Friends With Benefits

Saturday was not a good day. I had woken up and everything had seemed fine. Birds were chirping, my mom was making extra big blueberry pancakes downstairs, and things were right with the world. Everything suddenly took a dramatic turn for the worse when I got dressed and headed over to Will’s house. I figured we could hang out since he had finally gotten a break from Natalie and maybe I could even help him find the courage to break up with her. I got out in the yard, just in time to see a car dropping off Natalie in Will’s front yard. She skipped over to the door, rang the bell, and was soon greeted by Will, who made no move to prevent her from wrapping her arms around him and planting a sloppy smooch on his lips. He invited her inside and shut the door. Not to be deterred, I headed over and rang the bell. Will answered with Natalie whining in the backroom.

“Hey… Ailee…” Will said, sounding surprised.

“I thought you said Natalie was doing family stuff. I thought maybe we could hang out today…” I said, a little depressed. Will scratched the back of his head.

“Look, Ailee,” Will sighed, “Natalie’s going through some tough stuff right now…”

“Her grandmother…” I repeated.

“And her parents too,” Will nodded. “See, her dad cheated on her mom last year with some girl at work and they’ve been through a tough time with their marriage lately, which has been pretty tough on Nat…”

“Yeah, that’s awful,” I said, not really sounding convincing in my sentiments.

“Well… the thing is…” Will said awkwardly, “because of her whole Dad cheating thing… Nat sort of has this thing about her boyfriends having friends who are girls…”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I grimaced.

“Just until she gets to know you better and trust you like I do, we can’t really hang out as much as we used too…” Will began.

“As much as we used to? I haven’t seen you all summer because of her!” I said furiously. “How can you be with a girl who can’t even trust you with your own friends? I’m supposed to be your best friend, Will! We’ve known each other since kindergarten and you’re telling me you want to stop hanging out with me over a girl you said you’ve been planning to dump for months?”

“Ailee… please…” Will whispered.

“What?” Natalie shot up from behind us.

“Thanks a lot,” Will glowered at me.

“What? If you’re going to break up with her like you’ve been talking about why should it be an issue?” I snorted.

“I don’t know if you woke up on the wrong side of the bed or what this morning, Aileen,” Will said to me angrily, “but I’m not talking to you when you’re in a mood like this!”

“Good! Because I don’t want to talk to you until you’ve stopped being an ass!” I glared. I stomped away, leaving Will to deal with Natalie, who was now demanding to know why he had been telling his friends he was breaking up with her.

Furiously, I stormed away from the house and began walking. I wasn’t really sure where I was going or what I was planning on doing until I noticed my feet seemed to be taking me right in the direction of Fletch’s house. I knew it wasn’t a healthy step or a step in the right direction, but I was angry and confused and hurt. I knew Fletch always let me vent and do whatever it took to get my mind away from Will and how he was in a constant state of breaking my heart. Before I knew it, I was knocking on the Murphy’s front door. I was caught a little off guard when Fletch’s little sister answered the door.

“Hey, Kristy,” I smiled at her warmly. “Is your brother here?”

“Yeah,” Kristy rolled her eyes. “He’s doing that moody I’m reading up in my room with the music blaring loud thing. And he won’t turn it down when I’m trying to talk on my phone because ‘you’re so much of a loudmouth’ they should be able to hear you.”

“He’s a jerk, isn’t he?” I laughed.

“Why are you friends with him?” Kristy sighed.

“Don’t really know,” I admitted, “but if you let me in, I’ll see if I can get him to turn down his music.”

“Good luck,” Kristy snorted before letting me into the house.

I followed the trail of moody hipster rock up the stairs and to Fletch’s bedroom door, the last one on the left. Kristy had put me in a somewhat better mood, though I was still fuming about the way Will had been treating me and the way he had downright lied to me Friday about Natalie being busy. Then again, it was probably Natalie who had lied to him. I seriously didn’t care if what I had said made them break up and if Will was mad at me for it. After all, he was the one making promises he couldn’t keep and I figured I had just helped him keep the promise he had made of breaking up with Natalie.

