Hold Me Closer

Part Seven

I guided Ben through the masses of people that were gathered in the dining hall for the Founder's Day party. It was one of those formal events that felt so fancy you didn't want to even sneeze, so Ben's drunk shouts were sure going to get us noticed soon and my panic levels rose even higher. However, after a couple of minutes Ben spotted his parents far away having a drink with the head- and drunk or not it looked like the poor guy had enough sense to shut up and try and hide from them.

He started to lead us towards a small group where Meg and Mike were chatting with a couple of other people, but I pinched him in the side to guide the drunken elephant and shook my head. "Not over there."

"Why not?" Ben pouted. "Let's go see Mike and Mrs. Mike!"

"Sorry Benny boy but my brain cannot handle that right now. Let's go and sit at the back over there," I said.

"Why?" Ben said, more curious than upset this time.

I looked up at him, and sighed. "If I told you, you'd forget it by tomorrow you're so drunk."

"I wouldn't!" Ben said, his face indignant. And then after a couple of seconds, "forget what?"

I lurched to one side and half-sat, half-dropped him down onto one of the wooden benches at the back of the room. A couple of people turned their heads round at the commotion, but I smiled tightly at them until they went back to their conversations. By the time I looked back at Ben he was snoring. 

"Hey, hey, hey!" I slapped the side of his face lightly until his eyes flickered open. "Don't you dare fall asleep on me Ben! You could have a concussion for all I know."

"These seats are harddd," Ben complained, his eyes stretching open.

I patted his head fondly as I looked around at the rest of the room. "Yeah, yeah. You know, I feel strangely like a teenage mum- you make the perfect toddler when drunk!"

I was talking more to myself than to Ben, but I knew that if I stopped talking then he would fall asleep and I had no idea if he had hit his head on the way to the bathroom, or before he had met me. 

"You know, Mike asked me out before Meg. I don't really know what to do about it. I don't want to date Mike, but I don't want Meg to fall for Mike and then find out that he either didn't mean it as a date or that she was his second choice. But how can I tell Meg that now that she's so excited? And what if they do end up dating and this whole thing could have been avoided?"

I took a deep breath. "You know, it feels really good to say this whole thing out loud."

Ben snorted. "Mike's gonna get laiiidddd."

I sighed. "Good talk, good talk."

That was when I heard the shouting. Sitting at the back of the hall I couldn't hear much, but it didn't take me long to recognise one of the voices as Jason. Pulling Ben up, we moved through the crowds of staring people until I could see that Jason was yelling at his father, cheeks red and flushed with anger and his father was looking at him coldly back. My stomach clenched and turned to stone, this- this was not good.

I felt some strange desire to talk, to make sure that Jason wasn't the sole point of focus, but my entire body was frozen. From the looks on everyone else's faces, I could tell that they were too.

"You've never cared! How dare you come here and pretend to be such a good dad when you haven't ever paid an ounce of attention to me before this!"

Jason's dad remained stoic, looking at his son coldly. "Jason, you're being immature. Go take some fresh air and calm your head son."