying no.  Paul and I will carry your ass to my house if we have to.”  Jax was ready to play the best friend card.  Ben shrugged and went into the locker room to get dressed for the game.  Although he was letting his depression take over all aspects of his life, he wouldn’t let it affect his game.  At the end of the day he was still getting out of this town and a scholarship was his ticket out.

They were playing against a team that they were slated to lose to.  They won and Ben was the one with the winning play.  It helped lift his spirits a bit.  They were celebrating in the locker room.  Jax let everyone know about his party.  He told Werner and Calloway to make a beer run and to grab a bottle of tequila for the team to do a round of shots.  And he sent Killer to grab pizzas.  The excitement was contagious and even Ben was smiling as he followed Jax and Paul into Jax’s truck.  When they finally got to Jax’s house the party had already started thanks to Lena.

The guys headed in and Lena handed them all cups full of beer.  They stood around retelling play by plays of the game when Killer walked through the door with an armful of pizzas, behind him was Jenna carrying a couple bags of chips.  It was easy to tell that they had come together.  Both Jax and Lena looked over to Ben.  Jax spoke low so nobody would hear him, “I didn’t know man or I wouldn’t have invited him.  I’m sorry.” 

Lena took a step forward and laid her hand on Ben’s forearm.  “Maybe they just ran into each other after the game.  She didn’t say anything to me about him.  If it were serious, I’m sure she would have.”

“It’s okay.  Stop acting like I’m going to jump off the roof.”  He grabbed a cup with each hand and drank them both down one right after the other.  “Now that Killer’s here we can take those shots.”  He grabbed for the tequila bottle that Werner had laid on the counter when he had arrived.  “Everyone lets go.  Killer get your ass over here.”  The team came together and Ben poured a little of the bottle into everyone’s cups leaving what was left in the bottle for himself.  “Paul, go ahead and make a speech.  I am a man of few words.”  Ben made eye contact with Jenna as he said this and he didn’t drop it.  She stood over in the corner of the kitchen looking very uncomfortable.

Paul said a few words that Ben didn’t hear.  He just kept his gaze on her.  He heard everyone cheer so he knew that the toast was over and he drank more than a shots worth from the bottle.  The next thing he noticed was Killer by Jenna’s side putting his arm around her.  Knowing Ben was looking at her, she uncomfortably squirmed out of Killer’s reach. 

She watched as Ben finished off the bottle.  He looked at her one more time then walked out of the kitchen.  She hadn’t meant to hurt him, or maybe she had.  All she knew was that having someone there for you was just a step away from having someone there to leave you.  She knew that love didn’t last forever.  How could someone who doesn’t owe you anything feel something for you?  How can people make these commitments to each other that they have no intentions of keeping?  If her parents, the people who gave her life can’t love her, how could he?

It had been a long 2 weeks.  She had basically hid in the basement so that her grandmother didn’t have an opportunity to kick her out.  Her grandmother still had 5 times, but the first 3 times luckily Lena was able to pick her up.  She was running out of excuses that made sense.  The one Friday night she ended up walking to an underclassman party she had heard about from Skyler and luckily enough people ended up crashing the night that it didn’t raise suspicions.  The last time she went to Paul’s house.  She had just explained to her Aunt and Uncle that her grandmother was at her sister’s house and wouldn’t be coming home until late and she had locked herself out.  It amazed her how easy it was to lie, no one ever even checked into her stories.

Jenna watched Ben standing in the other room surrounded by all the school sluts.  She kind of hoped that he would take one of them into a bedroom upstairs.  She wanted him to do something to make her not like him.  She wanted to make him a villain.  If he were the villain then she can play the victim.  As the minutes ticked away the girls got more touchy with him.  They clung to him like rats being drowned cling to the hand that drowns them.  He was looking her way every few minutes.  She attempted to smile at him.

Killer was leaning into her ear and whispered something about going upstairs.  She shrugged off his suggestion and left his side to go get a drink.  When she went over to talk to Lena she saw that some girl was pulling Ben into another room out of her view.  She looked back over at Killer to see he was whispering into some blonde girl’s ear and she was giggling.  That was what was expected from guys.  They are supposed to be pigs.  They are supposed to be disappointing.  She always knew she was never going to be like those other girls.  How can you stand on your own two feet if you allow yourself to be supported by somebody else?

Jenna decided she needed to go outside to clear her head.  Inside it was loud and it was bright and most of all it was disappointing.  As she walked out onto the back patio she walked in the shadow in the far corner.  She could see into the window that looked into a toy room.  She was guessing Jax had a little sister because the room was pink and had a huge dollhouse and a mini table and chairs, with a little porcelain tea set sitting on a silver tray.  She saw in the corner two people moving.  Well one person was moving the other person was trying to stop the other person from leaving.