Friends With Benefits

Though I had considerably sobered up on the thirty minute long drive home, Will and Fletch both insisted on seeing me home and upstairs to my room. My parents were still home and up watching TV in the living room so Will easily made the excuse that I had borrowed something from him and he wanted to get it back before he dropped Fletch off at home. My parents didn’t seem to notice the smell of alcohol on all of us, nor did they think it was weird that Will had chosen to drop me off first when we lived next door to each other while Fletch lived a five minute drive away. I figured after all of the awkward scenarios Matt had gotten into during high school, my parents had just decided to stop questioning things their children did.

Will and Fletch walked up the stairs behind me to my room, afraid I would suddenly drunkenly waiver and fall backward. I made it up safely and, despite my protests, they both insisted on staying until they could see I had been tucked safely into bed. I made them both sit awkwardly on my bed while I hurriedly changed into pajamas and bathrobe. I didn’t know why I was feeling the particular need to hide myself from them. After all, Will and I took baths together as babies, he saw me in bikinis throughout the summer and Fletch had just about seen me naked just an hour beforehand. When I came out, they moved so I could snuggle under the covers.

“You guys can go now,” I grimaced at them.

“Don’t want us to tuck you in?” Will smirked. I rolled my eyes playfully at him.

“I think I’ll be alright,” I replied.

I glanced over at Fletch, who seemed to be studying every aspect of my room. Even though I was two pieces of cloth away from sleeping with him, Fletch had never really been into my room and I almost never invited him inside my house. In fact, Fletch usually only came to pick me up and drop me off on most occasions, the reason why my father sometimes had a hard time remembering his name. Seeing him awkwardly trying to memorize every inch of my room, I realized the last time I had invited Fletch up to my room was back in the eighth grade.

“You want Mr. Bloopie?” Will asked me.

“Maybe,” I admitted bashfully, my drunken state still shining through.

“Who’s Mr. Bloopie?” Fletch grimaced. Will turned around and reached into my wardrobe, pulling out the raggedy stuffed bunny out of the bottom, tucking it under the covers with me.

“Thanks,” I beamed up at Will.

“I’ll go get you a glass of water,” Will said. “With all that booze in your system, I don’t want you getting dehydrated.” Will headed into the bathroom to busy himself with getting my water, leaving Fletch and I alone in the room.

“I can’t remember the last time I was in your room,” Fletch mentioned. “In fact, I think this is the first time I’ve ever been alone with you in your room…”

“Yeah, well my parents have never been too keen on me being alone in my room with a boy,” I shrugged. “Except for Will. They trust him.”

“They shouldn’t,” Fletch scoffed. “Anyway, how come you never have me up here?”

“Well, you don’t really come in my house,” I pointed out.

“Then why don’t you have me around the house?” Fletch asked curiously. “You come over to my place all the time…”

“Please, Fletch, I’ve got a headache,” I mumbled.

“And Will knows where everything is,” Fletch said. “He even knows about your stupid stuffed rabbit!”

“Mr. Bloopie isn’t stupid!” I yelled at Fletch.

“What’s going on in here?” Will asked, returning with my glass of water.

“Fletch called Mr. Bloopie stupid,” I replied.

“It’s a dumb stuffed rabbit!” Fletch sighed.

“He is not!” I glowered.

“Where’d you get that stupid thing anyway?” Fletch grimaced.

“I won it for her out of a crane machine when we were four,” Will shrugged. “Used to help her sleep at night when she thought there were monsters under the bed and stuff. She always brought him on our sleepovers. Actually, she brought him everywhere. We’d do all kinds of stuff with him. He’s kind of the stuffed animal you, Fletch. You know, the third in our little trio.”

“Well, we better get going,” Fletch grimaced.

“Say goodnight!” I ordered them.

“Goodnight,” Fletch snorted.

“Night, Ailee,” Will said, leaning over and kissing my forehead, “and goodnight Mr. Bloopie.” He rubbed the rabbit on the head and then pushed Fletch out of my room, turning off the light behind them. I snuggled up tightly with Mr. Bloopie, smelling the slight aroma of cedar and Will he still carried.

