Seventh going on hurt

Short story seventh grade love story...

 

Seventh going on hurt

 

 

 

Ben was in seventh grade and had asked her to go “steady” on a dare from his sister Lisa. He had seen Dianne on the bus going to junior high school and occasionally would churn up the guts to say hi. When he had told his sister that he liked Dianne and wondered if she had a boyfriend, Lisa jumped at the chance to play matchmaker. She called Bobbie, Dianne’s little sister and told her that she and Ben would be coming over after school tomorrow.  He looked at Lisa and said he couldn’t go, that he had to work on his merit badge project and had to meet with the Activity Center director about setting up an after school program. And while this was true he could reschedule but in actuality the thought of talking to her, of saying more than one syllable had him already sweating! He told her he would try to go with her on the weekend, but she was having none of it. She knew how he was around girls; ogle from afar but start dribbling and stuttering when one would say hello. She had arranged it and he wasn’t going to back out on her. She told him if he didn’t go she would be sure to tell the blabbermouth at school how he chickened out!

They had rode their bikes, Lisa staying on the sidewalk while Ben would jump the curb going into the street and even grabbing on to an occasional bumper. When they arrived the weather had started to change as it does in New England during the fall. A slight mist mixed with the falling leaves had made the surfaces slick. Both Dianne and Ben liked the changes in weather and sat on the stairs talking, which seemed to be easy for him to do once he got over stumbling over his tongue. They both like animals, she especially like horses while his favorites were dogs. He learned that Dianne’s family had moved there from Upstate N.Y. because her mom had gone through an ugly divorce from Dianne’s step-dad and wanted to get a fresh start. Her real dad had died in a car accident when she was two.

 Eventually, with a little prodding from the other two girls and tired of hearing them giggling through the window he finally got the nerve up to ask her. All he could think about was how it would feel if she said no. It would probably worse than being picked last for a team in gym. Whenever he would have a fight with his sister she would have ammo to fire at him. He waited for her answer for what seemed like an eternity but in reality was but a pause. A short moment and he had his answer, she said yes. He looked her in those sparkling blue eyes pondering what to do when she reached out, resting his jaw in her silky soft hand, and pulled him toward her and they kissed. His first real kiss! On the lips at first and not like the way his mom or gram would give him a kiss but long like they were never going to part. Unexpectedly she started to open her mouth like she was going to yawn and he started to pull away. She pulled him back to her and continued the kiss. He had heard some older boys talk about this; this was a French kiss! He relaxed and followed her lead as their tongues touched and intertwined. Then, as suddenly as it had started she slowly pulled back and he opened his eyes and he saw the smile on her beautiful face. She liked it!

 He didn’t have a ring to give her but he needed to give her something to make it official, and then he thought of it! He had earned a badge in an earlier scout program that had a horse head pin with it. He didn’t wear the pin with the new uniform so it would be perfect. He just couldn’t remember where he had put it. Another time mom was right about him not being organized. He told her he had to go get something and would be right back. Ben jumped the seven stairs to the ground as if he were a superman, grabbed his stingray bike and headed home. Ten minutes later he arrived home and started the search. He checked his old uniform; he looked in his box of scout memorabilia; he even looked in his boxes of comics. It was nowhere to be found and as always it was in the last place he looked; the top drawer of his dresser. That catchall drawer that had everything from his old am-fm transistor radio to package of firecrackers to the cuff links his grandpa left him. He rummaged through the drawer and finally found the pin. He made sure the clasp was on the back and placed it in his left front pocket and headed back to her house at the speed of light!

Dodging in and out of traffic, with the wind and now light rain in his face, he recovered from a number of near falls from making turns on the slippery roadways that caused his rear tire to slip out from under him. Ben ran up the back stairs to the porch where Dianne met him with can of soda that she offered him. He set the can on the table and reached into his pocket for the pin. It was gone! Deeper he reached in, feeling around. It wasn’t there. What was he going to do? Then he felt it prick his leg, his other leg! Not the right pocket but the left! He pulled it out and handed it to her. She looked at it and he saw a smile start to form on her face. And he got another kiss! She asked him to put it on the collar of her blouse. With shaking hands he placed it on the right lapel of her baby blue blouse. She took his shaking hand, holding it, she lead him into the living room to watch “Dark Shadows”.

He had a great month and a half as her “boyfriend” sitting together on the bus going back and forth to school, hanging out at her house after school watching T.V. and necking when no one was around. Occasionally the two of them, their sisters and his pal Chris would hang out or go to the movies.

