Page 5 of Just Enough

The words wouldn’t go away. They haunted me. Like him leaving was. It felt like the biggest betrayal that he was leaving and going away, most likely to become something amazing or to come back home in a few years and work at his Dad’s business. Either way, he shined bright.

I wasn’t jealous. Far from it.

Benjamin used the head on his shoulders instead of the one in his pants like the rest of the boys his age. He was a strange one.

He was also my best friend. Unlike him though, I feared what came next. I didn’t have it all mapped out. While I played around with boys, he kept his nose in a book or played baseball—the only sport he played in high school. He was good at everything, every sport, but baseball was just his thing. And he was great at it.

But he was done with it, onto newer things.

And those thoughts were what sent me into a depression. Growing up meant this day would come, he’d go away and leave me. I was easily forgettable. Girls didn’t snag his attention in school. Kelly intrigued him for a while, but she only lasted six months. I could remember what she told him when they broke up, “I don’t feel like I’m even in a relationship. You don’t care if we spend time together. You don’t act like you want me at all!”She wanted his time and he had none to give. He wasn’t one to act all lovey-dovey to please his partner.

But, he wasn’t just like that with her or girls. He was that way with everything. He played every sport in middle school and then when high school hit, and he was losing too much of his free time to laze around and do nothing, he dropped everything and stuck to baseball.

See? Lazy, odd, and uninterested in girls.

Couldn’t you see how strange that was for a boy in high school?

For an oddball, he sure didn’t look odd at all. He was easy on the eyes. Like a future sexy professor in the making with his black-rimmed glasses and impressive build. He wasn’t broad, he was lean, but God was he tall. So tall. The basketball coach cried when he quit the team freshman year without a backward glance.

As good looking as my childhood pal and neighbor was, I’d never seen him like the rest of the girls at school. He was just Benjamin. The guy that I grew up with, the one that I considered my best friend, the one that knew all my dirty secrets. And he never judged. He always came when I called.

Everyone wanted a someone like that in their life, and he was mine. Back to why I went into a depression at the thought of him leaving. Considering who he was and the way his parents were, I always had a feeling I’d lose him in time. We were far too different. On different sides of the fence. My parents weren’t bad if you’d asked me. My dad was a slob, and he drank a lot, but he was funny…sometimes. My mom worked at the courthouse while Dad drew a check every month from an injury on his back that he got in the mines when I was a baby. They had their bad days but who didn’t?

They didn’t care what I did, much to Benjamin’s annoyance, but from this side of the fence, his parents weren’t all that great either. His mom, Faith, hovered and was controlling, and she hated me… Not that I gave her much reason to like me when she’d see me sneak off with one of my exes over the last couple of years.

I didn’t know why Faith snubbed her nose at me. Benjamin and I were best friends that was it. I wasn’t going to sneak into his bed one night and corrupt him although I was sure she thought I wanted to.

My friend Katie would in a heartbeat which was why Benjamin wouldn’t ever let me bring her over to his room. He had a radar that detected clingy girls, and he avoided them. It was funny and sad to watch all at the same time. Funny to see him become hostile toward them, but sad for all the girls that seriously liked him and were shut down with his disinterested, cold glare.

Except when it came to me. I was his bestie, so I had his attention, but I was losing him.

Come with me.

What would I even do if I did went? I couldn’t leech off him even though he would let me…I could find a job. He said it wasn’t too late to sign up for classes…

The thought of leaving everything I knew petrified me. But the thought of not having Benjamin around equally killed me. He was my safety net. I wanted to keep him always, or at least until he got married, or if his wife was okay with sharing him, that’d be awesome. She could have him in the bedroom. After being with three guys, I realized none of them knew what they were doing, and sex wasn’t at all what TV made it out to be. I just wanted my best friend. My safe place.

My phone rang, distancing me from my inner turmoil.

Had he already left this early?I wondered as I answered my cell. “Hello?”

“Hey, what are you doing?” It was Katie.

“Nothing,” I murmured, deciding it was time to venture downstairs and grab a bite to eat.

“I figured you’d be with Ben before he headed out or has he already left?”

I didn’t want to say goodbye.

But at her words, I darted over to the living room window and peered over into their driveway. I exhaled a relief when his truck was still there.

“No, he’s still home.”

“What’s wrong?”

I stiffened and tightened my hold on my cell phone. “Nothing’s wrong.”

She snorted. “Yeah, um, no. I know you too well.”

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