28 BEN #2
“I don’t give a rat’s tiny rump if the house is messy. Truly, do you ever just think of yourself?” She scoffs bitterly, which I don’t understand, but I can’t get into it right now. I don’t let her reply. “Unbelievable. Bed or bath?”
“I don’t have a bathtub.”
I look to the ceiling, begging whatever Higher Power lies beyond to give me strength with this woman. I turn and walk to my room, the primary suite. I lay her on my bed. “Do not move.”
“I can—”
“I mean it!”
Her eyes go wide, then hooded when she rasps, “Bossy.”
“Don’t look at me like that. There will be no funny business tonight.
I’m running you a bath and then going to the pharmacy.
Honestly, woman.” I hear her make another little sad little coughing sound as I go into the bathroom.
I get the water running and search through the staged decoration shit the interior designer put around my bath.
I pick up a spongy thing. Fine.
No bubbles. What the hell is a “fizzy bomb?” It will have to do.
I send Mitch a voice memo, “Order the best bath stuff ASAP to my Juniper Falls house. Bubble bath and I don’t know, loofahs, whatever.” Good luck to Mitch. I also grab a couple fresh towels and head back into my room.
Janelle is curled in on herself, looking tiny on my bed. Worse, she’s completely still. Not smirking or sighing or narrowing of those silvery eyes. My chest aches suddenly, so I quickly sweep her up into my hold.
“Come now, bath time,” I say, my voice all weird.
“Okay,” she moans the word. I set her down by the tub. She starts to pull at the hem of her little gown but her hands are shaking badly.
“Let me.”
“I can—”
“Stop, we both know I’ve been waiting all week to get you naked.” I pull the lacy silk thing over her head.
Oh.
The most perfect breasts that I have ever—
“Ugh, I’m sorry. This sucks.”
Ben! Focus!
Her disappointment, and sniffing, snaps me back to reality. “Shhh,” I kiss her forehead. “We’ve plenty of Saturdays.” She pulls her lacy thong down and I crouch to help her step out of it. “Right, in you go.” I hold her hand and help her sink into the oversized tub.
“Ahhhh,” she sighs into the water.
“Temperature okay?”
“Yesssss so good.”
I smile, “Good.” I grab the little ball. “You want something called a fizzy bomb?”
“Ooo, yes, please.” I chuckle and plop it in the steaming water. It fizzes. Go figure. I grab the spongy thing. “Ben. You are not washing me. Whatever level of marriage that is, we are not there.”
“Right,” I say, feeling a bit out of my depth. I’ve never taken care of a truly sick girlfriend before. Damn, have I ever truly had a girlfriend before?
Bloody useless. I’m powerless now, just watching her sit, grimacing from time to time at pain she must be feeling. I hate this. “Pharmacy!” I say too loudly.
“Too loud.”
“Yes, sorry. What can I get you?”
“My phone.”
“What?”
“I’ll text Harper, she can get some stuff.”
“Malarkey. I can get stuff, what stuff?”
She smiles a small smile, “First, don’t say malarkey and be Brit—”
“Yes, yes, it’s unbecoming. Fine, but I can run to the stupid pharm—” I try to insist.
“Ben, now that you’re here,” her voice is tiny, “I don’t want you to leave me, okay?”
“Oh,” I inhale, my chest expanding to fill the whole room, the whole town. A totally foreign feeling surges through me . Too many feelings to name or sort. I clear my throat but my voice comes out soft. “Alright, my darling. Alright. I’ll stay.”
“Good,” she closes her eyes and doesn’t shoo me away. But then she adds, “Phone.”
“Right.” I startle away, happy to have something to bloody do.
Half an hour later I hear the drain pull at the same time the doorbell rings.
“Harper, thank you for—Aiden?” My friend doesn’t reply, just holding out a plastic bag overflowing with supplies. “Aiden. What the hell? Where’s Harper?”
“Back at that ridiculous cafe. The Roasted Chestnut? Is this town serious?”
“Forget about the town, what are you doing here? What did you do to Harper?”
“Do to her? It’s what she did to me!”
“Harper?”
“Yes! She was swamped and trying to pass off a hundred orders for something called a pumpkapocolypse to a pimply teenager who just stood there. I snapped at him, she snapped at me, I ended up at the pharmacy with a list in my hand.”
“Harper. At the cafe.”
“Yes, Harper at the cafe, are you having a stroke?”
“Are you? I don’t know that I’ve ever heard her raise her voice above a whisper, let alone snap at someone.”
“You must be thinking of a different Harper then, because she was like a little fiery dragon. Red hair and angry eyes and venom.”
“I don’t think dragons have venom.”
“Fire then! Damn it, Ben, take your drugs!”
I still can’t get past my shock as I slowly reach for the plastic sack, but then I hear Janelle padding around in the house.
I narrow my eyes at my friend, “We will be discussing this later.”
“We will not. Goodbye.” He turns and stomps off.
I watch him go, puzzled as all hell, then hear a pitiful sniff.
Right.
Time to take care of my girl.
Wait, what? No. Not my girl.
Just Janelle. Janie, I mean. Not even my wife, not really. She’s my friend and she needs looking after. And I guess I quite like looking after people, if the pride stirring in me is any indication.
“I don’t want you to leave me.”
That was maybe the best sentence I’ve ever heard.
Except that’s ridiculous. She’s just sickly.
We’re friends with occasional benefits.
I’m being a good friend.
That’s all this is.
Or, rather, that’s all this can be. She’s made it clear she doesn’t want more.
A sinking feeling settles somewhere deep within me.
A feeling I don’t think I can ignore any longer. Something I’ve never felt before in my life. Something that’s growing. Honestly, it’s getting more difficult to joke it away and hide it behind my smiles. But that’s what she wants, what she needs. She needs light and fun. She needs a friend.
And so that’s what I’ll be.