Saving Ben

“I’m not sure, but you’d better come look.”

He untangled his body from the sheets and followed me over to the bank of windows that offered a panoramic view of Carter’s Creek. “I didn’t know it was supposed to snow,” he said, holding his hand in front of his eyes to shield them from the glare of the early-morning sun.

“It was snowing at midnight. Don’t you remember?”

He shook his head, his expression blank. The memory was dim for me as well, but I wasn’t ready to admit that just yet.

“Look.” I pointed at the footprints leading across the snow-covered lawn and down the hill to the deserted dock.

“Damn.” He blinked several times. “Whoever went out on that dock did not come back.”

“Duh, Ben. And I’d be willing to bet those footprints belong to Emma.”

Ben rubbed his eyes as if to clear the haze of last night’s drink. “I can’t remember anything that happened after midnight. Did she come to bed when I did?”

Biting back the tears, I shrugged. I had long since exceeded the limits of what most sane people would do to protect their siblings. The experience of a missing girlfriend was just another episode in our continuing drama.

“Seriously, though, have you ever known our parents to miss out on a social event for our benefit?” When I shook my head, he added, “We’ve always done fine without them. the only thing that’s changed is the venue.”

“Exactly. Nothing
has
changed. That’s what worries me,” I admitted. “In your mind, Ben, there’s a fine line between watching my back and being my bodyguard.”

“Hold on a minute,” he said, lifting his hands off the steering wheel in surrender. “I thought we were talking about Mom and Dad. Why are you attacking
me
?”

“Because you need to back off a little and let me have some fun.”

“Since when have I ruined your fun?” he asked.

“Every time a guy comes within a hundred yards of me.”

“Oh . . . I see how it is. We’re talking about Jack Briscoe again. That guy was a punk, Kitty. You should thank me for saving you from social embarrassment.”

“Maybe so. But what about Brad Miller? He’s your friend.”

“Which is why I didn’t want you to go out with him.” Ben smiled his gotcha grin at me, but dropped it when he saw I was serious. “Okay, look. Lighten up. I get your point.”

“Then I’m counting on you to give me some space. I’m in college now. You need to respect that.”

He let out a deep breath of resignation, giving in another fraction of an inch in our long-standing battle over my freedom.

We turned onto Emmet Street and entered the main part of the University of Virginia campus. We stopped at a crossing walk and waited while a mob of people passed in front of us. Most were parents out exploring with their first-year students, helping them locate the bookstore and Alderman Library and the student center at Newcomb Hall. I envied them their perfect families.

I cast a nervous glance at Ben and he winked back at me, reassuring me everything would be okay. Despite my apprehension I wanted to believe him. The past few years had been difficult for me, and while I’d learned to be resilient, the toughness was only as deep as my skin. And even that was fragile like the shell of a bird’s egg protecting the soft gooey center that made up my core.

As the last of the herd of people in front of us approached the sidewalk, a woman turned and waited for her daughter to catch up. The daughter towered over her mother by at least four inches, but she was her clone in every other way, dark hair and skinny frame. The woman grabbed the girl’s hand and squeezed, her face softening with love for her daughter. I imagined the tearful parting between the two of them, in a few hours, when the mother left to go home alone without her baby girl.

Meanwhile,
my
mother was spending the day on the golf course.

But I didn’t need my mother to hold my hand and offer me a guided tour of the university. I already knew my way around. I’d visited Ben several times during the past two years for football games and lacrosse games and once to hear Kenny Chesney at the John Paul Jones Arena.

The University of Virginia had never been my first choice of colleges. My primary objective in looking at schools was to get as far away as possible from my mother and anything that resembled my life in Richmond. Not that my first choice, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was on the other side of the planet; it was at least in a different state, and the anonymity of existing on a campus with nearly thirty thousand other students appealed to me. Unfortunately, my application to their nursing program didn’t appeal to their admissions counselors.

I’d taken my brother’s advice and requested to live in Fairfield Hall where he’d lived as a freshman. One of ten dorms available to first-year students in the McCormick Road Residence Area, Fairfield was an antiquated building that made up for in popularity and location what it lacked in modern conveniences. But unlike my brother, instead of living with a friend, or a friend of a friend, I’d taken my chances on the roommate lottery. And it appeared as though I’d hit the jackpot, at least as far as I could tell from a social network page.

I’d friended Emma Stone on Facebook the minute I received my assignment. She appeared to possess the qualities that would make her a good roommate. She was a community volunteer and the salutatorian of her graduating class, she had 587 friends, and she was pretty in a way that rendered Ben clumsy and me speechless the first time we set our eyes on her.

