On an Edge of Glass (27 page)

“Right.”  B
en nods and shifts his weight to his other foot.  He lets out a breath, hushed and fast.  “We’re good and I’m glad.”

But, he doesn’t look glad.  In fact, he looks the opposite of glad.

“Did you put that flyer under my door?” I ask because I have to know or I’ll break apart right here.  “The one for the photography exhibit at the Pratt Gallery?”

Ben winces and looks away.  “Yeah…” he says slowly.  “I thought you might be interested in submitting some of your photos.”

“Oh.”  I nod and try not to look too closely at his mouth.  At his lips.  “I wouldn’t even know what to take pictures of.”

“Something you care about.  Something you love.” 

I try not to pay attention to how his voice cracks on the last word. 
Love. 

“You’re talented, Ellie
.  And last week, I al—” He stops mid-word and presses the heels of his palms to his forehead. 

My brain is scrambling. 
“Last week?”

“Umm.”  His eyes drop.  He tucks his hair back behind his ears. 

I get it now.  He means the almost-kiss.  The kiss-that-wasn’t.  My lips tingle from the memory. 

He continues,
“That was just—”

I
cut him off.  “Yeah.  That was nothing to worry about.”  I wave my hand.  “We don’t have to talk about it.”  That’s code for:
I don’t want to hear you say that you’re not interested in me anymore and that you’ve moved on to Mia, the fairy guitarist.

“Right.” 
Ben’s smile is weak.  “Right,” he says again, but nothing about this exchange is going
right
.

We stand there for a bit longer, each of us uncomfortable and awkward in our own bodies.  I imagine that Ben is anxious to get b
ack to his friends, maybe Mia.  He clears his throat, but he doesn’t say anything else.

I’m feeling more and more like
an idiot for showing up here.  But, the truth is that I can’t be sorry that I got to see Ben perform.

Sometimes things
don’t work out like we plan.  Like, maybe life has other things in mind. 

“Right,” I say softly
like I understand.  And maybe I do.

Weird as Folk

“That’s bullshit,” Mark says.

              I sit down back into my bed pillows and sigh.  “Except that it’s not.”

             
“Oh, Ellie…”

             
Moving the phone to my other ear, I say, “It’s okay.  I just want to not think about it for awhile.  At least for this weekend.”

             
It’s an extra long weekend.  Four days in a row of no classes in honor of President’s Day.  

             
“Wait.  Are you still going to go home?”

             
I
was
planning to drive home this weekend, but now I’m not so sure that I want to.  My parents will want to spend the next four days discussing my alternatives and strategizing, and I’m just not ready to do that.  It’s too soon. 

I
twist my fingernails in the fabric of my sweater and glance over at the unfolded letter resting on top of my green duvet.  It’s my official rejection from Columbia.  My throat is swollen with emotion and I’m full of a new kind of disappointment.   

             
Here’s what I think: it’s one thing to know that rejection is coming, and it’s an entirely different thing when it arrives. 

“Ellie?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you still there?”  Mark asks gently.

“Yeah.
  I’m here.”

“Are you going to drive home?”

“No, I don’t think so.  Dealing with my parents right now will be way too intense.”

Mark makes a clucking sound.  “What about Payton and Ainsley?”

“Payton’s on a camping trip with some of her friends, and Ainsley left for the weekend to meet Brandon’s parents.”

“
So no one’s going to be at the house?”

“Nope.”

“Shit,” Mark mutters.

Shit is right. 
My friends are happy, falling in love, living life, and I’m miserable and breaking apart.

“Do you want me to turn around and come get you?”
  He asks.

I groan.  “Don’t even think about it.
  I swear if I see your face before Tuesday, I’ll slap it.”

Mark and
Hal are finally an official couple.  They’re spending the long weekend together at a cabin that Hal’s family owns.  Apparently, there’s a hot tub.  Even in my messed-up state, I’m not about to ruin a weekend that includes a hot tub for my best friend.

“Are you sure?”  He whispers into the phone.  I can just picture him, sitting in the passenger seat
of Hal’s SUV with his hand cupped over the phone.  “You know that I will.  You and I—we’re the home team.  Everyone else is playing on the guest side.”

That makes me smile. 
“Yes, I’m sure.  Now go and enjoy yourself, and don’t do anything that I wouldn’t do.”  I pause.  “Or maybe I should rephrase that.  Do
everything
that I wouldn’t do.”

Mark chuckles.  “
Tomorrow I’ll call and check on you, okay?”

“Sure.”

“Love ya, chica.”

“You too.”

After hanging up with Mark, I lay in my bed for a long time.  The house is eerily quiet and I wonder what it will feel like tonight when no one is here.  I realize that I’ve never slept here alone.  In fact, now my brain is moving that way, I’m not sure that I’ve slept anywhere alone.  How weird is that?  And I think I saw online that it’s supposed to storm this weekend.  Great.

“It was a dark and stormy night,” I mumble to myself.

“Talking to yourself?”

I lift my head and see Ben, standing the doorway to my bedroom.  He’s
got his hair pulled back and a duffel bag slung over his shoulder.  There’s another bag clutched in his hand. 

“Yeah, I guess.” 
I try to shake away my funk.  “Are you headed home?”

