I Love You, Benjamin Stone

The air was just enough to freeze the tip of my nose the next morning. I lifted a hand to it and tried my best to warm it up while wishing I had that little scarf I had loaned Rex. I would have been able to at least cover half of my face up and I wouldn’t be obtaining frost bite because of it. Curse me for being even the slightest bit nice.

Today was going to be day two for Hamlet practice and honestly, even though Benjamin was in my group, it honestly was the thing I looked forward to the least in my day. Hopefully there wouldn’t be an Annaleigh boob bashing fest again, otherwise I would probably slip in to a coma. Maybe if I was lucky enough, everyone else but Benjamin wouldn’t be able to make it and we’d have alone time.

Of course, if that happened then the world would end and I'd be left clueless as to how to start a normal conversation with him. I’d probably sit there like a goon, trying to think of what to say and when asked a question, I’d stammer and turn beet red. Did I ever mention that my life sucks?

Right now, I probably look like an idiot considering I have my hands covering my face completely except for a little space for my eyes to peer through. I probably look like I'm bawling my face off, but I don't really care. I’d rather look like Lindsay Lohan than freeze to death.

I keep stepping along, veering around patches of ice and suspicious-looking snow, my eyes scanning ahead for anything that could be potentially threatening. It’s not like I’ve never fallen or anything, I just wasn’t really a fan of it.

“Morning MP!”

The sound made me jump and sure enough, I slip on a patch of ice and fall. I hit the ground with a heavy thud and pain throbs on my hip bones and butt. Great, I had to jinx myself into falling onto the ground. I sigh heavily and begin picking up the textbooks that fell from my bag as a result of the fall.

“You know, a good morning back would have been a better greeting than throwing yourself onto a patch of ice,” Rex says and kneels down beside me. He scoops up my Chemistry textbook and hands it over. I glance down at the book and wrap my gloved fingers around it, expecting him to let go but he doesn't.

“I’d really like my book please,” I mumble in a polite voice but instead he grins. He gets to his feet, tugging the book from my fingers then extends a hand.

“You shouldn’t be so jumpy,” He replies, ignoring my last words. I take his hand and get to my feet, blushing. Today, he decided to wear a jacket and I can see the little red fringe of my scarf sticking out of his pocket.

“I-I’m aware of that. It’s just that my mind was preoccupied with keeping me on my feet,” Rex hands me the textbook, actually letting go this time. I shove it into my book bag and turn back to Rex.

“I could tell,” Rex answers with a light chuckle. He tugs the scarf from his pocket and hands it to me. “Thanks for this by the way, you might have saved me from freezing to death.”

“I… I wouldn’t go as far as to say that,” I wrap the scarf around my neck. It smells nicely of cologne and cigarettes. I would have never thought that a combination like that would smell so nice. Especially since smoking is not something I approve of.

Rex shrugs.

“I just hope you know that I appreciate it. You’re pretty much the only person who wants to talk to me here.”

I blush.

“Well… um… I’m sure that if you tried talking to people that you’d become more involved with them.”

Another shrug comes as a response. He doesn’t answer but instead, lights up a cigarette. The silence is slightly awkward but Rex doesn’t seem to be fazed by it. He just continues to drag on his cigarette until finally I speak up:

“I should probably get to school though.”

“Right, forgot you’re a nerd that way.” I frown at his remark and he smiles in return. He raises a hand in surrender. “No offense okay, MP?”

“What is it with people and bashing my life lately?” I mutter to myself and then begin to walk. Rex follows suit, taking an inhale of his smoke.

“You’re only a little bit bashable, it’ll pass over MP,” He says to me with a beaming grin, I have a sudden urge to punch him. That has never ever happened before; it was weird since I'm not a violent person by nature. Matter of fact, I'm not violent at all. The only thing I’ve ever done is accidentally slap Shea across the face and after he threatened to report me I never did it again.

“Why is it that you seem to appear wherever I am? I used to like having my privacy before school… So I could have time to mentally prepare for the bashing then, not now.” I snap, feeling heat rise into my cheeks. Rex actually stops in his tracks and places his hands behind his head, his cigarette dangling from his lips. For a second, it almost fell.

“Well,” He begins, sliding the stick to the side of his mouth in order to speak. “If you haven’t noticed; which you obviously didn’t, I live just one street away from your place. Meaning, when you walk to school I usually am too.”

I don’t answer but instead walk faster. Rex continues to trail after me, finally dropping the cigarette onto the ground . I break into a full run, placing a hand over my scarf to keep it from falling off. My watch was reading that it's quarter to nine. School starts at 8:50, I think I’m royally doomed.

“Why are you running!?” He shouts at me and then picks up pace again until he's running right beside me.

“We’re gonna be-” I take a breath in and keep running, nearly slipping on the ice. “Late!!”

My foot then hits the ice the wrong way and I end up sprawling across the ground, throwing my hands out to somewhat break my fall. This isn’t the case. The moment my hands hit the ground, I feel my left one give and a large crack sounds from the bone. A horrible pain shoots up my arm and I cry out, stopping Rex in his tracks.

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” He says as he jogs over. I'm cradling my wrist to my chest, tears now falling down my face. We still have three blocks until we reached the school.

“R-Rex, it-it hurts!” I manage to spit out before wailing out in pain again. He reaches over and pulls my arm from my chest, his face still calm and collected, the polar opposite of my own. He examines the wrist and sighs heavily, letting go to run his hands through his hair.

“You fucking broke it!” He exclaims and rubs his forehead. “Shit, now we’re really going to be late.”