As I turned the knob to Fletch’s bedroom door, I knew there were probably a million ways I could have handled the situation in a more healthy way. I could have called up Sara to complain about what an ass Will was being. I could have gone to see my brother or even called up someone like Chuck Fink, who I had zero desire to make out with in order to get the guy’s perspective on why Will was acting the way he was. I could have even waited and confronted Will about his behavior, rather than my usual method of staying silent and letting him get away with stuff because I had a huge crush on him. Instead, I opted to do the least sensible alternative and vent my frustrations by making out with a guy who definitely wasn’t Will. It wasn’t even like Will was going to stumble upon us and get so completely jealous he punched Fletch, broke up with Natalie, and confessed his undying love for me, though that scenario had played out in my head several times.

“Kristy, I told you that I’m not going to…” Fletch said as the door opened. He looked up from his book and seemed a little surprised to find me. “Lenny?”

I strutted over to his stereo and turned the music down slightly, glaring at Fletch as if to challenge him to get up and turn the volume back up. He looked at me curiously, marking his place in his book and setting it aside as he sat up on his bed. With a sigh, I headed over and sat on the edge of the bed, not sure what to say or even if I should say anything. Fletch often had this weird way of knowing what was going on with me before I could even really tell him what was happening.

“What happened?” Fletch said. He was still lying back on his bed, his back propped up against the pillows, but he had reached forward and wrapped his right arm around my waist, pulling me a bit backwards toward him.

“I hate him, right now. I really do,” I said, frustrated. “He told us Friday that Natalie had stuff to do with her family this weekend, so I thought I could go over today and hang out. When I do, Natalie is there. Apparently, her dad cheated on her mom, so she says Will isn’t allowed to have female friends. Will tells me that she’ll be okay about it once she gets to know me, but how the hell is she supposed to get to know me if she never hangs out with us and I’m not allowed to hang around them? She just wants me out of the picture.”

“She probably made the whole cheating thing up,” Fletch agreed.

“I lost it. I asked Will why he kept ditching us for a girl he kept saying that he was going to break up with,” I sighed. “Natalie overheard that and got pretty pissed. And then Will got pissed at me for telling her and left to go smooth things over. He’s terrified that she’s got so much baggage that she won’t react well when he dumps her, but it’s just giving her more baggage that he’s stringing her along like that. He needs to dump her so she can find some asshole who actually wants to put up with her shit. I mean, she’s turning Will into a complete jerk!”

“Maybe he really likes her, but he doesn’t want to ruin his reputation of being the type of guy who’s only in it to get some ass,” Fletch shrugged. “I mean, he keeps tell people that he wants to dump her, but he’s always coming up with excuses of why he can’t. I think he doesn’t want to break up with her.”

“How can he not want to break up with her?” I snorted. “She annoys hell out of him, she tries to dictate every second of his life, and she doesn’t let him do anything he wants to do any more. He’s not allowed to hang out with his friends, she’s been bugging him to quit the football team because it takes too much time away from her, even though he spends like every second with her. She’s just a pathetic, needy bitch.”

“Yeah, she is,” Fletch agreed. “But she’s lasted a month longer than all of his other girlfriends…”

“She’s lying to him. About everything. I’m sure of it,” I sighed. “And it’s going to be really ugly when they do break up. I hope I’m there for it.”

“So you can be Will’s shoulder to cry on?” Fletch prompted.

“So I can see the look on that ugly bitch’s face,” I glowered.

Fletch laughed really loud at that and I reclined back beside him on the bed. Fletch’s bed was a full size but it was shoved up against the wall so you could only get into it from one way. I sighed as I rested my head on Fletch’s chest and stared at the wall beside Fletch’s bed, where he had posters of a few underground bands, Jack Kerouac, and movie posters for “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Zombieland.” He wrapped both of his arms around me and we just lay like that for a few minutes. I was glad Fletch didn’t say anything since I needed the silence and mindlessly staring at his wall décor to get my mind off of how angry and frustrated I was at Will’s dating situation. Fletch gently brushed his fingers through my hair as I continued staring at the wall, wondering why I had let my crush on Will get the better of me since it always got out of hand.

