March, Year 3
"Don't you dare," Ben warned.
"I'm totally daring," Julie responded.
The sounds of them mashing buttons on their controllers got louder and faster. Julie's Sumo Slammers character knocked Ben's character into the air, setting him up for the perfect combo.
"No, no, no, no, no!" Ben frantically tried to button mash his way out of it.
"You ready for this?"
"Don't do it!"
"Doin' it!" Very quickly, Julie hit a string of button inputs. Her character unleashed a flurry of kicks, punches, and body slams. The first few hit, but then she missed. "Oh, shoot."
"Oh, yes!" Ben's character fell free. Acting quickly, he took advantage of Julie's failed attack, hitting her with a combo of his own as a counterattack. "Ha-ha! The tables have turned!"
"Augh!" Julie groaned exaggeratedly, dropping the controller as her character fell over, defeated.
"Whoo!" Ben stood up and cheered. "Good game," he said, smiling at Julie.
"You're lucky I missed. You would've been dead."
Ben laughed. "Yeah, you almost had me there. When did you get so good at this?" he asked. "You're even better than my cousin."
Julie raised an eyebrow. "Well, I had to get good at it," she said, giving him a wry smile and sliding closer to him on the couch. "'Cause you're just so cute when you lose." Julie leaned in and gave Ben a quick kiss on the cheek.
"Hey now, I never lose. And I'm not cute!" Ben complained.
"Of course you are," Julie leaned her head on Ben's shoulder, so he put his arm around her.
Ben smiled to himself. He'd been dating Julie for about a month now. During that time, they'd gone on several dates, although there was a serious limit to what thirteen-year-olds with no money or driver licenses could do for a date. But he enjoyed times like this when they were simply hanging out just as much. It was still amazing to him that Julie actually liked him. After liking her for so long without doing anything about it, her affection had seemed so unattainable. But now, here she was, leaning lovingly on his shoulder. He still remembered how shocked he was the first time she referred to him as her boyfriend.
I have a girlfriend?!
That had been his first thought. He still had trouble believing it, but he couldn't be happier.
Julie stood up. "I should probably head home soon," she said, looking at her phone.
"You sure?" Ben asked, not wanting her to leave.
"Yeah. My parents never want me to stay out late on school nights," Julie reminded him.
"Alright," Ben said. "So, you wanna do something tomorrow?" he asked.
"Okay," Julie said. "No, wait, I've got tennis after school," she remembered. "Saturday?"
"Sure," Ben said. "Want me to walk you home?" he asked as they reached his front door.
"I'll be fine," Julie said. She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek again. Ben still wasn't used to that either, but he certainly didn't hate it. "Bye!" she said, turning to leave.
"Bye," Ben waved to her as she walked away. He closed the door and smiled to himself.
I have a girlfriend.
Gwen sat at her desk, studiously taking notes as her teacher wrote something on the board. Her hand was cramping, and she had just about filled up yet another page with notes. Gwen liked this class and its teacher, but sometimes even she got overwhelmed by just how much information was being thrown at her.
Eventually, the teacher noticed the time and realized the period was ending. She gave a few final words on the lecture and dismissed the class.
Gwen let out a deep breath and put her pencil down. She felt tired, so she didn't pack up her things and leave immediately like most of her classmates were doing. Lazily, she leaned her head into her hand and looked out the window. It was a nice day out. The weather had been getting warmer recently as winter came to an end. She wondered what she would do after school.
Probably study more.
Gwen sighed at that bitter thought. The last week had been nothing but studying for her. She thought it would be nice to do something fun instead, especially on a Friday, but she knew she'd have nothing better to do.
"Hey." A voice from beside her brought Gwen out of her thoughts.
Gwen turned her head. Emily had rolled up next to her. "Oh. Hey, Emily," she greeted her.
She must not have sounded very happy to see her, because Emily looked at her with concern. "You alright, Gwen?" she asked.
"Hmm?" Gwen sat up straight and tried to shake off her drowsiness. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine."
"You sure? Seems like you've been kinda down lately. Something wrong?"
Gwen shook her head. "No. I don't think so, anyway." She stood up and started packing her things into her backpack.
"Some annoying guys hitting on you?" Emily asked, not dropping the subject.
Gwen looked at Emily, then averted her eyes, embarrassed. "No more than usual," she said quietly. She still had random guys coming up to her and trying to talk to her now and then, and she had become more self-conscious about the issue ever since Lucy told her why she thought they were so into her. All too often she found herself looking over her shoulder to see if anyone was looking at her.
Gwen and Emily left the classroom and headed down the hall to their next class.
"How's your cousin?" Emily asked.
Gwen flinched a little, but otherwise kept a blank face and kept walking. She shrugged. "I don't know. Why?"
"Just making conversation," Emily said. "You usually keep me updated on all his crazy escapades."