I woke up the next morning with a pounding headache, cursing the day I discovered boxed wine. My parents were kind enough to not question my need to sleep in and didn’t seem concerned or curious as to why I was suddenly under the weather the night after going to a party. I finally showered, dressed, and decided to situate Mr. Bloopie on my windowsill rather than stuff him back in my wardrobe around noon. Just as I finishing tidying things up just enough I wouldn’t get yelled at when my mother’s voice echoed up the stairs.

“Aileen! There’s someone here to see you!” she said. I figured she meant Will and I went over to the door to open it up and head downstairs. When I threw open the door, however, I found Fletch staring at me instead of Will.

“What are you doing here?” I grimaced at him.

“I wanted to see if you were feeling okay,” Fletch shrugged.

“Yeah, right,” I snorted, walking back into my room.

Fletch followed me in, again glancing around my room like it was some sort of museum. He waltzed over to the corkboard where I kept various school ribbons, awards, and pictures. I sat on my bed as Fletch studied the corkboard, looking at my ribbon from field day back in fourth grade as well as the various pictures of me and Will from our childhood. He frowned as he skimmed the board, acting as if I wasn’t even in the room with him.

“What are you here for?” I asked him, annoyed.

“You don’t have any pictures of me on your board,” Fletch observed. I frowned, certain I had at least one picture of him somewhere.

“Yes I do,” I said.

“No you don’t,” Fletch insisted. “You have pictures of you and Will, you and your brother, you and your parents, you and Sara and Eric… you even have a picture with Chuck Fink in the background, but you don’t have one picture of me!”

I waltzed over and scanned the pictures, knowing there had to be at least one of him. Finally, my eye caught a picture from the end of fifth grade. It had Will and I sitting on a bench, Will’s arms around me and my mouth stained red from the big watermelon slice in my hand. There was my seventh grade spelling bee certificate hanging in the way and, after moving it and sticking the pin back, the picture revealed Fletch, sitting on the other side.

I giggled slightly, comparing fifth grade Fletch to the person he was now. In the old picture, he had much larger, thicker glasses and was wearing socks with his hideous, clunky leather sandals. He was wearing one of our middle school shirts that was way to big, but his shorts were too short to accommodate his growing legs. They stuck out of the khaki shorts like knobby, gangly tree roots. In comparison, Will looked as dreamy as ever. He never really had an awkward phase during puberty and was already taking on a muscular, slightly tanned physique in the picture, his head cocked to the side and his grin as bright and pearly as ever.

“You covered up the only picture you have of me?” Fletch said, highly offended.

“I’m sure it’s not the only picture I have of you,” I shrugged. “And I never noticed it was covered up.”

“Oh, so you didn’t even notice it?” Fletch said, upset.

“I haven’t looked at that corkboard in ages,” I rolled my eyes.

“So, that’s supposed to explain why the only picture of me you have in your entire room is completely covered?” Fletch said, angrily.

“Why are you being so melodramatic?” I asked. “If you’re hungover again, I’ll have you know I’m not putting up with your shit this time. Now, I know you didn’t come up here just to look at my corkboard…”

“Actually, I did,” Fletch admitted. “I wanted to see your room…”

“Why do you want to see my room?” I asked, puzzled.

“Well, you see mine all the time,” Fletch shrugged. “And you see Will’s a lot too. I realized yesterday that Will probably sees this place all the time, but we’ve never really hung out in your room before. Actually, we never really hang out in your house…”

“Yeah, well there’s a reason for that,” I grimaced.

“And what is it?” Fletch wanted to know.

“First of all, my dad doesn’t like you all that much, so I don’t want to get a lecture from him every time you come over and stay for very long…” I began.

“Why doesn’t your dad like me?” Fletch frowned.

