Page 89 of Break Me
Twenty-Seven
November comes too soon.
I didn’t celebrate Halloween. Dad had people decorate the house, outside and inside, but he didn’t hand out candy like he and Mom did every year since I became too old to trick-or-treat.
I broke things off with Dumont, which he hated. But he must have remembered Benji, because he left me alone after our hushed conversation in his classroom. I’m worried he’s going to fail me, but I do my work. I have decent grades. Maybe he won’t be that petty.
Benji hasn’t went back to Toronto.
He’s still here.
I see him and Caden and Riley nearly every weekend. Dad has thrown himself back into work and he doesn’t want to talk about Mom.
I don’t either.
Not yet.
I keep pretending she’s still here, still in that room hooked up to the machines with the blankets piled over her small frame. Like maybe if I don’t peek inside her room, she will still be there. And when I’m ready, I can go inside and crawl onto her bed and into her lap.
But I was at the funeral, even if I felt like I wasn’t.
Even if I didn’t say a word.
I was there, and Benji was, too. We both regret the fact he never met my mom, even when he had a chance. It was a way to keep himself at a distance, and with me avoiding her and her inevitable death, well, I didn’t particularly want him around her, either.
Now, I wish they’d met. I wish it so fucking much, and Benji has apologized for it a million times over, even though it wasn’t really his fault.
Dad met him, but he’s so stuck in his own grief that he didn’t have much to say to or about him. Which is fine, I guess. I saw his eyes linger on his tattoos. Benji had his sleeves pushed up, almost as if he wanted Dad to see what kind of man he was on first glance. Not that Dad would know that, of course.
He doesn’t even know about what happened with Rolland Virani. Strangely, it wasn’t in the news. And no one was bothering Dad with much work stuff, not to mention I assume Benji’s hushed conversations with the cops are to blame for that.
Although blame isn’t really the right word. I’m not ready to talk to Dad about any of that shit yet.
Tess didn’t tell her mom, either, and she joins us all on the weekends sometimes, although she’s quieter than usual. More subdued. She was there for me when Mom passed. Spent all week with me, at my house. Benji let her take up that space, let me have my own to grieve.
But as I ride in his passenger seat now, headed to who-knows-where, I think about how he didn’t want to. How he learned how to text me more than one word. How he admitted he didn’t text me much before because he was worried Rolland had a tracker on his phone and would get to me.
Which he did get to me. But now he’s gone.
Just like Mom.
Two people with opposing souls, gone on.
As if he’s reading my mind, Benji’s fingers lace through mine. I smile, still staring out the window at the darkening sky. It’s Monday night, and we’ve already ate dinner at Riley and Caden’s place.
They’re sickening in their affection for each other.
I like it.
“Where are we going?” I ask Benji softly. The first time I’ve asked him. By now, I trust him. He was there for me, right when I needed him to be. I assume we’re dating, because we spend all of our free time together. But we’ve never had a talk. And I still don’t know that he doesn’t still care for Bianca in some way.
I haven’t pressed him about it again.
But Benji doesn’t answer me and he doesn’t have to, because he turns down a dirt road and I know we’re at Briar’s only park, a North Carolina state park.
The high beams click on automatically and he drives slowly down the bumpy road, forest edging both sides of it. I watch the darkness, peering into the thick of the trees but not seeing much of anything. I have no idea why we’re here, but this is Benji after all.
He does weird shit like this.