She was in our dorm room, unpacking, wearing a pair of soft-pink Soffe shorts and tennis shoes with a cropped white T-shirt that exposed a good portion of her tanned belly. Her hair was blonde, nearly white from the sun, and her eyes were clear blue like the Caribbean Sea. She had a tiny diamond stud in her nose, so small at first glance I thought it was a blackhead.

“Um . . . hi. I’m Katherine,” I managed, grinning and waving like a kindergartner on our first day of school. When Ben stumbled over his own feet and spilled a plastic container of towels and linens across the floor, I added, “And that klutz is my brother Ben.”

Emma dumped an armload of clothes on the bed and drew me into a warm embrace. Despite the intense heat in our room, she smelled fresh, like a summer rose garden at dawn. “Welcome to our new home,” she said softly in my ear.

“This isn’t a home. It’s an inferno,” I said, pulling away from her before she could get a whiff of my sweaty T-shirt. “Do you have allergies? Because the school will provide an air conditioner if you do.”

Emma shook her head. “Does hay fever count?”

Ben, the authority on all things UVA, offered his hand to Emma. “Nope. Allergies, asthma, and migraines are the only legitimate reasons to have an air conditioner.”

“Well, fortunately,” Emma said, smiling, “or I guess unfortunately in this case, none of those apply to me.”

Ben shrugged. “Then it’s lucky for y’all that we’re in the mountains. It’ll start to get cool here at night in a few weeks. In the meantime, take lots of cold showers and stand in front of your fan.”

“Naked?” Emma asked, batting her mascaraed eyelashes at him.

A smile crept across Ben’s lips. “Now we’re talking. Be sure to invite me to the viewing.”

“Too bad I forgot to bring a fan,” Emma said, winking at me.

“No worries. Kitty brought at least one of everything.”

“Kitty?” Emma asked.

I glared at Ben and he backpedaled. “Oh shit, I forgot. Sorry. She doesn’t like to be called that.”

Emma flashed a sympathetic smile at me. “And who can blame her? I’m a dog person myself.”

“It’s not that I dislike the name—all of my friends call me that—I just prefer Katherine.”

“And I like Katherine,” she said. “The name is strong, like a leader. Catherine the Great.”

Ben unscrewed the cap from his bottle and swallowed half the Gatorade in one gulp. “Katherine the bitchy boss would be more accurate in my sister’s case.”

“You’re right, big brother. And this bitchy kitty is going to run you up a tree if you don’t finish helping me unpack.”

Our room was tiny, like a jail cell with cinderblock walls and a tiled floor, but with Emma and Ben sharing the same space, it seemed even smaller. After every load he hauled up to the room, he lingered longer and longer to check his text messages or offer helpful hints for surviving life in the freshman dorm. Emma couldn’t take her eyes off his six-pack abs when he pulled his shirttail up to wipe the sweat from his forehead any more than he could keep from staring at her long tanned legs when she bent over to tuck the fitted sheet under her mattress. Their chemistry, thick and funky with their scents, charged the air.

It was close to five o’clock when Ben dropped the minifridge at the foot of my bed and announced, “Thank God, that’s the last of it. I hear a cold beer calling my name.”

I glanced around the room for my purse. “If you give me a minute, I’ll come with you to help you unload your stuff.”

Ben waved me off. “Forget about it, Kitty. I’ll get some of the guys at the KO house to help me unload.”

“Now we’re talking.” Emma arched her back and pressed her perky breasts front and center. “Cold beer and fraternity boys. What more could one want?”

Ben ogled her breasts in a way that left little doubt about what
he
wanted. “Yep, and we’re having a party tonight, if you’re interested,” he offered. “Great band. Citizen Cope. Everyone’s invited.”

I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him across the room. “Thanks for the invitation, but if we don’t get busy unpacking, we won’t make it to
any
party tonight—not yours or any of the other gazillion I’ve gotten e-mails about.” I opened the door and shoved him out. “Bye now.”

Emma began folding T-shirts and placing them neatly inside her bottom drawer. “If you ask me, I’d say it’s pretty convenient to have a brother in the hottest fraternity on campus. I’m an only child. I’d give anything to have a brother. Any brother really, but especially one who’s so adorable. Just think of all the guys he can introduce you to.”

“Ha. In Ben’s mind there’s not a guy in his fraternity, or anywhere on this planet, that is good enough for me.”

Emma kicked her drawer shut. “So he’s overprotective, is he? I think that’s sweet.”

“It
is
sweet.” In one quick sweep, I raked all the junk piled on my bed to the floor “As long as he can be open-minded if and when I meet a guy I really like.”