TGGBB Preferences and Imagines

Bennett*Someone You Loved

The clock had never been this loud, surely? Every tick tick tick felt like a stab into my head. Tick tick tick. A chair scrapped and I flinched. The sound of shoes hitting off the cheap school flooring sounded to close to that night. Bang. Bang. Bang.

Ring! The bell screeched. The noises around me seemed heightened and my eyes glued themselves to the ground as I trailed out behind people. I knew they were looking at me. I felt like an exhibition at a museum.

As I'm walking out the door I look up and pause when I catch Jordan's eye. He looks at me, I look at him. Jordan put his hood up, stuffed his hands in his pockets and walked away, straight home.

I didn't need to sigh. I didn't need to yell. I needed to walk. My feet trailed the path I rarely walked home. I used to get rides from Bennett's or go to the guy's houses after school. my friends.

I walked in my own home and my parents didn't know what to say. I just sat down on the sofa, staring at the wall. I could hear my parents talking in hushed whispers, glancing over at me. My eyes felt heavy, all I wanted to do was sleep, but I can't. I won't. I need to be awake.

The tv buzz luckily drowned out my parents for the most part. Cola advert, toy advert, Santa's grotto, a new programme at 8, sports at 6, "the police have to update from the boy who was shot Saturday night- "my mum switched the tv off as Bennett's photo popped up.

My eyes dragged themselves to her direction, not glazed over, not wide-eyed, just open. No emotion. "Dinner sweetie," she said. I stood and followed her.

Dinner was quiet. "It's nice you're eating with us again," Dad said. Mum elbowed him. "What?" he whispered, "Its true! I didn't shoot him," they argued.

My dinner didn't look like food. It just looked like a chore. Whenever Bennett made chicken, he'd make a wine sauce and roast vegetables and use the rectangle plates to make it look fancy. It always tasted amazing. He always tried, always cared. Always said the food was the way to the heart. He liked talking about food. It was easier for him. Emotions were something he wasn't comfortable with, something he never confronted.

I was the opposite. Heart on my sleeve, bad poker face, always giving away the surprise. He didn't mind. We took it as it came. He took too much.

Standing up from the table, "I'm going upstairs,"

"Are you okay honey?" Mum asked, about to jump out her own seat to look after me, "I know what you used to be like and- "

"I'm fine," I said, "It's just like before, back to how it was. I'm fine," I lied as I walked away. It'll never be the same.

I'd not been happy for a long time when I met Bennett. Parents would fight, school was rough, I would struggle in classes and get stressed, I didn't have a lot of friends and the one I did have was Naomi. She was nice but I was so obviously the dumb one. The art one, the freak one, the one parents get their little kids to cross the street to get away from. Bennett didn't care. He made me happy. He made me forget. I guess I liked the way he numbed all the pain.

I sat on my bed and began to do mindless tasks. Drawing blank faces, organising thing already organised, tapping things in a certain order. Anything. Half an hour seemingly past when mum knocked, "Honey that's neatly midnight. Time for bed,"

Or not then. "Night mum," I smiled. She wavered and gave me one back, leaving my room.

I stripped, going into my pj's drawer. Before my mum would get me sets or I would use old t-shirts. Only a couple weeks ago I had to cut it down because I had too many. I looked in the drawer and saw a pile of pj's bottoms and a pile of Bennett's shirts. I hardly slept in anything else. He wasn't allowed to stay over despite my parents liking him, so he gave me a few.