Our walk home was relatively silent, with John's arm around me the whole time and the occasional sniff and awkward 'Sorry' I said for how melodramatically I acted before. When we arrived at our houses, Bender handed me my cup which he had been carrying the whole time.

"Will you be over later?"

Bender smiled and reached in his pocket for his house key. "Aren't I always?"

"Sorry, dumb question." I dug into my pocket for a key with one hand and held my cup in the other as I walked up to my front door. I let myself in and hung up my jacket. I then washed out the cup and started to do my homework in my room.

An hour later at about 5:30, I had been daydreaming for about forty-five minutes and decided that the rest of my work could be done the next day. I stood up on my bed and looked over my fence, seeing that Bender's light was on. I contemplated hopping over and seeing what he was up to, but at the risk of looking clingy and knowing that he was going to be over soon anyway, I decided against it. Instead, I put on a good old Ray Charles record and went to the kitchen to make something to eat. It soon was 7:00 and Bender still didn't find it in him to come over. I was strangely anxious and was planning to have a talk with him to ask him some things I had been wondering about all that day. To make time pass faster, I grabbed a couple fresh towels and went to the bathroom to take a much-needed hot shower. While I was in there, I caught myself daydreaming about John again. Thinking about that day and what he said throughout only made me wonder further about what I was to him, but I had to stop myself and try to remember if I washed my hair yet before my brain would explode.

After God knows how long I was in there, I opened the door and walked up the hallway. Then heard a voice coming from the kitchen. "Jen, do you think your mom would get mad if I had one of her beers?"

I turned right around and ran back out to him. I saw John bending over looking into my refrigerator like my house was his.

"Bender!" I cautiously grasped the collar of my robe to cover any revealing cleavage. "When did you get here?"

"A little before eight."

"What time is it now?"

"About eight thirty."

"Oh, I'm sorry! Here, I'll just put something on and-"

He caught me by the wrist. "You know, you really don't have to."

My face cringed. "But I'm-"

"Look, if we're gonna live together, we're bound to see more of each other, you know?"

"You were really serious about living together?" I walked past him to the sofa, forgetting about my robe-ness.

"Yeah. I mean, unless you don't want to. I just thought that it would be smart." He sat down next to me.

I closed my collar again and pulled my robe over my knees. "Sure, I want to."

"Then why don't we start getting more comfortable now? I mean we're gonna share the same bathroom, the same bed, the same-"

"The same bed?"

"Well yeah, you don't think we should buy two small beds instead of one big one, do you?"

"Don't we still have the beds we have now?"

"Jen, my parents are gonna sell everything I can't fit into a suitcase. Plus, how big do you expect our apartment to be?"

I raised my eyebrows. "You really thought this through, didn't you?"

"Got to keep my mind on something."

"Alright, but until then, I'll put something on." I stood up and headed back to my room.

"Suit yourself," he sang.

~!~!~!~

After about a half hour of sitting on the sofa mindlessly watching TV, the phone rang. I took my feet off of the coffee table and answered it. "Hello?"

"Hi, is this Jennifer?" I was sure of who's voice it was, but I didn't believe it could be real.

"Um yes, may I ask who's calling?"

"It's Claire Standish from History."

Curse my woman's intuition.

I was unsure of how I was supposed to act, but because John was right there and because he most likely had some feelings left for her, I kept myself calm. "Oh, hi. What's up?"

"I actually wanted to ask you something."

I leaned on the wall and watched the then muted TV, acting uninterested. "Sure, what is it?"

"Do you know John Bender?"

I stiffened up. I glanced down at him. He looked back up at me curiously and mouthed, "Who is it?"

"Yeah, why?" I answered, then mouthed back to Bender while pointing frantically to the phone, "It's Claire!"

John's eyebrows scrunched together. "Cherry?"

I nodded and listened to Claire explain. "See, I asked because last Saturday I got a call from him that I think was a prank but when I called his house the next morning, he really sounded like he had no idea what I was talking about. Then just now I heard that you guys were walking home together after detention and-"

"You heard about that?"

"News travels fast, I guess."

"I didn't know it would qualify as news. I'm sorry, go on."

"And after I heard that you guys were walking home, I checked the yellow pages and saw that you guys were neighbors."

Apparently Ms. Standish was also a stalker. "Yeah? What do you want to make of it?"

"I was just wondering if he called from your house."

"Perhaps. What time did he call?"

"I around one in the morning."

"Last Saturday?"

"Technically it was Sunday morning."

"Do you remember what he said?"

"He was singing."

"Yeah, that was him," I giggled, remembering.

"Oh. Well, thanks, I guess."

"I'm sorry about him. He was just drunk out of his mind and there was really no stopping him. But, I'll make sure that he stays away from my phone when he's like that next time."

"It's okay. Thanks again."

"No problem. See you Monday."