Halloween was just around the corner and his mom was prepping the house for his party, decorations going up, getting out the old apple dunking pan and the best of all was the aroma that would hit him as he walked through the door after school, that of peanut butter, chocolate chip and raisin oatmeal cookies baking in the oven!

That Friday morning, two days before the party, he was waiting at the bus stop in the morning drizzle, wondering if Dianne had finished her Genie costume to go with his Air Force Colonel outfit. Lisa finally showed up and told him that Bobbie called to tell her that their mom was giving them a ride to school. Something about having to sign a permission slip that Bobbie needed for a class trip that day and had left at school. As he was walking down the hallway he made a detour to the second floor where the eighth graders had their lockers just to say hi before classes started. As he approached her locker he noticed her talking to another boy that had his back to him. He stopped and when the boy turned his head he felt relieve. It was only Chris. Looking over both shoulders to make sure there were no teachers around he gave her a quick kiss hello and told her he would see her later, and waved good-bye as he rushed of to his first class. 

He walked into the cafeteria and looked around for Dianne. He found her and Chris sitting at the back of the café. As he walked over he waved but they didn’t see him. He got closer and he could see that they were holding hands! His blood started to boil as he approached them. Chris was the first to realize he was there and stood up. He was about four inches taller than Ben but scrawny. Dianne turned and seeing him stood up standing between the two boys. She told Chris that she wanted to talk Ben alone. They sat down and she told him that she liked him but that he was too young. Chris was the same age and grade as she was and well, she just liked him more. Anger. Hurt. Betrayal! His first girlfriend stolen away by his best friend in the whole world! They had done everything together. They had caught their first fish together, defended each other when some of the bullies started trouble. How could he do it! The tears started to well up and he wanted to cry so badly, but not in front of her. She couldn’t know how she had hurt him. He looked down and she had the horse head pin in her hand offering it to him. He looked up into those blue-green eyes and rising from the chair, told her to keep it that he had no use for it anymore, turned and walked toward an empty table, knocked the remaining trash off, sat down and opened his science book. He kept his nose in there until the end of the period. When the bell rang Ben got up and left the cafeteria without even looking back at her. He couldn’t. It hurt too much.

After school let out he walked to the bus stop. What had been a drizzle that morning had changed into a mild autumn afternoon rain. They took the city bus and the stop was at the local ice-cream parlor. As he approached the bus stop he could see them, Dianne and Chris standing there, looking into each other’s eyes and holding hands, just like he used to do with her. They looked at him as he drew near but before they could say anything he took a detour around the shop and kept walking. It was only a mile and a half from the bus stop to his house. Ben could use the time to burn off some of the anger by walking, better to do that than to get into a fight on the bus and be thrown off for the rest of the year.

Lisa had arrived home before Ben and explained to their mom what happened and where Ben was. Mom grabbed the keys to the family station wagon and started for the door when Lisa stopped her. She told her mom that she thought it would be better if Ben walked home and dealt with his hurt rather than having his mom pick him up in the rain. She could talk to him when he got home and that he just needed this time. Mom paused for a moment listening to the words her daughter spoke to her. Sometimes Lisa was more mature than some adults she knew, and she was right, Ben didn’t need his mommy coming to the rescue, not now anyway. What she could do was have his favorite sandwich, a mug of hot cocoa and some of his favorite cookies ready for him when he did get home.

Twenty minutes later Ben walked through the back door into the kitchen, dripping wet. Mom grabbed a towel from the bathroom and started drying his shoulder length brown hair. She took his shirt off, rapped him in the towel and went off to get another shirt for him. He had started eating his sandwich when she returned with a shirt for him. Taking the towel off she had him stand up and helped him get the pullover on. Then he saw them; a dry pair of pants. Mom started to undo his belt when he placed his hand on hers looked her straight in the eyes and said he was old enough to change his own pants after he finished eating!

When he was done and changed he went to talk to him mom about the party. He wanted to uninvited Chris and Dianne because it would hurt too much having them there, especially when it was his party and he didn’t have a date! Mom explained to him that even though what they had done wasn’t right, if he uninvited them at this late date he would be just as wrong as they were. They talked some more but in the end he knew he wouldn’t win this one.

Sunday came and Mom, Lisa and he started decorating and rearranging the house for the party. Around six p.m. his friends started showing up, one by one knocking on the door. When they entered the house they were immediately hit with the smell of the cookies, the smell of the jack-o-lanterns burning and throwing off an eerie glow in the darkened living room where the music played. Another knock and when Ben opened the door to greet his guests, there they were, Chris and Dianne holding hands. He told them to come in as he turned and left for his room. 

