The Sleeping Arrangement

Chapter 6

Spoiler alert: Ben and I did not 'do it'. He did, however, try his hardest to get close to me all night and—unfortunately—he succeeded in doing that, at least. But, just like every aspect of my life involving boys, not everything went quite to plan.

In fact, it went very much the opposite of what I'd expected.

As soon as dinner was over and we'd been released for our two hours of 'free time' before having to lock ourselves away in our rooms for the night, Ben attached himself to me and didn't let go. He sat with me in the rec room, resting his arm over the back of my plastic chair as we struggled through a painfully boring viewing of Forrest Gump, which was being projected onto the wood-panelled wall through an ancient machine that whirred the whole way through, making it difficult to hear what was being said anyway. (Not that I needed to hear it to know what was happening. I knew the damn film back-to-front, having seen it so many times at school.)

Anyway, throughout the whole film Ben wasn't the only one trying his hardest to get close to me. From the back row, I could hear constant giggling and low chuckling, and every time I twisted my head in their direction I caught sight of Thomas and Lizzie attached to each other—literally, all over each other—in their own chairs. It made me reconsider our decision to swap rooms, which frustrated me even further, not least because they both burst out into laughter so loud I missed the scene where Jenny shouts "Run, Forrest, run!", which has always been my favourite part of the film. I didn't even have that to cheer me up now. With the added fact that Ben kept whispering extremely weird things into my ear all the way through—for example, "I really, really like your hair," or, "You have really smooth knees when your legs are crossed. Do you know what I mean? Like, some girls' knees just go all weird and knobbly when they have their legs crossed, but yours don't do that. And you don't even have fat thighs..."—I was getting all red in the face and livid with the whole situation.

I'd never been happier to hear Hayley's over-enthusiastic voice call out to us all that it was time for bed. Before she'd even finished her speech, I was out of my chair and headed for the door, making sure I avoided eye-contact with Thomas or Lizzie the whole time. I could feel Ben following after me, and I heard him call goodnight to the others before we left the room, but I paid no attention to him. I wanted to get to the bedroom as fast as possible, even if I still had to put up with him there. Maybe I could lock myself in the en-suite bathroom for an hour or so...

No such luck. As soon as we entered the tiny room, Ben grabbed my hands in his and pulled me across to the bed with him. Smiling the whole time, he sat me down and then perched beside me on the duvet, watching me eagerly as though I was about to put on a show for him, or something.

"So..." He chewed his bottom lip, his eyes sparkling. "What do you want to do? We can't go to bed yet. It's only just past nine o'clock."

I shrugged my shoulders and smiled back, half-heartedly. "I don't know, Ben. I am pretty tired. I might take a shower and change into my pyjamas, if that's okay with you."

Ben held up his palms and shook his head. "I have no objections," he said, laughing. "Just as long as you promise to talk to me afterwards. I'm going to sit in here and wait for you. I didn't swap rooms just to be sent to sleep straight away, you know!"

I knew. And I cringed at the thought.

"Okay, Ben," I told him, standing up and walking over to my suitcase. "I'm going to be in here for a while. Don't miss me too much." I chuckled and grabbed my things, before dashing quickly into the bathroom and shutting the door tight behind me without getting a chance to hear his reply.

It wasn't that I didn't like Ben. As far as sixteen-year-old boys went, he was right up there at the top of the Hot List. I mean, he was attractive and under any other circumstances, he might have caught my eye. But my mind was set on one boy in particular—the boy who, at that very moment, was probably lying on top of Lizzie in a room downstairs. I couldn't possibly allow myself to do anything with Ben. I was going to stay loyal to my crush.