"Bye,"

I hung up the phone and looked back at the eager Bender after my uncomfortably brief conversation.

"What did she want?"

I sat back down and put my feet on the table again. "Guess,"

He raised his eyebrows, irritated. "Jen, tell me right now or so help me God-"

"You were drunk last weekend and called her from my phone."

Bender scratched his head. "I don't remember. I do remember something about a party, though. What did I say?"

"After I let you in through the front door, I helped you over to the couch, and when I tried to leave, you slurred, 'Wait no no no no, don't. I have to...to do something. And and I need you here for um...for moral support. Come here!'. Then you dialed a few different phone numbers and finally got to the one you wanted. Then you said, 'Hey! Um, I know it's late but um, I was driving home with a friend and a song played on the radio that made me think of you."

Bender's eyes widened to the size of softballs. "I didn't actually sing, did I?"

I took in a breath and belted out just as he did, "You're a rich girl/And you've gone too far/Cuz you know it don't matter anyway/You can rely on the old man's money/You can rely on the old man honey/It's a bitch girl/But it's gone too-"

John groaned and buried his face in his hands, embarrassed. I still thought it was hysterical and I was always on his back for drinking at parties, so I went ahead and crossed the line. "HIGH AND DRYYYY/OUT OF THE RAIN/It's so easy/To hurt others when you can't feel pain/AND DON'T YOU KNOOOOW-"

Bender slapped his hand over my mouth. "You didn't stop me? Look how easy it is, Jen."

I pushed his arm away. "I couldn't just stop you! You made me sing too!"

"I did?"

"Oh yeah, you were Hall and I was Oates."

Bender flopped next to me and put his head in my lap. "Now I see what you're talking about with my drinking."

"Of course," I smoothed down his hair. "I'm always right."

~!~!~!~

After Saturday Night Live ended, I looked down and saw that Bender was still asleep. He nodded off about halfway through SNL, and I instinctively grabbed the blanket that was draped over the back of the sofa and covered him with it. I felt tired myself, and I wasn't sure if I should have gotten up and possibly woken him, or continue to sit there and fall asleep sitting up with him on me.

I noticed his black eye again, remembering that he was actually in a fight. This may be a startling thing to read, but John really wasn't much of a fighter. Don't get me wrong, he certainly wasn't a lover, but he rarely finds an excuse to push back. See, he grew up in an environment where when he responded to being hit with hitting back, he'd only get beaten up worse. He often talked about wasting people, but he hardly ever followed through. John's the person you'd least expect to be somewhat of a pacifist, but if you look closely, he often doesn't use his balled up fists or his pocket knife. Something in him that day blew all those childhood experiences behind him far back enough to wail on Dan.

I really did love him, and he loved me. Where exactly did we draw the line between friendly love or the real deal?

RIIIING RIIIING

John quickly sat up, mumbling "What's on fire?" at the sound of the telephone.

"It's only the phone," I reassured, getting up to answer it. "Hello?"

"Jen? It's Dan. I'm sorry to call so late, but I couldn't stop thinking about you."

"Oh, hi Dan," John got up and stood next to me disapprovingly, suddenly wide awake. "No, I was awake anyway."

"I'm sorry if you still kind of hate me right now, but-"

"Jennie?" Bender obnoxiously moaned into the phone. "Come back to bed, baby."

I pushed him away. "John!"

"Jennie, who's that?"

Flustered, I took the receiver and walked into the kitchen. "It's Bender. Don't mind him, he's just being an ass."

"You guys weren't...you guys weren't doing it when I called, were you?"

"If you call him snoring on my couch while I'm watching TV 'doing it', then absolutely."

John walked into the kitchen yelling, "No baby, don't put your clothes on! He can't see you over the-OOP!" He tripped over the cord, almost disconnecting the phone and falling flat on the tile floor.

I held my hand over my mouth and tried to hold back my laughter. "Look, I'll call you tomorrow when Bender isn't here."

"Alright, but only if you don't think he'll be mad."

"Oh, I'm sure he will be, but I'll call you anyway."

"I don't want you to get in trouble with him. I wouldn't be able to look at myself knowing that I made you lose your Bender."

"You're flattering yourself, Dan." I walked back over to the table where the phone belonged. John followed me like a duckling on a string following its mother. "It would take a lot more than a phone call with you to make me lose him. And besides, you're too pretty to not look at yourself all day anymore."

"You're right about the second part."

I felt John breathing down my neck. "I'll call you later." I abruptly hung up the phone and sat back down on the couch.

"What did he want?" He asked, sitting on the coffee table in front of me.

"Just to talk," I innocently answered.

"I still think you should steer clear of him."

"I know you do," I remembered how he acted around Dan all day and took in a deep breath. Game on. "Can I ask you a weird question?"

"Shoot,"

"How would you explain our relationship? Neighbors, friends, best friends?"

