Chapter Nine
Wish
Fulfilment – Junior Year
Boarding
school was boring no more as girls jostled to be part of the Ben Wentworth fan
club. His brother was clearly a one man woman…
Confessions of a Teenage Hermit
After our hiking trip, we started making
excuses to meet up at school.
The following Monday I was flicking through
the required classic reading list in my English Lit folder: Wuthering Heights and Pride and Prejudice as well as two
Shakespearean plays, Much Ado About
Nothing and Julius Caesar. I felt
uninspired. I was wishing we were
doing Romeo and Juliet when Ben
tapped me on the shoulder and smiled.
“Hey, didn’t I fix your family’s beach
house one summer?” He asked as if it was the first time we’d seen each other in
recent years.
“Hi.” I said, beaming from ear to ear. “That
joke’s getting old.”
“How’s your knee?”
“Fine, thanks to you.” I changed the
subject. “How come you’re in my English Lit class?”
He shrugged his broad shoulders
“I transferred from History. This group
seems like it’ll be better. They’re combining Junior and Senior classes now.
Not enough takers.”
“Oh.”
We looked into each other’s eyes from
behind our lockers and before I knew it he’d planted a first kiss on my lips.
I smiled. It was perfect. He looked around
the corridor and said, “I like you. I mean, I really like you. I only talked to
Serena to make you jealous.”
“Really? Well that’s good to know.”
He smiled.
“It took a while. Let’s see… three football
games, two social mixers, one fall down a cliff. I think I deserve a medal for
my bravery.”
“An award should be arranged.”
“Really?”
“Uh huh.”
“Let’s ditch this class and go to the
library. I need to do some more research,” I suggested.
“Sure,” he said. “In the stacks?”
“Yes,” I replied, “definitely.”
As we headed to the library he said, “I
missed you last night.”
“Me too.” This was not the moment to play
it cool.
“I got used to sharing the night sky with
you. We need to stay focused, though. We shouldn’t get too distracted,” he
added as we kissed again behind a row of research files. What can I say? There
was some kind of magic between us as I pulled him closer.
“Agreed,” I said.
I’d never felt so happy. Ben and I spent every waking moment together;
talking, eating, at team practise. We discussed endlessly what we’d do when
high school was over.
I hadn’t forgotten flying was his dream.
Only the very best students would be considered for pilot training in the Air
Force. They had to ace math and science and all the difficult subjects.
“You have to get serious about study,” I
told him. “No distractions.”
He just smiled his wicked grin.
“Agreed,” he replied as we met in the bleachers
after practise one day.
We tried to stop ditching class to make
out. We decided to stop meeting between classes to do anything but study. We
resolved to stop meeting up after lights out. Just to be together was a perfect
distraction.
I didn’t envy Ben’s dreams but I admired
them. After just a short while it became apparent that he had strength of
character wholly untested in me, so far. For example, if someone criticized me,
Ben always stood up for me. He had his own thoughts and ideas beyond the pack.
I’d always done what I was told. I fell into line with the Socials and I was well enough liked because of it. I’d never had to
struggle for anything, not even to be noticed. The truth was, I hadn’t wanted
to be noticed, until now.
I looked into his face again as we walked
back to class that day. Apart from kissing we’d spent the last thirty minutes
planning the future. We talked about running away together after I’d finished
school, but that would hardly be possible if Ben was accepted into the Air
Force. He smiled as we walked to lunch together. I remembered a look of
wonderment on Ben’s face as we watched a jet fly over the ocean together when
we were children. We guessed the places it could be going and ended up with
Hawaii.
“That’s where I want to be someday,” he
had said. “Up there in the sky, flying.”
Every Wednesday, during my junior year, we
had practise. Ben played football and I had cheer squad. As Liz noted, we’d
become the perfect clichéd couple.
As Ben wandered off down the hallway I
noticed he was one of the tallest boys in school. He looked bored with the
confines of the walls already.
Ben carried Great Expectations in one hand (and held the weight of them),
literally, in the other. I knew he
would be streets ahead of the other students in English Lit. and not just
because he was a senior. Ben seemed wise beyond his years.
By spring of junior year, it was pretty
clear we were in love. Even though we were young, I considered Ben the most
remarkable person of my sheltered acquaintance. Jenny couldn’t have been more
thrilled with the situation. Meanwhile, Liz had given up trying to dissuade me.
Melissa was apparently indifferent.
Because Ben was academically outstanding
and also brilliant at sports, adding to his popularity, my sister Elizabeth
seemed to come over to his side eventually, even listing him “top priority” at
the Senior Bachelor Auction. Liz wrote, that’s
if he’s not too cool to show.
“Oh, and Jane?” she added as an
afterthought, “you can forget about bidding, that would be way too obvious.”
