If Not For You

Chapter 16

Jenna had her head in her gym locker looking at her gym clothes in a daze.  She grabbed her tank top and shorts and closed the locker door with a slam.  She almost jumped when she saw Kelly’s face appear from behind the now closed door.  “What the hell.  Jees you scared the shit out of me.”  Jenna turned her back to Kelly and proceeded to pull her shirt up over her head.  She unbuttoned her jeans as she slipped out of her shoes.  Kelly continued standing there staring at Jenna.  “Do you like what you see?”   Jenna asked looking over her shoulder at Kelly.  She pulled her tank down and her shorts up and sat on the bench.  She leaned down to reach for her shoes and Kelly kicked them across the locker room.  When Jenna rolled her eyes and looked up at Kelly, Kelly had already crouched down to look Jenna in the eye.

“Look bitch, Ben is mine and you better stay away.  Don’t make me say it again.  I will make your life miserable if you don’t take my advice.”  Kelly straightened herself up and stood there with her hands on her hips waiting for Jenna to fight back.

Jenna stood up from the bench and put her face a few inches away from Kelly’s, “my life is already miserable.  I wouldn’t notice a difference.”  She walked past Kelly and out the locker room door scooping up her shoes off the floor on the way out.

Ben saw Jenna walk out of the girl’s locker room door hopping on one foot while trying to pull a shoe on the other foot.  He smiled in her direction even though he knew she wasn’t looking at him.  He saw Kelly exit a few moments later and she went from behind Jenna and pushed her into the wall while walking past her.

 They were doing physical tests in gym so the gym teachers were taking the students a few at a time, counting how many pushups they can do in a minute and how long it takes them to jog the mile. There were a lot of students just messing around waiting their turn.  Ben jogged around the track catching up to Jenna who had her earbuds stuck in her ears.  When he caught pace with her he waved his hand out in front of her.  She smiled and pulled the earbuds out.

“Oh hey.  How’s your day Ben?  How’s your day been?  Haha how’s your day been, Ben.”  She laughed at her own joke.  She was enunciating his name to sound like “been”.  It wasn’t really that funny but with the day she had been having it felt good to laugh.  Anything that wasn’t horrible seemed as if it  were a major victory.  “So how has your day been?”

“Better now.”  He turned when he heard his coach call out his name.

“Let’s go, you’re on deck for pull ups.  Get behind Werner.”  Coach Warren never stopped looking at his stop watch and turned back to the guys doing sit ups and pushups.  “20 seconds left.  Let’s go ladies.  Push it until the end.”

Ben made a face and jogged over behind Werner.  Jenna finished her last 2 laps around the track and jogged onto the grass behind the bleachers.  She decided that she wasn’t interested in doing pushups and sit ups and she was more interested in hiding out.  She sat on the ground with her back against the support beam with her legs outstretched in front of her.  She had her music playing in her ears.  

Ben came up next to her and sat down tugging the cord from her earbuds pulling the buds out of her ears.  “What are you listening to that’s so great?”  He grabbed the buds and stuck them into his own ears.  After about 10 seconds he pulled them back out and handed them back to Jenna.  “What the heck are you listening too?”               

“Billie Holiday.”  Jenna said shrugging.

“It is horrible.  That is seriously depressing.  That is like the soundtrack to slit your wrists to.  How can you listen to that?”  Ben looked at her waiting for an actual answer.