Minutes later mom came strolling through to say “Hi” and to keep an eye on everyone and noticed Ben was nowhere around. She went upstairs, entered his room and found him sobbing on his bed. She sat next to him and tried to comfort him and coax him back down to the party. Eventually she realized it was not going to happen. She got off the bed, left his room and went back down to the party. Stopping in the living room she looked around and noticed that some one else was missing or rather hadn’t arrived yet. She walked into the kitchen, picked up the phone and dialed a number. Her sister-in-law, Jeff’s sister hadn’t shown up yet. She had hoped that Marsha could cheer up Ben since they had become such good friends since she had married Jeff. Marsha answered the phone and mom explained what was going on. At first Marsha was going to kick Dianne’s a*s for hurting Ben but then she calmed down and told her that she had to change her costume but she should be there in about half an hour. Mom thanked her and hung up the phone to return to chaperone the party.

Twenty-five minutes later there was a knock on the door and Lisa answered it. When she opened the door the light from the front porch caused everyone to look and what they saw caused all of the boys jaw to drop. She stood five feet seven inches and weighed one hundred and twenty-five pound, all of it in the right places. She had waist long, dark brown hair with cat ears on her head and whiskers on her cheeks. She wore full body leotard cut very low in front with a tail attached at the end of her tailbone. She said hi to Lisa and asked where Ben was. Lisa said she thought that he was upstairs in his room and that she would try and get him to come down. Marsha told her not to bother that she would go get him and as she crossed the room knowing that there were twenty or so pairs of eyes following her every move she managed a quick scowl in Dianne’s direction.

She knocked lightly on the door to Ben’s room, waited for an answer and not hearing one entered the room to find Ben lying on his bed sniffling. Half way to the bed she cleared her throat and when Ben turned his head to see who was there his jaw dropped. He quickly jumped up and off the bed as he tried to hide the fact that he had been crying and was wiping his eyes. In the past few years since mom and Jeff had gotten married he and Marsha had become great buddies and he had never even looked at Marsha the way he was now, mostly because she always dressed in baggy shirts and oversized jeans. She walked over to him and gave him a hug then a kiss that lasted longer than one from her normally would. In fact it was better than the first one Dianne had given him! When they stopped kissing she touched her cheek to his and whispered to him that she would be his ‘date’ for the night. She grabbed his hand, lead him down stairs and they took over the dance floor. Ben couldn’t help but notice that Chris was staring at them and the look Dianne was giving Chris! After a few fast dances a slow one came on and Dracula and the Cat appeared to become one and at the end the two kissed a long slow sensuous kiss finally stopping and grabbing a breath of air. Lisa and Bobbie came over to say hi after the dance when, from the corner of his eye Ben spied Dianne and Chris slip out the front door without even a thank you or goodbye. The rest of the night went along smoothly and Ben won the bobbing for apples contest for the boys and Marsha won for the girls.

Eleven o’clock came and the guests began leaving with Ben and Marsha saying goodbye and thanking everyone for coming. Some of Ben’s closer pals made comments about his ‘new’ girlfriend, which caused him to smile. Since Bobbie was sleeping over she gave Lisa and mom a hand in the after party clean up while Ben waited with Marsha out side for her ride home. He looked into her bright blue eyes and started to thank her when she interrupted him with another soulful kiss. Just as they broke her mom pulled up in front of the house and beeped the horn. Ben walked Marsha down to the car and as she reached for the car door she turned and told him that she’d like to continue as his girlfriend. He said he’d like that too and she gave him a quick goodbye kiss and hopped into the car. As the car pulled around the corner and out of sight on that cool autumn night, Ben turned and walked back to the house but before he had taken half a dozen steps he jumped in the air and clicked his heels together letting out a whoop! As he entered the house he started to help finish the final stages of cleaning, which meant vacuuming, the one job he hated to do. He grabbed the vacuum and Lisa and Bobbie went up stairs to get ready for bed. Mom started to take the vacuum from him but he stopped her saying he would finish up. This was unusual coming from a boy that despised vacuuming, but who was she to argue with him about it. As she turned to walk away she stopped and asked if Ben said good bye to Chris and Dianne when they left and he shut the vacuum of for a moment and said to his mom, “Who?”   

Author's Note

third draft