If Not For You

Chapter 20

She recognized Ben right away. He was with a blonde slut, Jenna was pretty sure her name was Charlene or something whorish like that.  His back was up against the wall and she was trying to push herself up on him.  He was trying to gently push her away but she wasn’t getting the hint.  He eventually grabbed her shoulders back pushing her away from him and he finally broke free.  The girl lunged at him grabbing his arm again but he just pulled it back out of her grasp and kept walking out the door.  Jenna stood there looking in at the girl for a moment before she looked away.

Inside the toy room there was a little kitchen set and baby dolls with a crib and stroller and everything.   It made Jenna sad to think about Jax’s little sister, for all the little girls.  It saddened her that we as a society could be so naive to teach our girls that they need to be a mother, a housewife, some man’s property, before they had any self worth.  Jenna remembered growing up thinking about getting married and being a mom.  She remembered the first time that she realized that her mother didn’t love her.  Her mother too bought into all that bullshit.  She got married out of high school and had a child right away.  She worked in the home all day, raising her husband’s child and at night she took a part time job to help make ends meet.  She wasn’t happy.  She regretted the marriage, the child, the sacrifices.  Her mother convinced herself that Jenna was bad, but the truth was there was nothing short of being a prophet that would stop her mother from despising her.  If Jenna wasn’t going to make her mother’s sacrifices have validation, then she was going to make her mother a failure. 

And when her mother finally realized that her husband wasn’t worth the sacrifices either they needed a scapegoat.  They needed something they could bond over to bring them closer together.  The only thing that could bring them closer was to tear their daughter apart.  They did everything they could to make Jenna a screw up.  If Jenna wasn’t perfect then it made her parents a failure.  And she loved her parents as all children do.  And she saw them as perfect even though she knew they were wrong.  They would accuse her of these horrible things that weren’t true, but she learned quickly that it was easier to take the blame and apologize than it was to deny what wasn’t true.

Jenna sat in the far corner of the patio and pulled her knees to her chest and cried.  Something she hadn’t done in a long time.  She sobbed and shook, tears streaming down her face.  She cried for herself as a child, lost and alone, she cried for herself now, lost and alone and she cried for all the little girls who would one day be here where she was, lost and alone.  Eventually the tears stopped falling and she sat there taking it all in. 

She heard the sound of a lighter and smelled the sweet smell of a cigarette.  She saw at the other end of the patio stood Ben.  She sat there quiet as a mouse trying not to make a sound.  So of course she sneezed.  She kept her eyes closed tight from the sneeze, she was trying to convince herself that if her eyes were closed he couldn’t see her, just like when she was a kid.

“Jenna, is that you?”  Ben called out, squinting as he started walking down towards her.

“I guess it would be dumb to say no now huh.”  She used sarcasm as a shield.  She always imagined herself a porcupine and her sarcasm was the spikes that protected her from letting anyone get close enough to hurt her.

“What are you doing out here?”  Ben looked at her and she wondered if he could tell she was crying.  She wondered how dark it was out there.

“What are you doing out here?”  She said it in defiance, trying to be difficult, it was obvious why he was out there.

“I just needed some fresh air.”  He said the words and sucked in a big drag from his cigarette.

“Oh well I came out here to smoke a cigarette so I guess you should get some fresh air over there.  Away from me.”  She knew she was being a bitch but that was all that was coming out.  Her instincts had gotten her this far in life so she figured they were pretty right on.

“You know you don’t have to be mean to me.  I never have been anything but nice to you.”  Ben took another long drag of his cigarette.  Jenna didn’t have a response to that because she knew it was the truth.  She sat there waiting for what was going to come next.  “So you and Killer, huh.”  Ben wasn’t sure whether or not he was going to mention that he just saw Killer heading upstairs to a bedroom with Charlene.  He thought about how quickly both Killer and Charlene had rebounded.  Not 10 minutes ago Charlene had been all over Ben and Killer all over Jenna.  And here they are now upstairs doing who knows what and he and Jenna are together down here talking.

“If by me and Killer you mean we are together, than no.  There isn’t any me and Killer.  He asked me to homecoming next weekend and I said yes.  I’m pretty sure he was convinced he was going to get laid tonight.   Actually I’m sure he is going to get laid tonight, but I know he was hoping it was going to be me.”  Ben was shocked by her tight grasp on reality.

“Yeah actually I saw him head up that way with Charlene.”  Ben looked on her face for her reaction.  She really didn’t seem to have one.

“Oh the same Charlene I saw you heading upstairs with.”  She decided to call his bluff and see how he would play this out.

“Ah so you were spying on me.  Believe me I didn’t do anything with that girl.  There isn’t enough sanitizer that would make her sterile.”   He laughed out loud.

“Maybe they are trying out the downward dog.”  Jenna made eye contact with Ben.

“The what?  How experienced are you kid?”  Ben had a grin on his face ear to ear.

She punched him in the shoulder.  “The downward dog, it was a sex move in Lena’s magazine.  You know the other day at the laundry mat.”

“Oh yes the day I have come to refer to as Doomsday.  I really don’t know what any of that was about.  I really like you and I think I have proved that.  Why can’t we just be together?  I really don’t understand.”  Ben held his breath waiting for her answer.  Actually expecting there to be one.

Jenna looked down at her hands.  Ben noticed that they were really small hands.  He thought about how it seemed like she had so much baggage and he wondered how a girl so small could carry around such a chip on her shoulder.

“So how has your day Ben?”  She again was pronouncing his name like “been” and she laughed at her own joke.  She looked up at him and tucked her hair behind her ear.  He looked into her eyes and leaned in slowly for the kiss.  She sat there not moving waiting for their lips to make contact.  It was a sweet kiss and it felt right.  Ben pulled her into his lap and kissed her harder and deeply.  Ben laid his hand on her knee and parted her lips to allow his tongue to go into her mouth.  He moved his hand from her knee up to her thigh.  He only touched the parts of her leg that were already exposed by her shorts.  Although his want for her burned he didn’t want to do anything to scare her off.  After about 20 minutes of making out.  Jenna eventually pulled out of the embrace.

‘I just want you to be with me.  Why can’t that happen?”  He now had his arms around her and was trying to hold onto her as she was trying to squirm out of his arms.

“Please let me go.”  Was all she said.  That night he had convinced himself that this wasn’t going to happen.  She was never going to be with him.  He just couldn’t figure out if she didn’t want to be with him or something so horrible happened to her that she was too afraid to be with anyone.  He did as she requested and he let her go.  She got up to her feet and just when Ben was convinced that she just despised him, she lowered her hand to grab onto his and helped him up off the ground.  “Let’s go back inside.”  She said. 

Ben headed inside the bright house and she allowed him to grab her hand and lead her towards the light.