We watch the show. After a few episodes, Ben gets into it, yelling at the TV like Meg and I used to. “Good argument for mandatory birth control,” he says.
“Have you ever gotten a girl pregnant?” I ask.
Ben’s eyes go wide. They’re an electric shade of blue now, or maybe it’s just the reflected glow of the TV. “That’s a personal question.”
“I kind of think we’re beyond standing on ceremony, don’t you?”
He looks at me. “There was a scare once, in high school, but it was a false alarm. Since then I learned my lesson. I always use condoms, unlike these assholes.” He points to the TV. “Sometimes I think I should go ahead and get snipped, like Pete and Repeat.”
“Like Pete. Repeat’s a girl, so she got her ovaries out or something.”
“Okay, like Pete.”
“Don’t you want kids? One day?”
“I know I’m supposed to. But when I picture my future, I don’t see it.”
“Live fast, die young.” Everyone romanticizes that notion, and I hate it. I saw a picture of Meg’s body from the police report. There is absolutely nothing romantic about dying young.
“No, it’s not like I see myself dead or anything. It’s just I don’t see myself . . . connected.”
“I don’t know about that,” I say. “You seem pretty connected.” I gesture to his cell phone.
“I guess.”
“You guess? Let me guess. Did you have a girl over last night?”
His ears go a little pink, which answers the question.
“And will you have a girl over tonight?”
“That depends . . .” he begins.
“On what?”
“If you decide to stay over.”
“What the hell, Ben? Are you, like, some kind of addict? Can you not help yourself?”
He holds up his hands in surrender. “Chill, Cody. I meant if you crashed on the couch or something, you’d stay over.”
“Ben, I will clarify this for you so there are no misunderstandings: I will never sleep with you, or in the vicinity of you.”
“I’ll cross you off the list.”
“A long list, I imagine.”
He has the good grace to look embarrassed by this.
We watch the TV for a while longer.
“Can I ask you something else?”.
“If I say no, will that stop you?” he answers.
“Why do you do this? I mean, I get why guys want to have sex. I get that guys are all horny all the time. But why a different girl every night?”
“It’s not a different girl every night.”
“Near enough, I’m guessing.”
Ben pulls out a pack of cigarettes, toys with an unlit one. I can see he wants to light up, but I don’t think smoking’s allowed in the house. After a while he puts the cigarette back in the pack. “You know what you know,” he says.
“What’s that’s mean?”
“It just . . . becoming a man, it’s not like it’s something that happens instinctively. . . .” He trails off.
“Oh, please. I’ve never met my father and my mother is hardly a role model, and I don’t blame my shit on them. So what’s your story, you didn’t have a father, Ben? Cry me a river.”
He looks at me, his face gone hard, the Ben from the stage, the Ben from Meg’s room that first time. “Oh, I had a father,” he says. “Who do you think I learned it from?”
x x x
At four thirty, Harry texts that they’re wrapping up and should be there soon. I start to gather my stuff, and Ben and I go wait out front.
“Am I going to see you again?” he asks.
My breath catches. I’m not sure why.
“Because if I’m not,” he continues, “there’s something I need to tell you.”
“Oh, okay.” So this why he wanted me to come up. Not to see the kittens. But to take his confession. “Go ahead then.”
He takes a long drag on his cigarette and when he exhales, there’s not nearly enough smoke. It’s like all that toxic stuff stayed in him.
“She cried. After we slept together. She cried. She’d been okay, and then she was crying.”
“Was she drunk?” I ask. “Like, really drunk?”
“You mean did I fuck her when she was passed out? Jesus, Cody, I’m not that big of a shitbag.”
“You’d be surprised how many people are.”
And I tell him. About Meg’s other first time. That party, sophomore year. She’d done a bunch of Jägermeister shots and had been making out with Clint Randhurst. Things went too far too fast. And though she didn’t exactly say no, she definitely hadn’t said yes. To make matters even worse, Clint must’ve been the one to give her mono. Because after that was when she got sick.
After Clint, Meg swore that she was never going to do that again unless it was with someone she truly cared about. Which is how I know she cared about Ben, even if maybe she shouldn’t have.
“So it wasn’t you. You weren’t the reason she cried. Or if she did, it was happiness, or relief maybe. She clearly liked you. Maybe that’s why she cried.” I tell him this to unburden him—or maybe to unburden me; at Meg’s insistence I never told anyone about Clint. But if anything, Ben looks more cut up. He shakes his head, looks down, and doesn’t say anything.
When the Do-Gooder Van pulls up, Stoner Richard sees Ben’s downcast eyes and looks at me. “What’d he do now?” Richard asks.
“Nothing.” I climb in the van.
“If you find anything else on her computer, will you tell me?” Ben asks.
“Okay.”
He closes the door behind me and knocks on it two times. And then we drive away.
13
Harry works on the computer all night. And then the next morning. When I wake up, early, his light is on and I’m not entirely sure he’s been to sleep.
“I’ve almost got it,” he says, eyes gleaming with excitement. “This was such an unusual encoding. Did Meg do it herself?”
I shake my head, shrug.
“If she did, then I mourn her loss even more.” Now he shakes his head. “We could’ve had so much fun geeking out together.”
I smile politely.
“You never know people, do you?” he asks.
No. You don’t.
x x x
Alice wakes up a few hours later and tackles me in a hug like we are best friends.