"Wasn't I asked this earlier today?"

"Yeah, but that was with other people around. You're different that way. Unless you really only think we're just neighbors."

"Um," he rubbed the back of his neck. "Look, I don't want you to take this the wrong way or anything, but I don't think we're just neighbors and I don't consider us friends."

That took me off-guard. "What? So what are we? Acquaintances?"

John shook his head and chuckled. "No, not at all. See, I don't think of us as friends because that just doesn't feel right. I guess the closest thing that I can say to describe the two of us is best friends, but even that doesn't amount to what you mean to me. I really don't know what I would have done if you weren't my neighbor. I might have done something crazy like run away or killed myself or something. You're not just my best friend because I don't just want you around because I think you're cool, I need you around or I'm gonna do something insane and nobody else would be able to stop me. It's insulting to call you my best friend, you're more than that. You're my Jen. Do you get what I'm trying to say?"

We were on the same page, apparently. We were both confused. "Perfectly. We're Jender."

Bender crawled back over to the sofa and put his head on my lap again. "I guess," he put the blanket over him.

"So," I went on, "you don't think that Jender will get too weird after we get an apartment together?"

He looked up at me. "Why would you think that?"

"Like you said, we'll be sharing the same bathroom, same bed, same everything. It'll be different than us hopping back and forth as we please."

He sat up. "I think Jender already got weird. When we were kids, we were friends. When we got older, we were best friends. When we got to high school, we were Jender. It got weird when we did it last summer. But it was only weird because it didn't feel weird. It didn't feel like I was doing my friend, it like I was doing...you know."

"What do you think's going to happen when we move in?"

"I don't know. But what I do know is that we take good care of each other, we've been able to stand each other for ten years, and we know how we are in bed. We'll do perfectly together."

I paused for a moment. "Perfectly together...as roommates? Or..."

He looked intensely into my eyes, like back when we were hiding in the hallways. For a moment, we didn't say anything.

"I love you, Jen."

My heart about stopped. "Wait, wha-"

Before I could realize what was going on, John leaned forward, took my face in his hands and kissed me. And without thinking, I held him and leaned back. It took ten years, but I finally got it. Totally worth the wait.

John pulled away and smiled. "Maybe not just roommates,"

"I didn't think so," I took his collar with both hands and pulled him back to me.

~!~!~!~

The next Monday, we walked all the way to school together and were officially a couple. It took some explaining to some people, but it was all worth it. Claire, on the other hand, needed no explaining to. She wasn't necessarily happy, but she looked like she accepted it. Same thing with Daniel. And I will add that I heard that they went together to the Senior Dance. John and I didn't go, though. We were busy packing and frankly, we're no Fred and Ginger. We stayed at my place for a couple of weeks before finding a place to move in.

One morning in the end of June, John was loading our boxes into his friend's car that he borrowed while I was getting a last look at my house. It wasn't like I was going to miss the place all that much, but I just wanted to take it all in before never coming back again. It was such a weird feeling. I picked up my last box of crap and found myself lingering in the doorway until a slam of the trunk broke me free of my trance. I looked back at a sweaty and anxious Bender calling to me from the car. "Ready, Jen?"

I nodded, "As I'll ever be,"

"Wait!"

I turned to the peculiar voice behind me. Apparently it was my mother, her hair a mess and her eyes pink and puffy as if she was crying. I didn't know what to so I just kind of stood there.

My mother watched me for a moment, seemingly doing what I did for my old house. She took in a deep breath and carefully came closer to me like I was a wild animal. She cupped my cheek in one of her hands and tried to smile, "Good luck, Jennifer. If you ever need me, and I understand if you wouldn't want to, I'm here."

Unexpectedly, a tear trickled out of my eye and it felt like I swallowed a lump of clay. I nodded, unable to speak.

She nodded back, and before she got too much more emotional, she glanced over at John, then turned around back into the house. I went straight into the passenger seat of the car. John crossed paths with me and knocked on the front door. I watched and listened as the door opened again.

"Did you forget something?"

John nodded. "I forgot to introduce myself."

"You live next door, don't you?"

He nodded again "Used to. I've actually been staying here for a few weeks, but we never crossed paths. I've been your daughter's friend for years, and I promise you that I won't let anything happen to her."

My mother buried her face in her hands and started shaking. John held her shoulder. "We'll visit you soon."

She sniffed. "Please do,"

John soon let go and came back to drive us off to our new home.

"Did you really mean that?" I asked.

"Mean what?"

"That we'll visit her?"

"Sure I did."

"Why?"

"It's not like she ever stopped loving you. If she did, would she have come out and said goodbye to you like that?"

I thought for a moment. "You know, no matter how much you pretend to be an asshole to other people, you're just about the best person I know."

John stopped at the red light and quickly leaned over to kiss my cheek, "You're not so bad yourself."