Chapter 23 Bennett
Bennett
I head off toward Sports Ball, one of the only places in town that might still be serving food at this hour.
When we get there, I go in and return with four take-out containers of fries. Once Briar inspects my bounty, she sends me back in for extra ketchup and some mayonnaise.
The girls plow through the fries like muscle heads pounding protein powder and by the time I turn into the student parking lot, I have a back seat full of drunk first-years wrapped in foil and sleeping like babies.
The term herding cats has never been so true as it is when I direct them inside.
Upstairs, I make sure Briar and Daisy are settled in their room while Clover gets changed and into bed.
“Water and Tylenol,” I tell her as I walk around to her side of the bed. “Come on.”
“You have to stop taking care of me. It’s not fair,” she says.
“It’s your first semester of college. What kind of husband would I be if I didn’t help minimize your hangover? Now, open up.”
She obeys with her tongue outstretched and I place two pills there. Before I can pull my hand back, she closes her mouth around my finger and sucks for a moment before letting go.
“Flirt,” I whisper. Yeah, that image is going straight to the spank bank.
She shrugs and drinks down half a bottle of water. Once again, she sticks her tongue out to prove she’s followed instruction before settling back into bed, curled on her side.
After she lies down, I head to the showers with a change of clothes. With the spray pulsing over the back of my neck, I press my forehead against the wall of the shower and feel like I can breathe for the first time in hours. Clover is okay. She is safe.
But fuck if I don’t see her the moment I close my eyes. Her clit rubbing against the head of my dick. The wet spot she left on my sweatpants. Her lips closing around my finger.
It only takes a handful of pumps before I’ve painted the tile with my release.
When I return, our usual wall of pillows is scattered at the end of the bed. I pull back the covers to see that Clover is wearing gray boy shorts with a thick, masculine-style band around the waist. Her ribbed white tank top is cropped, the seam rolled up just below those gorgeous tits.
I’m already getting hard again. There is nothing to separate us when Clover shifts closer to me and nestles her head in my lap.
“I am a very bad person,” I whisper, like that will somehow absolve me. Because if I were a better person, I would reposition her so that she has pillows to cuddle instead of me. But this moment is too much like ones I had allowed myself to only briefly imagine that day when we said I do.
She gives a contented sigh as I stroke her hair. At one point, her arm is draped across my thighs, painfully close to my balls that feel too heavy.
I pray for exhaustion, but sleep takes her fucking time and memories of the past start piling up one right after the other.
Sometimes I wish I could talk to Clover as freely as I did when we were just two profile pictures on a screen. It felt simple even though it was anything but.
My foray into catfishing started falling apart when Clover and Beth went to Texas to visit Beth’s older brother and his family two weeks before we were supposed to go back to school.
I’d managed to avoid my Calvin Prep friends for the summer, but they were getting harder and harder to put off, so I figured this was a good time to get them off my back. A group of us spent a few days in and out of each other’s houses, skimming off family liquor cabinets and getting high.
I had passed out one night on a lounge chair next to Val’s pool and she held up my phone to my face because Clover had sent me a steady stream of messages, telling me all about how weird her uncle’s kids were and how the whole family was obsessed with God and guns.
When I woke up a while later, Val was still scrolling through messages and laughing with everyone else rounded up behind her.
I was frozen with fear. They had found out that Clover was my weakness.
They knew the things I’d told her. Surely, anyone who read those messages could see what I knew to be true even if I could hardly admit it to myself.
Surely, they could see that I was in love with the girl everyone ridiculed and called the help behind her back.
But then Val turned to me, a wicked grin on her face. “Bennett, this is fucking genius. I can’t believe you’ve spent the whole summer catfishing this poor little fat ass.” She tossed the phone back to me.
My heart stammered in my chest, sweat gathering on my forehead. It felt like swallowing nails, but that didn’t stop me from saying, “Yeah. So fucking gullible, but at least she’s entertaining.”
“I’m surprised she hasn’t sent you any nudes yet,” someone said.
Val shook her head. “No, no, you don’t want to get caught with actual pictures. That’s asking for trouble.”
“Totally,” I said. Just the thought of Clover being vulnerable like that made me want to puke.
Everyone began to disperse and returned to their chosen vices.
Val stood and then leaned down to me, giving me a playful slap on the cheek. “Couldn’t let you have all the fun, though, Benny. If you thought those messages were entertaining, just you wait. The grand finale I just cooked up is going to make you jizz your pants it’s so good.”
I laughed, but it came out nervous and breathless.
When she was gone, I opened my phone and nearly threw the thing in the pool.
I’d never hit a girl before, but it was a good thing that Val was out of sight, because the feral anger I felt in that moment as I read through the messages to Clover she had penned was unlike anything I had ever experienced.
JOSH
Your mom’s family sounds like a bunch of backward ass hillbillies
CLOVER
lol yeah kind of, but they’re not all bad
JOSH
I get back in town next week
CLOVER
You do?
JOSH
I just want to feel you in my arms
My body flooded with heat. It was the first time we’d talked about physical contact.
CLOVER
I want that too. Really bad.
JOSH
Can I kiss you
when I get home next week
CLOVER
please don’t make fun of me
JOSH
never, baby
CLOVER
I’ve never been kissed
JOSH
can I be your first?
CLOVER
I would like that so much
JOSH
Will you be at the So Long Summer Bash at the country club? Next Saturday?
CLOVER
Yeah, my mom goes every year
JOSH
I’ll be there
CLOVER
really??
JOSH
I wouldn’t miss it for the world. I can’t wait to hold you all night and tell you how beautiful you are in person. You know that, right? You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.
CLOVER
you can’t say stuff like that
JOSH
yes, I can. It’s true. I think about you every night.
you make me so hot.
CLOVER
omg
JOSH
do you think about me like that?
you don’t have to be ashamed, baby
CLOVER
What if I said yes?
JOSH
I’d say I want to do a lot more than kiss you one day
I’ll meet you behind the club just before the fireworks. near the rocking chairs.
CLOVER
okay. I’ll be there.
That was the last of the conversation between Val and Clover. My teeth were grinding so hard I was surprised they didn’t chip. My neck was warm and the veins in my arms were practically pulsing.
My phone lit up. It was her. And in the time I’d spent passed out, this little thing between us had become so much more real, and the worst part was that nothing Val said was untrue.
CLOVER
Josh?
It’s me, I wanted to say. It’s fucking Bennett. The boy you’ve known your whole life. The boy who’s been hiding behind a mask for the last four years. The boy who’s been here all along.
JOSH
yeah?
CLOVER
I love talking to you.
JOSH
I love talking to you too
CLOVER
and sometimes I think I might love you
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
There was no pain more raw than hearing the person you loved say those three words to you only for them to be meant for a version of you that doesn’t exist. But I was delusional, and I convinced myself that the only lies in all this were my name and a few small details.
She was still talking to me. This was still just Clover talking to Bennett.
But without the bullshit of expectations and fear and shame.
So, when I typed out my response, I told her the truth.
It was selfish and wrong and cowardly. All it would have taken was one message.
One message to set the record straight. She could be mad at me for as long as she wanted, and I would let her.
I deserved that. It would be okay, because I would have stopped this lie before it bled into our real lives.
But I wasn’t the good guy. I hadn’t been for a very long time, and I doubted I ever would be again.
JOSH
I love you, too, Clover. I love you so much.