“I don’t know. I guess he thinks you’re weird or trying to get into my pants,” I shrugged. “Dad’s seem to have a sixth sense around any guy they think might have tried to pull something with their daughter and you try to pull stuff quite often.”

“Guess so,” Fletch admitted.

“Besides, I used to have you up here in middle school and you would mess up my room and then leave without helping me clean up, so I’d get in trouble because my room was all messy,” I grimaced. “And the only thing we ever do is fight and make out, so it’s not like you’d be coming here to actually spend time with me or something. Not to mention my parents aren’t as lenient as yours. My mom’ll probably be up here in five minutes to make sure we’re not making babies.”

“Making babies? Way to use the technical term, Lenny,” Will rolled his eyes.

“This is exactly what I’m talking about,” I snorted.

“I want to see the other pictures you have of me,” Fletch insisted.

“What?” I grimaced.

“Where are all these pictures of me you supposedly have?” Fletch demanded to know. I sighed and pulled out some of my old photo boxes out of my wardrobe and the bottom of my closet, dumping them in the center of the room.

“I haven’t eaten today, so I’m going down to lunch,” I told him. “You can search for all your pictures, but I’m not helping you. And don’t make a mess.” Before Fletch could protest, I got up and headed downstairs for lunch.

“Where’s Fletcher?” Mom asked me when I entered into the kitchen. My dad’s ears perked up at the name, curious as to what Fletch was doing in our house.

“He wanted some old pictures for some reason,” I said. “He’s up there going through my photo boxes.”

“What did he want them for?” Dad asked.

“How should I know?” I shrugged. “He’s weird.”

“He is a weird kid,” Dad nodded.

“Well, I think he’s a delightful young man,” Mom replied. As soon as the words came out of my mother’s mouth, images of the way Fletch had been running his hands all over me in my nearly naked stated. I couldn’t help but shiver.

“What’s wrong?” Dad asked me.

“Cold spot,” I lied.

I made my lunch and ate it, disinterestedly listening to my parents talk about stuff I didn’t care about. I was hoping Fletch would find what he wanted and then leave so I could go back to my normal routine. However, I didn’t hear any sounds of him stomping down the stairs. I chewed in relative silence, able to tune out my parents’ voices, until my mother interrupted the reverie of non-thoughts I had slipped into.

“Aileen, isn’t it a little rude to leave your friend upstairs in your room all by yourself?” Mom mentioned.

“I hardly consider Fletch a friend,” I shrugged.

“But he’s been playing with you and Will since you were kids. And doesn’t he drive you to and from school from time to time?” Mom asked.

“Only because no one will buy me my own car,” I grimaced.

“We’ve been over this, Aileen,” Dad said. “Cars are a big responsibility and…”

“I’ll go check on Fletch,” I sighed, getting up from the table and heading upstairs.

When I found him, he was sitting Indian style in my floor, the photo boxes and various photos scattered around him. I mumbled to myself that he hadn’t kept things clean like I had asked him to. Fletch was staring intently at two photos in his hands while there were ten or so on his lap or falling off of it into the piles on the floor. I wondered what his sudden photo bug was all about and really wished Will had brought him up to my room the night before. I quietly moved over to my bed, wondering how Fletch didn’t seem to notice me. I decided he must be ignoring me on purpose or was really entranced with the two photos in his hands. I sat up on my bed, looking down on him on the floor, and he finally spoke.

“Three,” Fletch said arbitrarily.

“Excuse me?” I asked him.

“I have been through all six of your photo boxes and so far, I have found three pictures of me,” Fletch informed me. “The one on your corkboard and these two.”

“What are they?” I asked. Fletch handed them over.

The first was a candid snapshot Sara had taken over the summer, Fletch and I laughing while Eric made a silly face. Eric was off to the side while Fletch and I were standing with each other in the center of the picture. I honestly didn’t want to admit to Fletch that I had only kept the picture because of the face Eric was making. The second was from eighth grade. It was one of those lame school dance pictures with the cheap, cheesy background. I was wearing a nice dress while Fletch had opted for a tuxedo t-shirt and black jeans. I pouted instantly thinking about it.