Do I really talk about him that much?
Throughout her next class, Gwen couldn't focus very well. After Emily had brought him up, she couldn't get her mind off of Ben and how annoyed she was with him right now. Lately, every time she wanted to hang out with him, he was either busy or he would cancel at the last minute. There had been plenty of days when she'd gotten a text from him after school telling her he wouldn't be able to make it today, sometimes when she was already halfway to the park. Some days he'd forgotten to tell her altogether, or at least it seemed like he did since Gwen would be the one to text him asking if they were meeting that day. And every time he cancelled, he'd say he was hanging out with Julie, or he had a date with Julie, or he was playing tennis with Julie.
I'm so sick of Julie this and Julie that!
She was tired of hearing about Julie, and she was definitely tired of Ben trying to subtly brag about having a girlfriend by name-dropping her all the time. Gwen thought it was childish and annoying.
So like him.
By her next class, she was able to get Ben out of her mind and return her focus to her schoolwork. However, halfway through the class, she felt her phone vibrate. She wondered who would be texting her right now, but she didn't check her phone since students weren't allowed to use them in class. Despite all the influence Ben had had on her over the years, she still didn't like breaking school rules, even minor ones like that.
After class let out, Gwen remembered she had a text as she was walking down the hall. She took her phone out of her pocket and checked the message. It was from Ben.
What does he want?
She opened the message and read it.
"Wanna hang out tonight?" it said.
Gwen stopped walking and stared at her phone. She was still annoyed with him, but it had been nearly a week since the last time they'd hung out.
Not that I'm so desperate to see him.
Gwen tried to tell herself that as she typed her response. "Sure," was her simple answer.
But I don't have anything better to do, right?
She kept walking. A moment later, her phone vibrated again. Another message from Ben. "Cool. See you after school."
She put her phone away. Despite her annoyance, a slight smile spread across her face.
When Ben spotted her, he thought Gwen looked annoyed. She was staring off into the distance like she was contemplating something that was bothering her. Ben knew that look pretty well.
Wonder what's up with her?
Earlier that day, he had decided to send Gwen a text to ask her if she wanted to hang out. That sort of communication had only become necessary recently. Since he'd started hanging out with Julie more, it was no longer considered a given that he and Gwen would be spending time together after school. Although he tried to let her know his plans early enough, he sometimes screwed up, or things changed at the last minute. He felt bad whenever that happened, so he'd decided to text her hours before school ended this time. That way, he wouldn't piss off Gwen. Seeing the way she looked now, Ben thought it might not have worked so well.
However, to Ben's surprise, Gwen's expression changed as soon as she spotted him. "Hey!" she happily called out as she waved to him.
Ben waved back as he walked closer, and Gwen started jogging towards him to meet him halfway.
"'Sup, Dweeb?" Ben greeted her once they had closed the gap between them. "What are you so excited about?" he asked, curious.
"What?" Gwen seemed a little caught off guard. "Nothing," she said, denying it.
Ben looked at her funny, but he shrugged it off. "So, what do you wanna do?" he asked.
Gwen smiled proudly and reached into her shirt to pull out her charm necklace. "I have got to show you how much progress I've made on this thing," she said, dangling it from her hand.
"You've been working on it some more? Awesome! Yeah, show me," Ben said excitedly.
Gwen looked around, noticing other people in the park. "Sure, but not here. Your dad still got that weight set?"
"Yeah. Not like he ever uses it, though."
"Great! Let's go."
Ben could tell she was excited to show off just how strong she was now, and he was quite curious to see what she could do as well.
Back at Ben's house, they checked to make sure Ben's parents weren't home. They were still completely ignorant to the magic-slash-aliens side of their lives, and they wanted to keep it that way. Once they were certain they were in the clear, Ben showed Gwen to his father's weight room.
"Okay," he said, picking up a small, five pound dumbbell. "Lift this with the stone." He placed it on the ground in front of Gwen.
She smirked. "Easy." With a flick of her hand, the dumbbell lifted itself into the air and hovered there. The Charm of Telekinesis, which Gwen was now wearing above her shirt, lit up with a bluish glow along the lines etched into it. Gwen made a twirling gesture with her finger, and the dumbbell began to spin. She folded her arms confidently as it continued to twirl in midair.
"Woooah, cool!" Ben said in amazement. He'd seen Gwen lift things with magic before, but not like this. The fact that Gwen wasn't making any hand gestures at the moment showed she could control it simply with her thoughts.
Gwen smiled at Ben's reaction, like she was glad she could impress him so much. She glanced at the dumbbell, allowing it to stop spinning and float harmlessly to the floor. "Gimme something heavier," she challenged.
"You got it," Ben complied, grabbing another dumbbell, this one weighing fifty pounds. He had a little trouble picking it up, but he managed to bring it over and put it down in front of her.