“I feel so stupid,” I said to Will finally.

“You’re not,” Fletch said, still gently twisting my hair around his fingers.

“I hate that he can always do this to me,” I sighed. “And don’t say he only does it because I let him. I can’t just stop, you know? People act like it’s easy to just give up on something like this, but it’s not. Believe me, if I could have stopped feeling for this way for him, I would have done so a long time ago, before things go so out of hand…”

“I get it,” Fletch nodded.

“That girl?” I said, making Fletch shift awkwardly.

“Yeah,” Fletch said, sounding bothered.

Though I was always gabbing about to him about my unrequited crush on Will, Fletch never talked about his similar unreciprocated love. He had only told me a few things about her. She was some chick who allegedly went to Westmoreland, was a little more mature than he was, and was dating this unbelievably attractive but stupid jock who she was so head-over-heels in love with, they were already talking about marriage even though they were sixteen. Fletch said he’d met her when they first moved through some business party or social gathering his parents had forced him to attend to get to know the locals and make friends. Fletch said he didn’t see her all that much anymore, but when he did, she was always with him. Fletch said the guy was way below what she deserved, a real asshole who probably cheated and regularly partied with his friends leaving her home alone on the weekends, but she was so in love she didn’t care. I remember vaguely asking him what her name was and he paused and them mumbled out something that sounded like Ivy.

“We are pathetic, Fletcher Murphy,” I sighed.

“I guess,” Fletch laughed.

“You know, this is really weird. Today is like flip-flop day,” I said.

“How is today like flip-flop day?” Fletch asked curiously.

“Normally, you’re the one being the whiny little bitch and Will is the one being friendly and consoling me,” I said. “Did you guys pull a Freaky Friday or something?”

“Nah. If we’d done that, I’d be breaking up with Natalie for him and he’d be telling my supervisors at the grocery store what I seriously think about them,” Fletch smirked.

“Good point,” I nodded.

Of course, it had to happen again. Once second, Fletch and I were complaining about everything that sucked in our respect lives and the next minute, we were sucking each other’s faces off. I knew it was completely wrong to trick myself like this, to let the fact that I was hurting get the better of me, but it was a nice feeling to have Fletch’s lips on mine, his hands roaming around the body. Even if Will didn’t want me, it was nice to know that at least someone found me attractive enough to want to hold me and kiss me and maybe even be seduced by me. Even if that someone was Fletch, the last guy on the planet (excluding Chuck Fink) I thought I would ever hook up with.

It didn’t take long before things were really starting to get heated. Since we had started going a little further as of late, Fletch no longer awkwardly worked his way up to feeling up my chest and occasionally pulling my pants down a little to the point where my hips were mostly exposed. After becoming used to being allowed to touch me in these places, Fletch occasionally went straight for them after a few kisses. He was massaging my breast as I moaned into his mouth when his alarm clock went off. He sat up, obviously angry at the clock and horny as hell while I sat up in utter confusion.

“I gotta get to work,” Fletch sighed. He got up off the bed, throwing his discarded grocery store shirt over his current one before looking back to me. “You want a ride home?”

“Sure,” I nodded, adjusting my own clothes so it wouldn’t look like we were doing what we were doing.

The ride back to my place was completely silent, only the light notes emanating from the radio causing any noise. When Fletch pulled up alongside my house, I noticed Will’s car was missing from the driveway. I sighed to myself, knowing he had probably taken Natalie out somewhere as a way of making up for what she had overheard that morning. I unclipped my seat belt and looked over at Fletch, who was staring straight ahead.

“See you Monday,” I said muffled.

“Yeah,” Fletch nodded, not looking toward me.

I hopped out of the car and straight to my house, ignoring the urge to look back at Fletch drove away. Once I was certain he was gone, I headed up to my room where I listened to depressing music and read for the rest of the day, wishing that for once, just once, Will could see me the way I saw him.