The picture was from the Eighth Grade Spring Fling dance at our middle school. I had wished and hoped that Will was going to wake up to how we belonged together and take me, but instead, he broke my heart, asking out Kelly Montauk and subsequently beginning to date her following the dance. Will told me the great news about his date and, after congratulating him, I had run up to the treehouse to bawl my eyes out.

Fletch had left his Game Boy in the treehouse the day before and found me up there when he went to retrieve it. Fletch asked me what was wrong and I told him the abbreviated version: no one had asked me out to the Spring Fling dance, which was the following day. After suggesting I ask Chuck Fink to take me, Fletch had backtracked and offered to go with me, but only as friends and no slow dances. I ended up regretting taking Fletch up on his offer because I had to watch Will and Kelly slow dance while Fletch bitched about how he could be at home watching TV the entire time.

“I’m surprised you kept the Spring Fling picture,” Fletch said. “We both had an awful time.”

“I didn’t even know I had this,” I admitted. I looked down at the dorky eighth grade Fletch in his still oversized glasses, and then up to the current Fletch staring back at me. “I’m sure I have more than just three pictures of you. You probably only looked thoroughly through the first two boxes and those are all from when Will and I were little kids.”

“Fine then,” Fletch snorted. “If I’m such a bad picture finder, you help.” I sighed, but got down in the floor to assist him.

We ended up finding many more pictures of Fletch, a lot more than I really remembered having. There were pictures of us at the sixth grade science fair and the stupid DNA genome project we had been assigned to do together by our evil teacher. I found a picture of us on the eighth grade field trip to a local amusement park, various shots of us hanging out with Will in various places, and the photo of Fletch winning a hot dog contest at the county fair, about two seconds before he threw up half digested hot dogs all over my new white sundress.

However, I noticed I had less and less pictures of Fletch as we got older. There were only a couple dozen of us together freshman year and less than ten of us together the previous year. Fletch seemed to notice this as well, frowning as he searched the final box for any possible photos from sophomore year clinging to the base of the box. He didn’t find any and then went back to looking at the photos I had in my hand.

“I loved this dress and you ruined it,” I said, thrusting the fair picture at him.

“Hey, you suggested we do a victory lap on the merry-go-round after I won,” Fletch shot back.

“Yeah, well you were stupid to go along with me,” I snorted.

“Aileen! Will’s here to see you!” Mom called up the stairs for me.

“I’m gonna go see Will. When I come back, you better have cleaned up all of these boxes,” I informed Fletch.

“Whatever,” Fletch rolled his eyes. I got up and jetted down the stairs to find Will laughing it up with my dad in the living room. I blushed a little upon seeing his perfectly windswept hair. He turned to greet me with a hug and Dad b-lined it out of the room.

“Just checking to make sure you were okay,” Will said. “I was kind of worried about you last night.”

“Sorry I got drunk,” I admitted. “I guess I was just a little mad that you were pretty much ignoring me the whole time. Not to mention it’s easier to deal with Fletch when you’re so smashed out of your mind you don’t know what’s going on.”

“I know what you mean,” Will laughed. “Anyway, I’m glad to see you’re doing okay.”

“I’m glad you came to check on me,” I smiled.

“Well, I gotta get going,” Will admitted. “Dad and I are going to run the track at the gym this afternoon. He’s gotten on a real father-son relationship building kick recently.”

“Have fun!” I laughed.

After saying goodbye to Will, I jogged up the stairs to make sure Fletch had cleaned up my room like he was supposed to. I found that my room was in even better shape than when Fletch had shown up at my door that morning and all the photo boxes had been neatly returned to their place. However, Fletch himself was completely missing from the room. I figured he had come down the stairs and slipped out the back door when Will and I were talking. I turned around to head back down stairs when I noticed something different about my corkboard. Sure, all of my ribbons and certificates were still up there but tacked up, on top of everything else, were all the pictures of me and Fletch.