Gwen smirked. She nodded her head upwards once, and the fifty pound weight lifted into the air almost as quickly as the five pound one had.
Ben walked up to the floating dumbbell. He moved his hands all around it. "Ladies and gentlemen, no strings!" he said, talking like a stage magician.
Gwen laughed, then put the weight down. "Now watch this," she said. She sat down cross-legged on the floor, closed her eyes, and held up her hands in a meditative pose, although she was still smirking. The charm on her necklace glowed brightly, and she slowly began to rise off of the ground.
Ben stared in amazement. Like moving objects with magic, Ben had seen Gwen fly around on magic discs before, but this was something else.
Gwen opened her eyes and was delighted to see the stunned look on her cousin's face. "Pretty cool, huh?" she said. She stood up like she normally would, still not touching the ground. Now she stood in place, crossing her arms and gently bobbing slightly as she floated in the air.
Ben looked at her with genuine admiration. "Gwen, you're amazing," he said.
Gwen smiled shyly. Then, suddenly, she sort of stumbled in the air. Losing her concentration, she dropped to the floor. Her feet landed unevenly and she lost her balance, causing her to topple over backwards, falling flat on her butt. "Ow!" she screamed.
Ben, who had stood there watching the whole time, continued to stare for a moment. Then he erupted with laughter. "But you're still a Dweeb," he said, stepping forward and holding out his hand to help her up.
Gwen could have just levitated herself back to her feet, but she took Ben's hand anyway and let him help her up. "You could've caught me before I fell," Gwen complained.
"Yeah, but then I wouldn't have gotten to see you fall." Ben grinned at her.
Gwen huffed and turned away from him. "Jerk."
Ben wasn't fazed. "So, how much more work does that one need?" he asked.
Gwen lifted up the charm on her necklace. "I'm not sure," she said. "Charmcaster's spellbook didn't have a complete description on the process, and I haven't found too much on it elsewhere. But at the moment, it seems like it's almost at full strength."
"Awesome," Ben said. "Which one are you gonna rebuild next?"
Gwen thought hard for a moment. Ben wasn't sure why, but that question seemed to have made her anxious. "I'm not sure," Gwen said. "I don't really need all of them, right? One or two should make me strong enough to fight anything we go up against."
Ben thought of all the villains and monsters they'd fought over the years. Even without the charms, she was able to handle them all, sometimes even without him and his Omnitrix around to help her. "Does your spellbook not say how to remake all the others?" Ben asked.
"Well, it probably does, but…" Gwen thought of how to say this. "I destroyed them because I thought they were too powerful, and so no one like Hex could ever use them again. If I made a whole new set of them, I'd be making it possible for something like that to happen."
"Nonsense," Ben said. "They'll be in good hands. Besides, think of the charms like my Omnitrix." Ben held up his watch arm and started flipping through his aliens. "The more aliens I add to this thing, the more powerful it gets. It sure would suck if some bad guys got ahold of it, but that's not gonna happen, because I've got it! So why shouldn't I keep collecting aliens until I've got them all?"
"I didn't realize we were going by Pokémon logic here," Gwen said.
Ben laughed at that. He turned the dial on the Omnitrix and flipped through Wildvine, Heatblast, and Ripjaws. "Grass, fire, water. Wow, damn. I got any dragon-types in here yet?"
Gwen smiled, but she quickly got serious again. "You really think I should try to recreate all five charms?"
"Of course I do!" Ben said. "The more magic you get, and the more aliens I get, the more we can save the world!" Ben posed triumphantly with the Omnitrix. "So, whaddya say?"
Gwen thought about it some more. She definitely still seemed to be somewhat against the idea. "Well, maybe one more. I've always kind of wished I'd kept the charm of luck," she said. "It would be nice to be the real Lucky Girl again."
"Cool!" Ben said. "Tomorrow I'll show you the magic shop where I found that one," Ben said, pointing to the stone on Gwen's necklace. "Maybe they'll have more, or know where to find them."
Gwen looked at him funny. "You…You want to hang out again tomorrow?" she asked.
Ben looked confused. "Sure, why not? You busy?"
"No," Gwen said, a little too quickly and a little too loudly. "Uh, no, I'm free. Yeah, let's do that tomorrow," she said.
Ben thought Gwen was acting kind of weird, but he shrugged it off. "So, what next? You wanna juggle some chainsaws with your mind?" Ben asked.
"How about we do something else with a better chance of us walking away with all our limbs attached?" Gwen suggested.
"Aw, you're no fun."
Later that night, Gwen went up to her room in a good mood. After showing off her newfound magical prowess to Ben for a while, the two of them had played games like they usually did when they hung out until Gwen's parents got home. Ben stayed for dinner, and then Gwen's dad drove him home. Compared to the last week of doing practically nothing but schoolwork and extracurriculars, it was the most fun she'd had in a while. Plus, she was gonna hang out with Ben again tomorrow.
