“What happened on the river?” she asks.
Jae knows everything about you. She knows about the monster. She helps feed it when it’s hungry. She calms you when the monster makes you anxious and she cheers you up when the monster makes you depressed. Jae probably wants it dead just as much as you do. She’s been your best—really, only—friend since you met each other in first grade. She doesn’t judge you. She understands you. You tell her everything. She’s the closest person in your life, next to your mom, who sometimes drives you crazy.
But Jae, Jae means the world to you. She’s nothing like the girls at school who live and breathe by how many likes they get on Instagram; Jae doesn’t care what others think about her. You wish you could be more like her. Jae has that balance between caring and not caring too much. You need to find that balance. You want to be like her but you’re not jealous of her. You just love her.
So you tell her about Ben. How he made you smile, how he cooled you off when you got too hot, how he helped you when the rapids got rough, how his lips curled up at the edges when you said something funny. How he made you feel like you were funny. How he said he liked tall girls. How he held your hands and you felt it all the way to your toes, a tingling that you’ve never felt with any boy.
“Not even when you first dated Alex?” Jae’s eyes go wide on the screen.
“Ugh, I can’t believe I wasted my time with Alex. Oh my God, Jae. When Ben and I held hands, I can’t even…” When you think about it now, you still feel the warmth that flooded your body. You want to feel it again.
“Text Braden my number right now!” you say.
“I’m texting him!”
You watch the computer screen as she texts your number. “Oh my God, I’m so excited for you!” Jae says. She’s the best best friend.
“Okay, he texted me back. He’s going to text it to Ben!”
You kneel on your bed and emit a little girlie squeal and then want to shove it back into your mouth, because you sound like one of those stupid girls. You don’t want to be a stupid girl.
Suddenly, you’re starving. You grab your Mac and Jae and take them into the kitchen. Todd’s on the couch with his earbuds in and he’s furiously texting someone. Dad’s probably still at work. Your mom is doing dishes from dinner, which you skipped.
“Hi, what’s up?” she asks.
“Nothing,” you say.
“Hi Mrs. Richards,” Jae says from your laptop screen.
“Hi Jae,” your mom says, and moves in front of your Mac to give Jae a quick wave.
You look in the fridge and you don’t know why because you never like anything in there. Maybe sometimes an apple. You open the pantry and grab the Ritz crackers.
“Why don’t you put some peanut butter on those,” your mom suggests.
“Mom.”
Your mom holds her hands up in protest.
You actually like peanut butter but you’re not in the mood for it.
“It’s just, I think you should probably have some protein,” your mom says.
“I’ll get a Carnation Instant milk.”
You make your milk and take it and the crackers up to your room, along with Jae and your Mac.
“No crumbs!” your mom yells from the kitchen.
“Fine!”
In your room you settle onto your bed, not caring if you get crumbs all over.
“So,” you say to Jae, “guess where Mom’s taking me this week.”
“I don’t know, where?”
“One of those places.”
“What places?”
You roll your eyes at the screen and move your face close to where Jae can see you very clearly.
“You know,” you say, “one of those eating-disorder places.”
It’s the first time you’ve ever said the words aloud.
5
Hey?
Hey
It’s Ben. From the river.
I know. Hi.?
Hey. You still sunburned?
LOL. Of course! It’s only been 3 days! I hurt!
Me too, I got burned bad Yeah
So, it’s OK I got your number?
Of course
Good
So …
Um …
LOL …
So did you have fun?
It definitely got better That’s for sure …
Do you wanna go see a movie tomorrow night?
Sure
6
You haven’t been on a real date before, where the guy picks you up in his car. You and Alex were only sophomores, and dating consisted of going out in a small group of friends to the mall or movies, so this is for-real real. And you’re nervous. So nervous that you haven’t eaten all day long, when normally you might have had at least a couple of waffles for breakfast. Your mom makes you drink some milk and eat a few crackers at four o’clock. She asks if you remembered to take your pill that morning. You nod yes in between dry, pasty cracker bites. You never forget it. You know that’s the difference between having a crap day and a maybe non-crap day.
Your mom watches as you take small bites of your crackers and drink your milk. She says, “I hope you have fun tonight,” but you can tell she doesn’t really mean what she says, and for some reason, you think she doesn’t want you going out. Your dad is watching a preseason football game. You have no idea where Todd is, and you actually care. You might miss the idea of your family. You feel like it’s maybe falling apart. Maybe it’s the monster’s fault. Could that monster that lingers in the crevices of your brain have that much power over so many people? He’s pretty powerful. But you push the feelings aside, because you want this to be a not-so-bad night, you want this to be a good night. No, scratch that. You want this to be a phenomenal night.
Jae comes over and helps you pick out an outfit, one that’s not too datey looking, not too casual, one that says, I’m confident, and I look nice, and I’m not easy, and I like you. It’s difficult to come up with the right combination. You decide on white jeans with a black tank and a pair of strappy black sandals. Then you add a pink-and-black scarf in case it gets cold in the theater, also for a pop of color.
Jae hugs you goodbye and tells you to text her later, then you go to the living room to peek out the front window and wait for Ben. At five minutes before six, a silver SUV pulls up and Ben gets out. He rakes his fingers through his hair like he’s nervous and that makes you like him even more and you relax for a split second.
He wears belted khaki shorts and a white V-neck T-shirt and Vans and you think you might die a little bit inside at how handsome he is. You hadn’t seen him like this before—dressed. Although he had looked incredible wearing just his Hurley board shorts when you met at the river.
He rings the bell and you wait a beat before answering the door. Your smile goes wide when you see him.
“Hi,” you say, hanging back a bit behind the half-opened door.
“Hi,” he says, grinning wildly at you.
“Come on in.” You open the door the rest of the way to let him in as your parents come to the foyer.
“Mom, Dad, this is Ben. He’s Jae’s cousin’s friend. We met Saturday at Jae’s party.”
“Hi Ben, nice to meet you,” your mom says. You can tell she thinks he’s cute and then you think that maybe she’s okay with this after all.