Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
MICHAEL JACKSON, “THEWAYYOUMAKEMEFEEL”
Ben
Loving Gabriella Jacobson was easy.
Being her best friend? Pure torture.
When we were in elementary school, she brought injured animals like cats, rabbits, and birds to my house because her dad said it was God’s plan for the animals to die in nature, and that’s where she needed to leave them. But Gabby thought that finding them was a sign from God for her to save them. And because she was the pastor’s daughter, my parents said I needed to be nice to her and help her nurse the animals back to health in the barn.
By middle school, Gabby taught me to braid her hair because it relaxed her. And in return, she listened to me play my saxophone, clarinet, piano, cello, and trombone. She danced, swayed, and snapped her fingers with a huge smile and enthusiasm in her eyes, whereas my parents used to say, “That’s nice, Ben,” without even looking at me.
Gabby wrote her first poem for me, and I wrote my first cello piece for her.
In eighth grade, her friend, Michelle, told me that Gabby liked me more than a friend, but just days earlier, Susie had asked me to “go with” her, so I called Gabby to tell her that we could only be friends because I had a girlfriend. She gave me a “duh” like it was ridiculous for me to think that she liked me more than a friend, and she swore Michelle had lied.
By the following year, I had grown over three inches taller, a few zits appeared on my forehead and chin, and the chemicals in my brain made me see Gabby in a new light. I was in love with my best friend and always had been. When we were younger, I didn’t know my desire to spend all my free time with her was actually my first crush. Though, by the ninth grade, I knew I’d never love another human being the way I loved her. If only I hadn’t been scared out of my mind to tell her.
“What do you mean you don’t know how to kiss?” I asked as she covered her face with her hands and shook her head.
“Ugh!” She dropped her hands to her sides. “Matt was going to kiss me. I just know it. But I freaked out because it suddenly hit me that my efforts to save myself for him have only made me really inexperienced. Who saves their lips? He’s a real man who’s had real sex. What was I thinking?”
I tried not to laugh, but my best friend had been in love with the idea of falling in love for as long as I could remember. And for whatever reason, she fell for her oldest sister’s boyfriend. While she shelved her infatuation long enough to pine for a few other guys who were not real options either, she always came back to Matt.
“Don’t think that I’m not going to demand you explain ‘real man’ and ‘real sex’ to me later, but for now, let’s just think about this logically. Are you sure he was going to kiss you? Because I swear he turns you into a space cadet.”
She flipped out her hip and crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m not stupid. I know when a guy is about to kiss me.”
“How?”
“Don’t be a jerk.”
I laughed. “I’m not being a jerk. But whatever. We can pretend that you’re right. The last time Matt saw you, you were fourteen. Sarah had demolished his heart. And after a walk around campus and a pizza, he suddenly wants to kiss you. Makes total sense.”
She stuck her tongue out at me.
“If you do that, then I’ll be forced to tickle you. And I’d hate for you to get a reputation on your floor and mine.” I twisted my lips for a few seconds. “Never mind. I’m fine with the other guys on the floor thinking I’m expertly giving a girl an orgasm.”
Gabby blushed, and she never looked as beautiful as she did with pink cheeks. Even the top of her ears were red as she curled her light-brown, shoulder-length hair behind them.
She turned her back to me, fiddling with the zipper to my backpack on my desk chair. “You have to show me.”
“Show you what?”
“How to kiss.”
“Real funny. Don’t girls use the back of their hands or something like that to practice?”
She kept her back to me and shrugged. “Maybe. But the back of my hand can’t tell me if I’m doing it right.”
“Gabbs, no one goes to kissing school. You just do it and figure it out in the moment. There is no right or wrong.”
She turned, nose crinkled. It was another one of her adorable expressions. “But there’s good and bad. I want Matt to think I’m good at it.”
I was still ninety-nine percent certain that Matt had no plans of kissing his ex-girlfriend’s youngest sister. But friends didn’t dash other friend’s dreams.
“I thought you said he has a girlfriend.”
“Who’s probably leaving for California.”
“Still. Did they break up yet?”
She shrugged.
“Do you think he’d cheat on her?”
Gabby averted her gaze while fidgeting with her jacket’s buttons. “I mean, is it cheating if they know they’re not staying together?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t you ask Matt if he thought Sarah cheated on him when they knew they would not stay together at the end of that summer.”
“Benjamin,” she frowned, “why must you always do that?”
I leaned against the door and crossed my arms. “Do what? Make sense?”
That earned me a dramatic eye roll.
“If he’s the dream guy you think he is, then he’ll find your inexperience endearing. He’ll want to be your first kiss. And he won’t judge you for how you kiss because all his brain will think is ‘I can’t believe this amazing girl is letting me kiss her.’”
She returned a blank expression and several slow blinks.
“Fine. It’s like licking peanut butter off a spoon.”
“No way.” She giggled.
“Yes way.”
“I’ve never kissed a spoon. You’re so warped. You’re just trying to embarrass me.”
