You sure? I don’t want you to get in trouble.
Seriously. Are they gonna ground me? They already threw me into the Crazy House. Besides I told them I’m going to the movies with Jae. Come at 7 but don’t come to the door. I’ll meet you outside.
OK
XO
XO
You pull on your Chucks and go downstairs. Your brother has appeared and is on the couch with his earbuds in, texting someone. He gives you a sideways glance and says, “Hey, you’re home,” like it was no big deal that you were in a psych ward for four days. You completely ignore him. If he acts this way to you when you’ve been going through this much—like you don’t exist in his world—then screw him.
You kiss your mom and dad and tell them you’ll wait for Jae outside.
“Be home by ten-thirty,” your mom says.
“Where’s she going?” Todd asks.
“What do you care?” you snip.
“She’s going to a movie with Jae,” your dad says. You’re shocked that he was paying attention.
“Bye!” you say. You can’t wait to get out of here. You’ve definitely traded one Crazy House for another.
Outside, you wait on the curb and when you see Ben’s car you stand up fast, not wanting your parents to see that he’s picking you up. When he pulls up you open the passenger door and jump into his car.
“Hi,” you say.
“Hey.” He reaches over to you, puts one hand behind your neck, pulls you to him, and kisses you hard on the mouth. You kiss him back fiercely. You can’t stand the fact that you missed him this much. “Where can we go? I just want to be with you.”
He kisses you some more, puts his hands on either side of your face and looks at you deeply. “Where do you want to go?”
“Anywhere we can be alone and you can just hold me. We have until ten-thirty.”
Ben drives to Lone Dog Mountain, the place of your first kiss, where you tried to search for shooting stars but the only stars you saw that night were the ones floating in each other’s eyes. He holds your hand the whole way there, and there’s no music on and you don’t talk, and that’s completely okay. You’re not sure how you’re feeling, but you’re definitely filled with all sorts of emotions because you don’t know what’s going to happen. You’re with the boy you love and you’re not sure what you might want to do next. The only thing you know for certain is that you want to be with him.
When you get to the trailhead, he parks in the empty parking lot but you don’t get out. He turns off the ignition and looks at you. You swallow hard. You inhale. He pulls you to him and you’re kissing again, the kind of kissing that makes your stomach flop all over the place, way down deep, the kissing that makes you think you might want to do other things.
“Do you want to get in the back of the car?” he whispers warm in your ear, then keeps kissing you. His words heat your body, they burn through you.
You don’t stop kissing but you nod yes. He’s still kissing you and he holds on to your body while your arms are tightly wound around his neck. He uses his strength to maneuver the two of you to the back of the SUV. You hadn’t noticed before but the backseats are already down.
“My dad and I moved a dresser today, that’s why the seats are down,” he explains.
Ben gently places you on the lowered seat and positions himself along your side, and stops kissing you for a moment. He caresses your cheek, then kisses your forehead.
“I have to tell you something,” he says.
“What is it?” you ask.
“It’s really important,” he says. “I don’t want you to be angry with me.”
“Ben, tell me. Nothing you can say will make me angry.”
“I sent in that anonymous tip to your school.”
You freeze.
You feel as if you can’t move. Your body goes cold and your limbs go numb. Fear pumps through you. This is wrong.
He keeps talking. “I had no idea they would send you away, or I would never have done it.”
“You what? You what?”
Your eyes have gone wide. You feel the shock all the way through to your toes. He’s still holding you, still touching you.
“I care about you so much,” he says.
“When? When did you do it?”
“The night I first saw the cuts. When I brought you to my house. I didn’t want you to kill yourself. I was so scared. I didn’t know what else to do. I guess I could have called your parents but I wasn’t thinking straight. I don’t know. You told me not to tell them. I should have told my mom—that probably would have been the best thing to do. I thought you might really do something dangerous. I’ve never dealt with anything like that. The marks on your hands and wrists … I’ve never had anyone I’ve cared about hurt themselves.”
You’re still numb, but you’re listening to him.
“Then, Saturday, I thought I shouldn’t have done it so I e-mailed another note saying it might not have been as bad as I thought. But once you send in a tip like that, they’re going to take it seriously. And when we were together on Sunday at the lake, things didn’t seem so bad in the daylight, and you promised me you wouldn’t do it again. I believed you. I’m so sorry. It was me who put you in that horrible place.”
He lowers his head against your shoulder and you know how distraught he is over this.
“I thought a girl from my class sent it in. Or Alex,” you whisper. “I thought he might have seen me do it…”
He looks up at you. “No, it was me.”
You think about it. You really think about it and you finally get it.
You know why he did it, and you soften.
You understand.
Ben didn’t do it for any other reason than he thought he was doing the right thing. He had no idea where you would end up.
He touches your hair, your eyelashes. He’s sad, and you know he wants so badly for you to forgive him.
“I didn’t want them to take you away. But I want you to get better.”
You believe him. You’ve never believed anyone’s words more.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry for what I put you through,” he says. “I love you.”
“I know. It’s okay. It’s okay. I love you too.” You do. You love him and you’ve never wanted to be with him more than at this moment. You press your lips to his again and you kiss for a long while, your tongues intertwined. You taste peppermint. You suck his tongue, then bite his lower lip. He groans.
All you want to do is be with him.
Your Ben.
He pulls you closer.
“Are we okay? Are you okay?” he whispers.
You nod that you’re okay. Everything is okay.
You want him to touch you. You want to feel his skin against yours. You run your hands under his shirt and feel his strong chest, his shoulders, his forearms. His fingers reach under your shirt and lightly graze the fabric of your bra, and then his palms are over the tops of your bra cups, squeezing gently. You feel your body ignite like it never has before. The heat is intense.
“Should we take our shirts off?” he whispers.
“Yeah.”