Under My Skin (on hold)

Chapter 9- Here We Are

Jessica had one thing left of Benjamin.

Before they split up, she had taken two of his shirts to use for comfort because she was going to her last semester of college halfway across the country. He wore them all day and sprayed them heavily with his cologne and she put them in her schoolbag and took them with her. When they broke things off, he sent over her things without even considering what she had of him. He was too enraged to think about that, look for them or even care for them.

Now, they were stained with makeup and tears.

But, the bright side was, it still smelled like his cologne. Maybe it was just her memory of what it smelled like and the smell had actually worn away, but she could still feel him close to her when he was so far away. Now, one of the shirts was in the glovebox of her black mustang. She would occasionally reach over just to feel the softness of his shirt. She was alone.

Her feelings of emptiness were soon filled with those of nervousness. It's been 5 years since they've seen each other and she had no idea how he was going to react to seeing her. Had he moved on? Was he with someone else? Did he dig a deep hole for himself? He did. Not just that, he dug his own grave and was falling into it, but Jessica had no idea about that at all.

There was so much she was missing, and all she wanted was to be back in his life. Now, it was enough just to be on the same block as him. She parked her car on a close-by side street and walked over to his house. Her instincts were right, everybody in this town knew of him, because none of them could ever know him. Not like she did.

At Ben's house, Bethany and Ben were still trying to make sense of it all. This was their first time really seeing each other since the incident and they were finally talking about what it was like being each other. Frankly, they were fighting. Nothing much had changed in them, or so they had showed on the outside. On the inside, they would never think of each other in the same way again.

Neither were expecting the surprise visit from Jessica. They continued to quarrel once they heard the knock on the door, over who should go to the door. Bethany said she should go because she was Ben and that's who they were expecting, but Ben counteracted it with the fact that he actually was Benjamin, even though he was in Bethany's body.

To settle the dispute, they both opened the door, too focused on squeezing past each other and swatting at the other for getting in their way. They were bickering like children, with small insults being thrown around between them. Then, Ben took a good look at who was standing there and choked on the bite of his sandwich he resumed eating because they had stopped fighting.

Bethany smacked his back repeatedly, and when she realized it wasn't working, she jumped on his back and started to give him the Heimlich maneuver. He coughed up a ball of turkey that was once a sandwich, and he shrieked

"JESSICA?!"

She was utterly confused. Benjamin was mostly unfazed, but the girl she didn't know was reacting like she hoped he had. Was this his new girlfriend? Was this the part of his life she could have been in?

"Yeah Ben, it's me. I know it's been 5 years, but I'd like to talk." She offered.

"Yeah sure. Come on inside." Bethany said for Ben before he could refuse. Jessica wasn't expecting that either.

She stepped into his new house. It smelled like cologne, cigarette smoke and a smell she couldn't place... dog smell. Jessica liked cats, but she always tolerated Ben's dog, even when she was just a puppy. She looked around, it was the decorating job of Ben, alright. It was a little all over the place but somewhat organized in his mind. She sat down on his couch, and the two sat in chairs across from her.