“That’s because you’re only thinking of puckering your lips and making a smacking noise like kissing your dad’s cheek. But when you kiss someone you’re attracted to, it’s like you want to devour their lips and taste the inside of their mouth. But it’s not quick like a spoonful of cereal, it’s slow like sticky peanut butter that you have to suck and lick over and over. And if it’s really good, you might even hum a little.”
“I’m not going to make out with him. I’m talking about a kiss like a goodnight kiss.”
“Fine, then.” I shook my head and raked my fingers through my hair. I hated talking about this with her. “Just mirror whatever he does. If it’s slow, go slow. If it’s fast, let it end. If he gives you a little tongue, give him a little tongue back.”
“I’m not sure how I feel about French kissing.”
“You’re right. And you don’t want to catch mono, so maybe just stick to a kiss on the cheek or even just a handshake or a tip of the hat. He probably always has a baseball hat on, right?”
“Stop.” Laughter bubbled up her chest. “He wasn’t wearing a hat. And I’m not shaking his hand.”
“Then maybe a high five.”
She snorted. “I’m being serious. If you show me how to be a good kisser, I’ll be at the dining hall when they open tomorrow and get you like five or six of the bear claws you like.”
Kissing the girl that I loved beyond reason and five bear claws. What kind of idiot passed that up?
Me.
“It would be like kissing my sister. Too weird,” I lied. I was a fraud and an idiot.
“Tillie is super cute. I bet she’s a good kisser.”
“Gross, Gabby.” I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands. “Don’t say that about my sister.”
“What about Jason?” She sat on the bottom bunk bed, which was mine.
“Jason? My roommate?”
She nodded.
“What about him?”
“Maybe he could teach me how to kiss. He’s not my type, but he has a nice smile, and it looks like he brushes his teeth, so?—”
“Gabriella, I’m calling your dad.”
“What? No! Are you crazy? This is not what a best friend does. So help me, Benjamin, if you leak any of this to my dad, I will never speak to you again.”
I stepped away from the door as it opened behind me.
“Yo,” Jason said, his gaze focused on Gabby for a second before looking at me. “Bad timing?”
“No. It’s fine,” I grumbled.
“Hi, Jason,” she said and then bit her lower lip to suppress her ridiculous smile. “That orange backpack is pretty gnarly.”
“Gabby and I were just heading out to get ice cream.” I grabbed her hand and pulled her to standing.
Jason adjusted his baseball cap over his short blond hair and grinned at Gabby. “Later.”
“Bye.” She barely got the word out before I had us in the hallway with the door closed.
“I’m full from the pizza. I don’t want ice cream,” she said.
“I’m tired of you losing your mind over Matt Cory. So we’re going to have a little chat, and I do want ice cream.” I held open the door to the stairwell.
She scowled at me before proceeding down the stairway. “I’m not losing my mind. And even if I were, isn’t that what love is supposed to be?”
“You don’t even know him.” I followed her down the stairs, our steps echoing off the concrete walls.
“I do too. I’ve known him for as long as I can remember.” She pushed through the front door as the cool evening air enveloped us.
“Your family has known his family. Sarah knew him because she dated him. You were just there like an old lamp. You blended in, but he never thought about turning you on.”
“Ben!” She slapped my arm.
“You know I’m right.” I led her north toward Baskin-Robbins.
“Why are you so grumpy? Why can’t you just be happy for me?” She swatted a swarm of bugs.
“I’m grumpy because my best friend is willing to kiss my roommate because she’s so desperate to be something she’s not. Sorry that doesn’t make me happy.”
“If you were a girl, you’d be happy for me. You’d squeal and jump up and down with me because the guy I have a crush on almost kissed me.”
“He did not!” I stopped walking.
Gabby halted, too, but not until she was a few steps ahead of me. On a long sigh, she turned.
“I love you,” I said because my heart couldn’t take it any longer. Whatever she thought she felt for Matt, I felt that for her times a million. I should have said it four years earlier.
All I wanted was for her to love me back because no other guy would see her like I did. They wouldn’t have years of Gabriella Jacobson woven into every memory worth remembering. They wouldn’t see themselves as a product of being her friend.
But I did. I saw her, and I couldn’t let her infatuation with Matt go any further.
Gabby returned a pouty face. “Aw. I love you too.” She took two steps and wrapped her arms around me, resting her cheek on my chest. “I know you’re just looking out for me. I’ll stop talking about Matt. Maybe Olivia is a better choice if I need to discuss boy problems.”
I couldn’t bring myself to hug her back because my bold declaration of love backfired. With the utmost bravery, I had set my heart at her feet, and she treated it like a speed bump. To my knowledge, we had never said those words to each other. It wasn’t like my mom telling me ten times a day how much she loved me. Did girls do that? Did they say “I love you” to their friends? Guys didn’t.
“Come on.” She looped her arm with mine. “I’ll buy the ice cream. So, did you get your short story grade back?”
I glanced over my shoulder and took a mental picture of the crime scene, where she unknowingly shot me down with an arrow dipped in the poison of unrequited love.
Gabby was my Matt.