The Boy With the Bruise - benjey

8 - Hot Chocolate, Bananas, and Strawberries

PART ONE

"Coffee?"

Benji's deep voice was warm and comforting, and it washed over Jorge's troubled mind like fresh honey and the first moments of morning sunshine. He allowed himself to bask in it for a few moments before he answered.

"No thanks," Jorge sighed, shifting his position on the couch to face in the direction of Benji. "I'm more of a hot chocolate kind of person, y'know?"

Benji nodded his head, sipping a bit of coffee to hide his smirk.

Hot chocolate. Cute.

"We can go to a cafe near the school," Benji suggested, warming his palms on the near-empty coffee mug. "It opens super early - and, it's owned by my friend, Gracie. You two seem a lot alike - I'm sure you'd love her."

Jorge's eyes widened at the mention of Gracie. "You know Gracie? How is she? Is she ok?"

Perplexed by Jorge's sudden interest in the blonde girl, Benji answered, "she's been fine, I guess. I saw her yesterday morning. She seemed kind of... off, though. Might've just been me being paranoid."

"Can we go?" Jorge asked hopefully, quickly standing up from his spot on the couch. Black spots danced in his vision as he did so, causing him to grab the side of the couch in a last-minute attempt to steady himself.

"Are you sure you're up to it?" Benji worriedly asked, dumping the remainder of his coffee in the sink and moving towards the smaller spanish boy. "And... Kaden's not up. Shouldn't we invite your boyfriend to come along with..."

"No!" Jorge interrupted. He cleared his throat when he saw Benji looked at him weirdly. "I mean... I haven't seen her in super long, and it'd be cool if we show up together... since we both know her, and all." Benji, as unconvinced as he seemed, went along with Jorge's answer. He nodded his head and grabbed his keys from the coffee table, patiently waiting for Jorge to walk with him down towards the parking lot.

...

The drive was awkward. The atmosphere was awkward. Before, when they had driven in a mad dash to Jorge and Kaden's apartment, they had both been preoccupied with separate problems and racing minds. Now, it was quiet and uncomfortable. The absence of conversation was enough to fluster them both.

"So..." they both spoke in unison, blushing as they turned their heads in the opposite direction.

"Sorry. Go ahead," Benji muttered, his eyes glued on the road in front of him as he tried to distract himself from the chocolate brown eyes that were now staring at him shyly from the corner of his view.

Jorge cleared his throat. "Uhm... did you get any sleep last night?"

Benji's mind went back to when the last exchange of words between the pair had occurred that night, and what had happened after. Benji found that he couldn't will himself leave the terrified boy, so he ended up sleeping on the floor next to him for an hour or so, waking up every so often to check on his condition.

He remembered a moment that had occurred in the early morning hours, right before Jorge had woken up from his deep sleep. Benji remembered the soft skin that he had found himself softly tracing, along the bruise that lined Jorge's neck. He found himself inspecting how far it actually went and making an assumption of how old the bruise seemed to be.

Upon first glance, it was entirely possible to say that Jorge had gotten the bruises from bullies beating him up - but, the fact that Jorge had gone through so much to cover up the bruises from the bullies that had jumped him in the bathroom, told Benji different.