Earthbound

CHAPTER EIGHT

Where are you? My fingers shake as I text Benson.

Library. About to leave, he replies about a minute later.

We need to talk. I feel weird texting Benson, the guy I liked last week, about Quinn, the guy I apparently like this week.

The other guy I like this week. It’s so weird, when Quinn is around, it’s like I can’t focus on anything else. He overwhelms my senses and I float in a cloud as blissful as it is terrifying. But when he’s gone, reality creeps back in and I don’t know what to think.

I know I should give Benson up as a lost cause, but he’s like a forest fire—everything started off with a spark too small to even notice until it blazed into something more. I couldn’t simply douse those feelings even if I wanted to.

And now I’m going to tell him about Quinn? What am I doing?

But I’m bursting with this new revelation—he has a name and he wants to see me again! And who else can I tell? I’m not about to call my therapist—again—at almost eight o’clock at night.

I try not to think about his other words. I am not the one whom you should fear. I’ve spent the entire day being afraid. Right now I want a few minutes, an hour maybe, to just be happy.

After pleading a forgotten homework assignment to Reese, I get her to let me borrow her car to run to the library. I’ve got less than half an hour before it closes. When I get there, I park and walk through the front doors as fast as my sore leg will let me, looking for Benson. I don’t care if he doesn’t understand. I’ve listened to him practically compose sonnets about Dana McCraven for the last two months and dealt with it; he can listen to me now.

It’s better this way, I tell myself. Now we’ll both have someone. But the thought makes me feel strangely hollow.

He’s leaning over the counter, talking softly with Marie. My heart gives a funny leap as my eyes skim him from head to toe—taking advantage of the moment before he realizes I’m there. He’s still wearing the soft gray sweater-vest over a light green button-up shirt from earlier, but now the sleeves are rolled up, emphasizing the definition of his forearms. As I watch, he pushes his glasses up his nose a little and makes a face at Marie.

He looks totally at home among the stacks of books.

And totally charming.

I swallow, remembering the reason I’m here.

As soon as Benson sees me, his mouth closes and I catch a strange, melancholy look in his eyes before his lopsided smile erases it. I need to remember that he’s worried about me. That I’m giving him even more reasons to worry about me. Benson is so constant, so mellow, it’s hard to remember that he’s one of those guys whose emotional river runs deep.

I walk over, trying to avoid eye contact with Marie before she can give me a chirrupy greeting and start asking about my day. I don’t have time for her tonight.

“Hi, Marie,” I toss off quickly without looking directly at her, then turn to Benson. “I really need to find that book before the library closes. It’s in the back, right?” I add meaningfully.

“Yeah, I’ll show you,” Benson says, eyeing me quizzically. He puts one hand on my shoulder and steers me toward the far end of the library, where no one hangs out—not that there’s more than a handful of people here now anyway. And most of them are preteens crowded around the computers.

I head to the middle of a shadowy aisle—after checking that no one is browsing—and run my fingers along a variety of spines—newish paperbacks, crumbly ancient hardcovers. I don’t think this library ever gets rid of their books. Any of them. There’s a single-bulb light fixture above us and it illuminates dust motes swirling in a tiny breeze from the heater.

I feel fluttery now that the nerves are starting to wear off, and I attempt to cover up my awkwardness by pulling a tube of ChapStick from my pocket and reapplying it.

“Oh, hey, that reminds me,” Benson says, digging into his own pocket. “I remembered to bring your other one.”

I look up into Benson’s face. “What?”

“Your ChapStick. I found it in my car after I took you home the other day. I brought it for you. Now you’ll have two.” He holds out a tube of cherry-flavored ChapStick, identical to the one in my hand, and grins. “Double your pleasure, double your fun.”

“Not mine. I need to get a new one, but I haven’t yet.” I look up at him with one eyebrow raised. “Must belong to one of your girlfriends,” I add, trying to sound cheerful while wondering if Dana finally succumbed to Benson’s many charms.

Not that it matters.

I don’t care.

I don’t care.

“No, it was on the seat after you left,” he insists, still holding it out. “It must have fallen out of your pocket.”

I don’t know why he’s pushing this. “Benson, I’m not going to take some other girl’s ChapStick; that’s gross. This one’s mine.”

He’s looking at me funny. “But—”

“It really doesn’t matter, Benson. Just throw it away; I have to talk to you now.”

“Your loss,” he says, and tosses it in the air. It spins several times before he catches it. “You should switch to a new brand anyway. You’ve been complaining this stuff doesn’t work anymore.”

“It’s just the salt in the air,” I say, putting the cap back on my ChapStick. The one from my pocket. The one I know hasn’t touched anyone’s lips but mine.

Technically, if he made out with her before she put some on, Benson’s germs could be on there too. It makes my stomach feel funny, and I don’t like the simmering feeling. I twist the ChapStick in my fingers just to have something to do.

And maybe so I don’t have to look at Benson.

My fingers clench around the plastic tube for an instant, then the space where it had been is empty and my fingers touch together. “Holy crap!” I jerk my hand back.

“What?” Benson asks without looking at me, tossing the ChapStick again.

“It’s gone!”

“What’s gone?”

“The ChapStick!”

There’s a slight hesitation before he shrugs. “Look on the floor.”

“Benson!”

“What?”

I wait for him to look at me. “I was holding the ChapStick, and then it was gone.”

His face is a mask of confusion and he opens his mouth to speak, then closes it and just stares at me. Looking for something in my eyes.

“It disappeared, Benson,” I say, struggling to keep my breaths from turning into ragged gasps. “I was holding it and it literally disappeared.”

Another few seconds of silence pass before Benson swallows and holds the other tube out to me with a half grin. “Well, now you have another one.”

“Benson—”

“Jeez, Tave,” he snaps. “It’s just ChapStick. Take it or don’t, but it’s not mine.”

His sudden flare of temper shocks my thoughts and a second later I realize my cheeks are wet. It’s not crying exactly, but the tears are pouring from my eyes as though my emotions are leaking out. Good, bad, terrifying, exhilarating. I’ve just had too much today and now I’m overflowing.

And embarrassed. I’m completely out of whack.