He gets to his feet and then reaches down. “We have to get you to a doctor or something, last thing you want is to find out your hand has to be amputated or something.”

That made me cry harder.

Rex

Shit. She broke her wrist. Now what do I do!?

I've never been good with the whole emergency thing and now here I am, having to play doctor for the chick who’s practically a doc herself. What the hell am I supposed to do now?

I guess it’d probably be smart to call the doctor.

Annaleigh

Rex and I begin walking toward the school. So far the only plan we’ve been able to come up with is the school nurse ,considering both of us don’t have cell phones. His wass apparently taken away after his father caught him with some girl in his bedroom. What do you know, all guys really are pigs.

Rex

Should I say something to try and calm her down a bit?

Fucking hell, I’ve never had to deal with a crying girl before. I rarely have friends who are girls, I didn’t even think it was possible. Instead, I just did the same thing my dad did: Use ‘em and throw ‘em out. Not the best strategy I’m sure but it always worked for me.

Annaleigh finally goes quiet, her eyes still filling with falling tears and her nose bright red. If I didn’t know any better, this would have been the time that I would have made a wisecrack comment or a joke about the whole thing. Luckily for me, I have some common sense to keep myself from saying stupid stuff in bad situations.

Even though she's a huge dork, she isn’t really that bad. Surprisingly enough, she manages to keep from lecturing me about things like school or Jesus, she doesn’t judge me and she definitely doesn’t try to own my ass in a school parking lot. She is just herself, even as dorky as she is.

Overall, I can tolerate her. I kind of have to since I don’t really know anyone in the school and no one is really that interested in getting to know me. It's nice to have someone take care of me for once instead of having to be the one looking out for everyone. I never had that before.

Cars are now passing by and Annaleigh keeps staring at them with this hopeful look. The snow is numbing my feet and I’d imagine that hers feel the same way, not that she’d notice since her wrist is twisted at an awkward angle.

Leave it to a girl to wreck her wrist by slipping on ice.

She just fainted.

Annaleigh

“You guys are late for school.”

If my wrist wasn’t killing me and I wasn’t walking with Rex, I probably would have fainted into the snow.

Right there, in a beautiful 2010 Camaro is Benjamin Stone. His toque is pulled over his dark brown hair and matches perfectly with his eyes, enhancing their color. Those eyes are focused right on me and for a second, I think I actually left my body and went to heaven.

Rex waves politely but it's clear on his face that he isn’t impressed by who was sitting behind the wheel. Benjamin nods at him in acknowledgement but does’t say hello. He glances down at my wrist and his eyes widen slightly.

“Whoa, what happened?” He asks and I lift it with a wince. “Holy shit! You broke your wrist!? What are you doing still walking around in the snow like that?”

“Lack of cell phones and people,” Rex answers dryly, crossing his arms over his chest. Ben raises his eyebrow then opens the passenger door of his car.

This is SO NOT HAPPENING.

Rex

Did she just say Benjamin Stone’s name?

Annaleigh

Someone is calling my name.

In the middle of my conversation with Ben on the way to the hospital, I just heard my name clearly called.

Rex

Thank God she finally woke up. I really didn’t want to get to the point where she was really going into detail. I don’t really want to hear about her sex fantasy with Stone.

Annaleigh

Of course it was a dream, what else would it have been?

I rub my eye with my good wrist and sit up, jerking my left hand up after a stab of pain shoots through it. Rex is looking down at me, his eyes wide with shock. The poor guy, he probably doesn’t know what to do about this whole situation; the look on his face is more than enough to prove that fact. He is really clueless on what to do.

I get back onto my feet and wobble slightly, only to have Rex jump up and steady me.

“You know, it’s nice not having you take care of ME for once,” He mumbles as we begin walking. I force a smile and hold my wrist close to me, trying to keep from passing out again. I’d rather get to a hospital than waste time fainting on frozen ground.

“Don’t speak so soon,” I reply quietly and inhale sharply. The pain is definitely getting worse.

“Can you manage to walk on your own?” Rex asks, glancing down at my wrist then to my legs. There isn’t really any part of me that isn’t covered in snow right now; I nod in response to his question. He lets go of me then walks toward the middle of the road with a low stream of swears.

Next thing I know, he’s yelling at passing cars to stop and even getting to a point where he’s just seconds away from jumping in front of them. I can’t even yell anything at him, I'm just shocked.

Rex

At this point, if one of us goes down we might as well both go down. If I get hit by a car, I’ll just sue the dumb ass who did it. I’d find loopholes around the fact that it’d be my fault but still.

It’s one way to catch someone’s attention.

Finally a car slows to a stop and I beckon Annaleigh to come over. She moves slowly, each step seeming like an old lady with her walker. I can’t help it, I'm getting slightly impatient with the whole grandma act.

Instead of waiting five years for Annaleigh to get to the car, I scoop her up and place her into the car despite her angry cries of protest. I get into the seat beside her and shut the door, ruffling my hair. She is yelling something about this being my fault and how dare I even think of laying a hand on her.

I 'm surprised that she can raise her voice to this volume level. It gets so loud at one point that the driver nearly swerves off the road and into someone’s house. I slap my hand over Annaleigh’s mouth and shush her.

“If you don’t shut up, that driver’s going to drive into that poor lady’s house and you’re going to have more than a broken wrist,” I say softly and she immediately lowers her eyebrows but doesn’t say another word as I removed my hand from her lips.

We wait to get to the hospital in silence.

“Hey Mary Poppins,” I whisper and she pretends to ignore me. She does a good job. “How was Benjamin Stone today?”

She turns beet red.