If Not For You

Chapter 27

They made it out on the beach with a few hours before it started getting dark.  They splashed around in the water getting the gritty sand all over them self before they eventually gave up and headed towards the light of the boardwalk.  They stopped and grabbed some food to eat.  Jenna’s dinner consisted of ice cream and popcorn.  It surprised Ben as to how child like she was.  As if in another life she could’ve lived longer without being tainted by the world.  Jax and Lena were standing in line for cotton candy while Ben and Jenna sat on the benches that lined the boardwalk.  “Do you ever think about what your life would be like if you were given half a chance?  Do you ever wish you could start all over?”  Ben looked for her response as he took a long drag of his cigarette.

Jenna sat there looking out at the water, really thinking over the answer.  “Sometimes.  I don’t like to though.  What’s the point?  Sometimes I wish I would’ve made better choices, maybe played my parents game.  Maybe if I pretended what they wanted me to be they would’ve loved me.  But then I wouldn’t like me very much.  And at the end of the day it’s just me looking back in the mirror.”  She took a long sip of her flask.

“Does that help?”  Ben nodded at her flask.

“Sometimes.  It helps numb everything.  Sometimes it’s a good thing, sometimes not so much.”  She gave him a smile.  A genuine smile.  The last couple of days she was beginning to see more clearly.  She wasn’t quite ready to completely allow herself to feel what life had to give her, she had been numb for so long.  But she started to believe that with Ben, Lena and Jax, that it wasn’t all going to be pain.  Somehow the love they had for her would still be warmer than the cold she inevitably would feel.  Someday she will finally feel the disappointment from her family but she didn’t need them.  She didn’t need any of them.  Finally now that she had people who loved her it wouldn’t matter who didn’t love her anymore.  Nor why they didn’t love her. 

She found her family.  The family she was always meant to have.  Life hands you what it hands you.  You can either fight against the tide trying to make sense of the mess it threw you in or you could just leave it all behind and start over.  

Jenna shrugged and finally spoke again.  “You can blame fate for giving you shit but you have no one else to blame but yourself if you continue to wallow in it.”  She knew it wasn’t the most eloquent saying but it made her point.

Ben smirked at her, “you should look into having that copywritten.”

“Yeah I’m the next Sylvia Plath over here.”  She saw Ben’s reaction and she was surprised to see that he recognized who that was.

“I’ll be sure to keep you away from any ovens.”  Ben nudged her and they both laughed.  Jenna couldn’t remember how long it had been that she had really, truly laughed. 

Jax and Lena came back over hungrily eating their prize.  Lena held it out for Jenna to take a bite and they headed back towards the hotel. They wanted to get up early tomorrow to enjoy the beach. Jax and Lena walked side by side holding hands.  A block or two later Ben was startled when he felt Jenna put her small hand in his.  They walked the rest of the way to their rooms like that.

The guys went into the rooms to shower off the sand first.  Lena wanted to talk to Jenna to make sure she was okay with staying in the room with Ben overnight since there was only one bed per room.

“You would tell me if you weren’t cool with this right?”  Lena grabbed Jenna’s hand.  “My parents really like Jax.  He stays over sometimes when you don’t sleep over.  I don’t need to sleep with him if you are uncomfortable.”  Jenna appreciated Lena’s concern, but she was truly okay with the sleeping arrangements.

“I am fine.  I promise.  It’s Ben.  He wouldn’t do anything to hurt me.”  Jenna smiled at Lena.  “Go have sex with your boyfriend.  Just don’t be loud.  That would totally be awkward.”

Lena rolled her eyes.  “Ben couldn’t hurt a soul.  Ben would never do anything to hurt you.  He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“Oh, yeah, tell that to Killer’s nose.”  Jenna laughed at her own joke.  She saw the shock on Lena’s face.  “What too soon?”  Jenna’s question met an awkward silence.

“I don’t know if it’s too soon.  I mean it’s your pain.  Doesn’t that make you sad to bring it up?”  Jenna could tell by Lena’s question that she was concerned.

Jenna thought about it for a minute.  “Right now I don’t feel anything.  But I’m working on it okay.  I promise.”

“I’m your best friend.  I will do whatever you need me to do to help you.  If you want to tell jokes then I’ll be freakin Tina Fey, but only because that’s what you need.  Don’t try to be strong for me.  I’m the one who is going to be strong for you.  Okay?!”  Lena leaned in and hugged Jenna.  She held her tight.  She didn’t feel Jenna hug her back but she felt her tears drop on her shoulders.

Jenna stood in the hot shower.  She let a few more tears fall.  She couldn’t quite get herself to cry anymore than the few tears she shed with Lena but she knew she would get there.  One day at a time.  When she got out she wiped the fog from the mirror and stared at herself for a few moments.  She saw her mother looking back at her.  Everyone in her family spoke of it, the uncanny resemblance between Jenna and her mother.   Stranger still was the fact that they both got their looks from her grandmother. 

Her grandmother had pictures from her own life all over her house.  If you wouldn’t have known better you would’ve thought they were Jenna in costume.  They looked like one of those carnival booths where you dress up in period clothes, they take in sepia.  She wondered if that was one of the reasons why they hated her so much.  When they looked at her did they see themselves?  Do they see in her what they were and it makes them have to face what they have become?

Jenna hated thinking about these things.  These are the thoughts she had kept at bay by drowning herself in alcohol.  She unscrewed the lid of her flask and she dumped it down the sink.  Eventually she would have to face her life.  She might as well do it now, while she felt safe.  If she didn’t start living her life it was going to pass her by.