Benny Rodriguez; 1962

Rainy day

May 23rd, 1962

Benny's POV

It's Scotty's birthday today. We're playing at the sandlot when Scotty comes with Bella and Phillips are behind him.

Ham tries to start something but Bella sort of pushes it off and then invites us to their house. We've sort of gotten over the entire fighting situation but some of the boys still hate him. When we get to their house there's a bunch of people there and Bella looks like she hates her life.

Sarah is just standing here, not saying anything. She keeps glancing at Bella and then she'll look at Jordan and get mad. She must know him.

~~~~~~

After the party we all go to the pool and me and Sarah hangout with the boys. We splash each other and I'm having a good time. I really like Sarah and she makes me really happy.

She walks away and I see her go to Bella. They look like they're in a heated conversation but I can't really tell what they're talking about. Sarah walks over to me and just smiles. I can tell when she isn't actually happy because when we first met, she sent me the same fake smile just to make me believe she was happy.

I met her when I was walking to the sandlot because she was walking my direction and I was walking hers. She was crying, I could tell because of the trail of tears on her cheeks.

"Hey, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." She sends me a small smile, it's not very convincing

"Do you wanna talk about it?"

"You seem busy. Plus, I'm okay, really."

"Come on, I'm not busy."

We had talked about everything that went down that day and then we started hanging out more and more. I told the boys about her and even told Bella and she seemed genuinely happy for me.

I look over because I hear familiar laughing and I see Bella and Phillips splashing each other. I don't think I've ever saw Bella this happy. She's always so happy but when she's with Jordan it's like she's a complete different person but in a good way.

~~~~~~

"Ham!" We get interrupted and everyone stops splashing. "Come play chicken."

"Alright." He walks over to Bella and lifts some girl on his shoulders. He's literally half her height, I have no idea how he did that. They play chicken for a while and eventually Bella wins, no surprise there. She's stronger then half the boys.

He comes back and we splash for a while and then we talk about anything and everything. It's like there's always something to say even if we've heard it before.

It starts raining and everyone practically runs out of the pool.

"This is just great."

Me and Sarah run to my house and mom isn't home. We both change into clothes (her changing in the bathroom) and then we go to the living room to watch movies. Once it gets later into the day the storm gets worse so we both go into the basement and just sit there.

"This is boring." She huffs

"Yeah."

"We could find something to do. Like play truth or dare or something."

"Sure."

~~~~~~

"I dare you to kiss me." She smirks and my face drops. I've never kissed anyone before, what if I do it wrong?

"Damn, didn't know you didn't want to kiss me that bad."

"What? Of course I want to kiss you it's just... I've never kissed anyone before."

"Really?"

"Yeah." This is embarrassing

"Just do this." She puckers her lips. "And put them on mine."

"Okay." I slowly lean up and see her close her eyes so I do the same. Our lips touch for like five seconds and then we both pull away.

"See? You didn't do so bad."

"Alright."

We continue to talk for awhile until mom gets home and tells us that the rain stopped and Sarah's parents wants her home. My mom isn't like Bella's, I don't get to have sleepovers with girls unless it's at the tree house.

"Bye."

"Bye Benny." She hugs me and I lean down to kiss her. Our lips touch for the second time and everything pauses. Just like the books say, it feels as if it's just us right now. We both slowly pull away when she breaks the kiss, smiling.

She waves and walks down the steps. She gets in her moms car and they leave. It feels like I'm being watched so I turn around and see mom looking out the window, smiling.

"Yay!" She throws her hands up and starts dancing. I laugh and walk in the house.

"You did it Ben!" We dance around for a few minutes and then she starts cooking dinner. It's sort of quiet around the house and then dad gets here.

"Hey y'all."

"Hey." The past month we've been getting closer. He's still an ass and I hate him for what he did but I've got Dani now.

After dinner we just sit around and talk or watch tv until it gets a little late so we go to bed. I don't go on my roof tonight since it's probably soaked because of the rain so I just lay in bed until sleep consumes me.