CHAPTER 8
“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.” Anais Nin
Elizabeth sat on the back porch eating her pizza, drinking a Coke, and trying to pry the metal piece out of the pencil sharpener. After her mom had inspected her body, she figured if she was smarter about where she cut, and used an everyday object that her mom wouldn’t think of as a cutting tool, she could get away with it. Her parents wouldn’t be home for a few more hours. The fork that she was using to remove the metal from the pencil sharpener wasn’t working, well. Every other possible tool had been hidden and Elizabeth didn’t have the patience to search for them. She lit one of the cigarettes that Kate had given her and kept working.
“Hey,” she heard a familiar voice and looked up to find Jack Bennett standing at the bottom of the steps. Elizabeth shifted into Indian Style position and dropped the pencil sharpener between her legs. She exhaled and waved her arm trying to move the smoke around. “It doesn’t bother me. My mom smokes,” he said taking a seat next to her. “What are you doing out here?”
“Umm…I’m just hanging out. I didn’t feel like being inside.”
Jack smiled. “You’re chain smoking.”
“Yeah…I guess,” laughed Elizabeth quietly.
“I never figured you for a smoker. I’ve never actually seen you smoke before.”
“Yeah,” she sighed, “new habit. And, you’ve never really talked to me before.”
Jack shrugged his shoulders. “Really? I don’t know why.”
Elizabeth looked into his dark brown eyes. How could he pretend to not notice he never spoke to her? “Well, I used to try to talk to you.”
“You did?” he asked confused.
“Yeah,” she answered. “But you would like either ignore me or make a rude comment and I could never tell if you were serious or not so I just stopped talking to you.”
“I don’t remember that at all.” He sounded sincere.
“It was like a long time ago, like second grade or something.” Talking to Jack Bennett was easier then Elizabeth had ever thought. For a popular, good looking, amazing athlete, he actually seemed down to earth. His brown eyes glistened under the porch light. He was wearing sweat pants and a tight Charlotte Academy t-shirt with Adidas sandals. “So, what are you doing out here on a Friday night. Don’t you have a party to go to or something?”
“What makes you think I go to parties?”
“You’re popular,” she blurted out.
“Do you ever feel like sometimes you’re stuck between the person that people think you are and the person you want to be?” Elizabeth nodded. “I don’t think I’m popular. I’m just a guy. I like sports. I like to laugh. I have dreams and goals just like everyone else.”
“But people like you.”
“I don’t make them. It’s just the hand I was dealt. It’s football season. My popularity always goes up during football season. Besides, people like you, too.”
“You don’t.” The minute the words came out of Elizabeth’s mouth she wanted to take them back. She was sitting on the back porch with Jack Bennett who had not set foot in her yard in over thirteen years and she was criticizing him for the second time in less than five minutes.
“I never disliked you. We just didn’t talk for whatever reason. I really don’t know why. It wasn’t intentional or personal. It was just our relationship. I’ve never said anything bad or thought anything bad about you. The truth is I probably wouldn’t be at a party right now. There’s always a party after football games but we have practice on Saturday mornings. I usually go out to dinner with the guys and then come home. Saturday nights are different. But, I’m grounded and by the way, thank you for helping me last night. I didn’t mean to wake you up. I just saw your light on and I was really struggling.”
“Oh, I didn’t mind,” smiled Elizabeth. She could think of a hundred negative reasons to be woken up in the middle of the night and Jack Bennett was not one of them. “So, what did you do to get grounded?”
“I got a C minus on the Calc exam.”
“Oh.”
“I’m not stupid, you know,” Jack said defensively. “I’m just not as smart as my parents and my brother and sister. I shouldn’t be in Calculus but my mamma insisted and I’m so screwed. I need good grades to get into a Division one school and I’m not going to settle for D two or three because of my grades.”
“You get good grades. You’ll get into a good school.”
“I have a 3.0. If I don’t pull a B in all my classes my GPA’s gonna drop.”
Elizabeth remembered what Ms. Petrova had told her earlier in the day. Was it a sign? What if Elizabeth was supposed to help Jack Bennett in Calculus? Did Ms. Petrova have psychic powers? “You know…Ms. Petrova told me today that Calculus is probably the hardest math class most students will ever take.”
“Really?” asked Jack surprised. “Why are you hanging out with her?”
Elizabeth could see the sparkle in his eyes come back. “I’m not. She just happened to say that to me. She also said that one of the best ways to learn is to teach someone else. So, maybe, if you want, I could help you and you could help me. I think Calculus is hard and I know we both need good grades to end up where we want to be next year.” Jack thought about Elizabeth’s offer. She cleared her throat. “Nobody would have to know.”
“I don’t care about what anyone knows or thinks. I just don’t understand why you would do this for me.”
“I’m doing this for me, too.”
