“What are you looking at?” Lisa grabbed at Ben’s hand so he wouldn’t get caught up in the surge of students that passed them when another class came flooding into the hall.
Ok, so maybe she just wanted to hold Ben’s hand. Lately he’d gotten this far away look in his eye, like his mind was somewhere she couldn’t go. It made her uncomfortable. He had that look right now, staring at something in the river of students.
“Gene.” Ben tipped his chin in the general direction. “He’s smiling.”
“Yeah? Oh! You’re right. This time last year, he never smiled. If it weren’t for you and your mother, I don’t think he’d ever smile.”
“No.” Ben shook his head, still not looking her way. “It’s Tracy, I think. He smiles when he’s thinking about Tracy. That or his guitar.” Ben sneered at the word guitar.
“Nothing wrong with his playing guitar.”
“Yeah. I know. I was just thinking that he would make a great character in a story. You know? I mean, Mrs. Audrey said I should write more stuff like that one story that got Mrs. D fired. And that had him in it. So maybe I should write something else about him. Like the way he got stalked. Or maybe not. Because besides being my best friend, he’s kind of going to become my brother. Right? I mean if Mom gets her way about adopting him. So maybe that’s a little too personal.”
They stopped in the cross section between halls, about ten yards from the vending machines. As they stood there, while Ben looked at his feet and struggled with his thoughts, Lisa watched Tracy pass. Tracy didn’t notice them at all, just like Gene hadn’t. If she weren’t holding Ben’s hand, Lisa would have felt invisible.
“Well. They say you’re supposed to be detached if you’re a writer. So maybe you could write about Gene if you didn’t think to much about it.” Lisa didn’t really know anything about it. She just said what came to mind without worrying about it.
“Huh. You think so?” Ben lifted his head, but still kept his eyes down.
“I don’t know. I’m not a writer.”
Shouldn’t a writer be more observant? Lisa was quite sure Ben hadn’t seen when Tracy got stuck behind two girls and couldn’t get into her classroom, or that Gene looked like a total hottie when he came out and rescued Tracy. Seemed like the two of them were living larger than life while Lisa and Ben were living smaller than everyone else. It made her itch.
“Hey, let’s go see if they have Jolt in the vending machines like that one time.” Finally, Ben looked at her. Full, face to face, eye to eye contact. He even smiled when Lisa did.
“Ok, but let’s be quick. I don’t want to be late to class.” She gave his hand a squeeze, and he squeezed back, and everything was the way it should be.
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