Under My Skin (on hold)

Chapter 7- Skin

(AN: so I went a little bit out of order in the chapter titles, lol. "Skin" was off of their first album "Saturate")

On the bedside table, there was a small metal dish that held Ben's watch, a necklace or two, cuff links covered in an inch of dust and a small metal stud that Bethany couldn't figure out where it went.

After a minute of thinking and remembering, she came to realize that Ben had a tongue piercing. There was a reason he took it out and left it out, and Bethany was about to give him some payback. She put the stud back in and played around with it, still finding it hard to believe Benjamin had one of these, of all people.

Meanwhile, Benjamin was not enjoying being Bethany.

"Oh Beth. What are you doing with my son? He's got lots of flaws, I'll tell you if you want. You should really be dating that sweetheart Ben, that adorable kid." Jeremiah's mother suggested to him.

At this time, Ben was taking copious amounts of wine into Bethany's body, trying to deal with this dinner he surely had to sit through for at least two more hours. At her statement, he choked on the drink, shot it through his nose and all over the white tablecloth. Jeremiah was horrified.

"BENJAMIN?! I hate that asshole! Talk about flaws, the guy is falling apart, dear God! You really think I would be dating HIM, over your son? Jeremiah is Gandhi compared to Ben! I could rant on and on, but the wine I shot out of my nose is burning my face off, please excuse me so I can cry in the bathroom, due to the excruciating pain I'm going through now."

Ben ran over to the bathrooms as best as he could, still getting used to the female body he was controlling for who knows how much longer. In the bathroom, Ben did anything he could to assist the pain he was in. He was stuffing wet paper towels up his nose, sticking his head straight under the running water so it would go directly in his nose, but after looks that implied he was a psychopath, he ended up just waiting it out, the pain subsiding soon.

He walked out of the bathroom and sat back down at the circular table with a dim light placed in the middle, kicking Bethany's high-heeled shoes off not so discreetly underneath the table. He was trying his best to act like Bethany but it wasn't good enough. They all suspected she had too much wine, and he played it off, knowing they can't know what's really going on. Ben and Beth didn't know if it was even reversible.

At Ben's house, Bethany was searching around in every drawer, trying to find out more about him so she wouldn't sound stupid if she had to talk about the band for Ben. She stumbled upon photographs of when Ben was happy.

The picture on the top of the pile was taken in the summer a few years ago, before he moved in next door. The trees were bright green, a sunny day backlighting them. Ben had a huge smile on his face, his now-short black hair shaggy, and he was holding on his back a grinning carefree redhead with freckles all over her face. She flipped the photo over to reveal in Ben's handwriting

"Ben and Jessica, summer of '09, XOXO"

Wow. He moved in next door to me a year later, what the hell happened? Beth thought. Where did things go wrong?

She flipped through the photos, most of them of the two happily together in a park, kissing, smiling or both. Something happened to Benjamin within that year, that much she knew. Now she was determined to figure out what, exactly. Jessica had an engagement ring on her finger. At the time, he would have only been 22, as he was 26 now. He fell in love quickly, or had been in love for a long time.

She didn't think it was possible that he could be in love.

The more she searched, the louder the voice became, the voice telling her that if she kept searching, she wouldn't like what she found. Still, she searched on. Ben had cared about her so much, so why did he stop caring, all of a sudden? Again, what changed?

At dinner, Benjamin and Jeremiah were already on the edge of their seats, desperately wanting to go home. Ben didn't like being a girl and it was funny to him how much of a struggle she had to go through just to go pee.

Getting dressed and getting ready were a whole other situation that he was not quite ready to tackle yet. This amusement was quickly turning into a slow, insane laughter that was making him internally twitch. He was ready to get out.

But, this was part of the deal. Not only did Ben have to understand Bethany and vice versa, they had to become comfortable with themselves too, and that could take so much longer than they both planned. But the lesson won't be just for the two neighbors as each other, it will go for themselves too.

Ben didn't want to deal with that when he had to be Bethany, and he didn't want to deal with that even as himself. He didn't want to be comfortable with himself, because he knew there was too much shit about him to ignore.

He knew that if he took care of that, he wouldn't have that problem, but taking care of it meant tapping into it and feeling everything. Bethany was probably already doing that herself, which made him squirm. He didn't want her rooting around in his brain and in his life, but she already was. She was halfway through, and there was no going back now.

The same couldn't go for Benjamin. He honestly wasn't squirming around in Bethany's brain, anticipating and expecting answers from her. He just wanted to get out, like he always wanted to. He was still fighting and finding his way through his own life, trying to piece things together since Jessica left him at the altar.

Things just weren't the same anymore. Even though he wanted to know what the hell Bethany was thinking most of the time she did something, but now, he wasn't really wondering why.

He couldn't tell if it was just his lack of effort, ability to block things out and compartmentalize, or if it really was less of a problem than he always made it out to be. He eventually ended up finding out when Jeremiah was gone and he was laying alone in bed, and her thoughts and feelings soon began invading him and attacking without any forewarning.

Being someone else is hard, walking around in their shoes is harder, especially if they're high heels, and feeling what they feel is the hardest of it all.

Ben wanted his skin back, he was actually more comfortable with his life and his thoughts than he was with hers.