“I am.”  He steps closer and frown lines appear on his forehead.  “
What’s wrong Ellie?” 

“Uh, it’s nothing,” I say.

“I don’t believe you.”

I squeeze my eyes hard so that the tears won’t come and hold up the letter.  I feel Ben take it from my fingers.  When he’s done reading, he sits down next to me
on my bed.  I think that he’s going to feed me some line about things working out for the best, and fate, and all that crap, but he doesn’t. 

“Well, that sucks,
” he says evenly.

I
t’s so unexpected that I choke out a laugh.  “Fuck yeah, it does.”

Aft
er about a minute of silence, Ben asks, “What are you doing this weekend?”

“Nothing,” I grumble.
  “Sleeping in bed.  Wallowing.”

“
Not true.”  He’s talking like he knows something that I don’t.

I open one eye
so that I can see his face.  He’s studying me like he’s looking for something.  Suddenly, I’m aware that I’m a disaster.  I’m wearing the yoga pants with the bleach splatters on the legs, and my hair is sticking up in the back, and my makeup’s been smudged away from wiping my eyes.   

“
Oh?  What am I doing this weekend?”  I croak.

Ben
stands up and takes my hand with him so that I’m forced into a sitting position. 

“You’re coming home with me,”
he states as if I go home with him every day.  As if that’s not the strangest idea in the history of the world.

I look at him
.  I mean, really look at him.  And even though he’s not wearing the mask anymore, he’s still changed.  Like he’s not quite there.  I think that he looks the way that I feel—raw.

“You’re coming home with me,” he repeats, his voice dropping off at the end
. 

“Aren’t you flying?”

He shakes his head.  “No.  Since we have four days off, I decided to drive.  That way, I can have my car to get around Asheville.”

“Oh,” I say
, considering this.  Maybe I’m a glutton for punishment.

Ben bumps his foot against the bed frame.  “So…?”

“Why?” I ask because I can’t help it.  Sure, there’s a part of me that’s practically giddy that Ben wants me to spend the entire weekend with him.  But, there’s this other part of me that can’t stand to be the recipient of his pity.  If he tells me that I should make the trip so that he doesn’t have to worry about me, I’ll probably die right here on my bed. 

But, Ben
doesn’t tell me that he feels sorry for me.  He looks directly at me and says, “Because I want you to.”

Want.

That’s enough to convince me. 

One
hour into the drive and we haven’t said a single word to each other.  We’ve passed a hundred thousand billboards.  They’re mainly for personal injury attorneys or Jesus. 

Ben is keeping beat to the music by tapping
his index fingers on the steering wheel lightly.  I’m systematically picking the red and purple Skittles out of a bag and popping them in my mouth one by one. Even with the music in the background, the silence feels epic.  This is weird. 

             
“This is weird,” I say, flicking my nails against the skin of my wrist.

             
Ben looks at me sideways.  He’s biting the inside of his bottom lip.  “You’re right,” he agrees.  “This
is
weird.”

             
I laugh, enjoying the wave of relief that crashes over me.  At least I’m not the only one thinking it.

             
Ben grins crookedly and I catch a glimpse of the dimple.  His hair is still back in the ponytail but a few strands have come loose and are falling down over his eyes.  He hasn’t shaved in a few days and the dark growth only makes his square jaw seem squarer.

I grin back.

“How can we un-weird the situation?”  He asks me finally.

             
I crinkle my nose.  “Un-weird?”

             
“You know what I mean,” he says, letting his head drift back toward the headrest.  

             
I sigh.  “I guess that I do know what you mean.  But I have no idea what to do about it.” 

“Well, that makes two of us
,” he says.

I let that digest as
I take a red Skittle out of the bag and put it gingerly in my mouth.  “Do you think that your mom will mind that I’m with you?”

             
His eyebrows pull together.  “Why would my mom mind?”

             
I shift, shrugging lightly.  “I don’t know.  I guess I just wonder if it will seem strange—some random girl showing up with you for the weekend.”

             
Ben’s voice is soft.  “You’re not random, Ellie.”

             
I feel a little dizzy.  My heart is acting funny—rattling against my breastbone. “I’m not?”

             
He nods.  He doesn’t look over, but it’s like I can feel his brown eyes on me anyway.  I shiver.

             
“If you remember correctly, it was my mom that told me to go back to school early over Thanksgiving break, so she knows how I feel—” He closes his eyes quickly.  “How I
felt
about you.”

             
I do remember Thanksgiving break, and the park, and everything that came after. 

             
“Oh,” I say softly.

             
Things get awfully quiet for a few minutes. 

When I can no longer
stand it, I say, “So what’s the deal with all the religious billboards?”

             
Ben looks out the window as we pass another massive billboard.  In this one, a likeness of Jesus is standing with his arms spread wide in a welcoming gesture.  It screams in glaring yellow font:
Before it’s too late.
 

“I have no idea, but there does
seem to be an abundance of them,” he says and laughs appreciatively. 

“I’m curious to know if there’s
any evidence of anyone converting while driving down the highway.”

“They should have churches combined with the rest stops, just in case,” he offers.  “For the folk.”

“Folk?” I fish.

“Yeah. 
You know… the folk.  Everyday people.”

“Ahhh, everyday people.”
  Like that explains it.

“A butcher, a banker, a drummer…”