Chapter Ten
A Bad Ending
How
do I describe the part where it all went wrong?... Confessions of a
Post-teenage Hermit
It’s a long story, the part where it ended.
It was a slow ending, yet it was fast. In retrospect our whole teenage
relationship seems like an ending in disguise. The end began about a year after
we’d started dating. I’d turned sixteen and took Ben home with me for dinner
one weekend. To say he was not made to feel part of the family is an
understatement.
The evening began with a few unwelcoming
words from my father and some hostile looks from Melissa. Liz had also changed
sides. I am ashamed to repeat how badly my family looked down on him and how
powerless I was to prevent it. Ben left early.
When we met back at school the following
Monday, something had changed. Deep down, both of us knew my family would be a
problem in relation to our future happiness. I resolved not to take Ben to my
home again until my family learned to “behave” themselves. But I wondered how
many years it would take for them to change their attitudes. They were just
snobs, plain and simple.
“That boy isn’t good enough for you,” my
father had whispered as I cleared away dessert. Ben was standing at the door to
the kitchen just about to ask me if I needed any help. He could not have
mistaken my father’s meaning or the look of horror on my face.
I took my coat and announced that I was
going back to school.
My father just said, “not if you want me
to pay your tuition,” under his breath.
“I have to go, Jane.” Ben said. “We’ll talk
on Monday.”
I didn’t blame him. I ran to the door but his
car had already sped off.
“And there he goes,” Elizabeth said, “out
with the trash.”
I threw my drink at her. Elizabeth’s
shocked expression was nearly worth the face slap I received from my father
after he walked back into the dining room.
It was the first and last time he would ever hit me. After that, he
apologised but was secretly quite pleased with himself, I think.
Back at school, I asked Ben to forgive me.
“There
is nothing to forgive,” he replied. “I love you, your family hate me. It’s kind
of like Romeo and Juliet.”
“Don’t say that. We both know what happened
to them.”
Then, of course, there was the night of
the bachelor auction that ended like a Greek tragedy.
Harley won. Ben arrived late from a debate
night at another school. He stood in the corner with me and laughed as Harley
was crowned “Bachelor of the Year.”
The next part was everyone’s idea. We
decided to pile into the car after lights out and everything had closed down,
all the teachers and other students were in bed. Ben, Jenny, Harley, Liz and
Tom Winchester (his personality had improved under my sister’s influence –
according to Liz) and I, drove to Wentworth Canyon, an area we knew. None of us
were drinking. We made a bonfire; we were hiding out from the school, just
relaxing and having fun. Nobody expected
Jenny to go off and look for firewood with Liz and me trailing behind. No one
could have known she would walk too close to a ledge that would, in a freak
moment, collapse and drag her down with it.
What followed was the worst night and
morning of our lives.
The searchers didn’t
find Jenny for a long time. She fell so far into a ravine and our only comfort
was that she had not suffered and was killed instantly.
After statements had been taken by police
and investigations underway, we were all suspended. The school couldn’t expel
us for drinking but a shadow fell over us anyway, since none of us were
supposed to be out of school grounds. We had acted recklessly and there was
talk of the school being sued for negligence - as if that would bring Jenny
back. I already knew just how dangerous that ravine was. We had behaved badly.
A part of me felt we were all somehow complicit in the whole horrible tragedy. We
should never have been at Wentworth Canyon in that place, on that night.
And maybe if we hadn’t, Jenny would still
be alive.
Afterwards, we said goodbye to her in our
own ways. The Socials and all of her
real friends including Ben and of course Harley, went to her favorite place on
the beach with items we knew she’d love. Harley placed notes from all of us in
a bottle and threw it out to sea. It wasn’t much, it wasn’t enough and none of
us, especially Harley, knew how to get on with our lives.
In the end, the brothers both won a sports
scholarship to various prestigious universities. Ben didn’t go. I applied and
was accepted into a liberal arts degree (though I don’t know how since I could
barely study for exams or concentrate during my final semester). In any case, I
dropped out of college during first semester. I couldn’t study; it just seemed
pointless. Elizabeth got accepted into her finance degree but lost some of her
drive to finish and instead accepted modelling assignments that took her far
from Bel Air.
Ben, who had already been scouted by
colleges, joined the Air Force. By then, everything had changed. A soberness had
fallen over our small world and even, it seemed, the town where our school was
situated. Wentworth felt darker. It
didn’t matter that they’d remade the boulevard and put extra lights along the
pier. I missed my friend every day.
A year passed in a blur. Everything between
Ben and me did too. Our relationship changed once we were no longer together.
Ben was in college, I’d transferred to a local day school to finish high
school. After the seniors graduated, there was no reason for me to stay and be
reminded every day of the best friend I’d lost and I couldn’t help but blame
myself.
People who knew Jenny tried to move on. Her
family moved away but I was comforted by the ocean and the coffee shops we’d
visited on the rare occasions we’d managed to ditch school and run away to the
sea.
Ben came home for my graduation. It meant a
lot to have him there but the ceremony itself didn’t mean that much to me. I
was valedictorian of my new senior class. I’d had nothing to do but study.
Without my sisters or Jenny there to be part of the ceremony, it was all pretty
empty. Then Ben showed up unexpectedly. He’d talked about coming but wasn’t
sure if he could take the weekend off.
Ben waved to me from the crowd and took a
photograph. I was ecstatic. My father glowered at us. Now that Harley was
somehow seen to have been involved with Jenny, “to have failed to protect her”
according to my father, Ben was even more under the microscope.
He was going to take the high road, going
to go over to my father and shake his hand, but I warned him against it. I was
surprised that Dad had even showed up at my “second class high school
graduation” as he put it. Though, I’m fairly sure, deep down, he was impressed
I’d saved on school fees.
I didn’t care what dad thought. His true
selfishness made me wonder if he was my biological father until I’d seen my
birth certificate (aged eight) which confirmed it.
That day, I headed straight towards Ben. I
wanted to run away with him and would have, if he’d asked. He was not
impulsive. Ben liked to think things through. He slipped a note into the picket
of my robe.
The proposal had been swift and to the
point.
Dear
Jane
Sometimes good comes from bad, don’t forget
it. Jenny would have wanted to see you smile today just like I did.
I have to go now, but I will see you again,
soon.
I love you, I’ll always love you. You are
the only person I want to dance with, be with, love with. Even though we are
young and your family clearly hate me (and it’s a long time to wait, I know)…
after I graduate from officer training, will you marry me?
Truly
Ben xo.