“My dad’s a dentist,” said Jack. “My mom’s a doctor. My sister, Trina, is in dental school and my brother, Jaden, is getting his Ph.D. in Biology. I just want to play football without looking more stupid than I already do. I go to a preppy school full of white kids. I already look stupid.”
“Nobody thinks you’re stupid or that you look stupid, Jack.”
“If you don’t mind I could really use the help.”
Elizabeth nodded. “I don’t mind at all.”
Jack smiled. “Alright, so why are you grounded? I can’t picture you doing anything wrong.” Elizabeth looked down and bit her lower lip. She was wearing a tank top. There was no way Jack could miss the white gauze bandage wrapped around her left arm. He had surely heard one of the many rumors that were going around school. After all, even if he didn’t think he was popular, he was friends with the popular kids, including Jamie Johnson. Certainly, she had something to say during lunch or in the hallway. “Does it hurt?” he asked tenderly.
Elizabeth Benson locked eyes with Jack Bennett for the first time ever. There was something about him that she had never seen before. His eyes were filled with kindness, selflessness, and something she couldn’t explain. She could see right through his eyes into his soul. He had no idea of what he was sharing with her. He was communicating with her in a way that couldn’t be expressed in mere words. She had only known him for less than an hour but it felt as though he had been her best friend for a lifetime. Explanations to unanswered questions about his fears of failure were revealed. Tiny gaps about his future goals were filled in. Sincere apologies for ignoring Elizabeth for so many years were suddenly accepted and a longing for a friend that understood him without judgment was felt. At that very moment, Elizabeth realized that Jack Bennett was going to change the world someday. It was absolutely inevitable.
Elizabeth wanted to talk about what she had done. Lighting another cigarette she finally confessed. “It hurts.”
“Why did you do it?”
Elizabeth shrugged her shoulders. She didn’t have an answer that would sound rational. “I guess sometimes I just feel really stressed out and overwhelmed and I’m not sure how to handle it so I…” she paused trying to sound as normal as possib
le, “It just helps relieve some of the stress so I feel better.”
“Can I see what you hid when I walked up?” Elizabeth inhaled her cigarette as deep as she could and slowly exhaled grabbing the pencil sharpener. She reached over with her hand still closed but couldn’t find the courage to show him what was in her hand. He gently opened her fingers one by one until he was able to pull out the pencil sharpener. “Are you trying to get the blade out?”
“I...I…I’m not going to do anything with it, it’s just like in case of an emergency. I want the option to know that I can…if I want to.”
“Did your mom hide everything?” She nodded. Jack pulled his keys out of the pocket in his sweat pants. Less than a minute later, he had successfully separated the blade from the plastic using the tiny pocket knife attached to the key chain. He handed both pieces to Elizabeth. “Be careful with those.”
“I will.” She smiled.
“How about we help each other out another way?”
“Instead of Calculus?”
Jack shook his head. “I mean in addition to Calculus. I sometimes like to drink and smoke every once in a while.” Elizabeth handed Jack the pack of cigarettes. He laughed. “Not that kind of smoking.”
“Oh,” her eyes got wide. “I don’t understand how I can help you?”
“Well, we both have stressors and don’t use the best judgment when it comes to dealing with it. How about when we get stressed out we can talk to each other instead of doing what we normally do. We won’t judge each other about the way we feel or the things we do. We can’t get mad at each other for reverting back to our old ways. I just think that neither of us have anyone to talk to about certain things and our new friendship could work out in ways we never imagined before.”
“We’re friends?” Elizabeth asked surprised.
“Very funny Rainbow Brite,” laughed Jack. “No cutting tonight, okay?” Elizabeth nodded. “Promise?” he asked looking very serious. Elizabeth wanted to promise him that she wouldn’t cut herself but it was hard. A few hours ago her whole body was in agony. Her family went out with her sister and didn’t include her. Her mom accused her of being a distraction and taking the attention away from her sister. For the first time ever, her parents didn’t trust her to babysit Colby. The entire school thought she tried to commit suicide at. And, even though she didn’t want to admit it, she was upset that she got a B on her Calculus exam.
“I promise,” she said quietly.
“Jack?” his mother, Latasha Bennett called from the front door of his house.
“I have to go. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Jack darted down the stairs and around the corner.
Elizabeth cleaned up her plate, glass, cigarettes, pencil sharpener and went up to her room. Lifting the corner of her desk, she hid the blade under the leg. Her mom never moved her furniture. She smiled at her genius idea. Grabbing the remote, she turned on her thirty-inch flat screen television and flipped through all the channels. She wasn’t sure when or how her friendship with Jack Bennett had come to be after thirteen years of silence. Deep inside, her conversation with him felt so right, it almost was wrong to think about. She went to bed feeling reassured and confident that there was someone out there, someone that actually understood her.