Something was bothering her, though. To Gwen, it felt like it had been a long time since they'd last spent a lot of time together, but Ben hadn't seemed to notice at all. When they met up early that day, Ben had acted like he'd just seen her a day or two ago. There was no 'Long time, no see,' or 'It's good to see you again!' from him. At dinner, Gwen's father had even commented on the fact that he hadn't seen Ben around here for a while, yet Ben had almost no response to that at all.
The more Gwen thought about it, the more her good mood faded. No matter how much she tried not to, she thought about Ben constantly on the days they didn't see each other. She spent her time focusing on her schoolwork, but the whole time she was wishing she was hanging out with her best friend doing something fun instead. But the way Ben had acted today…
It's like he doesn't think about me at all.
Gwen sighed. She was worried things would turn out like this with Ben dating Julie. Despite Ben's 'just one day' promises, it seemed like Julie got to see Ben every day. Gwen was jealous of her for that.
She tensed up.
No! Quit being so clingy!
Gwen tried to snap herself out of it.
It's his time, he can spend it however he wants for all I care. Besides, I get him today and tomorrow, don't I?
She felt weird. She wasn't even sure exactly how she was feeling, but it was very uncomfortable. She tried to look on the bright side to bring her good mood back.
Today was fun. I hung out with Ben. I'm hanging out with him again tomorrow. And I might get to be Lucky Girl again soon.
Gwen smiled. As she got ready for bed, she stood in front of the mirror and looked at herself, holding up the charm of telekinesis and admiring it before she took it off. She felt a surge of pride coursing through her as she remembered what Ben had said to her earlier that day.
"Gwen, you're amazing."
She felt warm and tingly inside. The moment he said that, it was like all the hard work she'd put into making the charm had paid off.
A wave of embarrassment swept over her.
It's not like I did it for him!
Gwen shook her head. She realized she was overthinking everything, just like she always did. She assured herself that everything was fine. She just needed to get some sleep.
"Are you sure it was at this mall?" Gwen asked.
"This is literally the only mall in Bellwood," Ben responded.
The two of them had been wandering around the mall all afternoon in search of the magic shop where Ben had found the stone he'd given to Gwen. They might have found it earlier, but they kept getting distracted by other things. Earlier, they'd played each other in a demo for a new video game that was set up in a game store. Ben ended up buying a copy. After that, Gwen wanted to buy some new clothes, all of which she had to try on before deciding to buy just a couple of things. Most recently, they'd stopped by a pretzel stand, and they were both munching on gigantic cinnamon pretzels as they continued their search.
"Here's a map," Gwen said, directing Ben's attention to a large map of the mall. "Do you remember the name of it?"
Ben shook his head. He examined the map, looking for anything that sounded like a magic shop.
"What about this one?" Gwen pointed to a number on the map and to the matching number on the legend. Ben stepped up next to her to see where she was pointing, then leaned in closer to read the name of the store. When he did, Gwen jumped back and held up her hands for a second before rigidly dropping them to her side.
"What's wrong?" Ben asked, stepping back.
"Nothing!" Gwen said, snapping her attention back to the map, still standing more than an arm's length from Ben.
Ben looked at her in confusion.
Why's she acting so jumpy today?
Throughout the day, there had been several other moments like this. Everything would seem perfectly normal, but then Gwen would suddenly get jumpy and awkward. She'd been especially weird while she was trying on clothes. She would step out of the changing room and ask him what he thought, then usually before he could even answer, she would say something like 'Whatever, I didn't like this one anyway!' and go back inside to change. He'd all but given up on understanding it.
"Wait, I think I remember where it was," Ben said. He pointed to a number on the map. "I can't remember the name of it, but I remember it was near this store here."
He quickly led her through the mall to the store he was talking about, trying to avoid any other distractions so they could get there before he forgot.
"Okay, this looks familiar," he said, looking around. "I'm pretty sure it was right on the corner there."
"That one?" Gwen asked, looking where he was pointing.
"Yes, definitely. It was that one!" Ben said.
The two of them excitedly ran towards the store, but once they got in front of it, they stopped. It was closed, and more importantly, it looked like it had been closed for a long time.
"What the hell?" Ben asked.
The store had no sign on it. The door was blocked by a metal security gate. The windows were barred, but they could look through them. There were shelves in the same layout Ben remembered from three months ago, but they were all completely bare.
"You sure this was the place?" Gwen asked skeptically.
"Yes, this is definitely it," Ben insisted.
"Looks like they went out of business," Gwen said, peering through the barred windows.
"Out of business?" Ben said. "More like 'dropped off the face of the planet.' I think I might have bought you a cursed present from a witch or something."
"Yeah, this definitely seems like some Twilight Zone-slash-Ray Bradbury stuff going on here," Gwen said. "We've run into stranger things." She pulled her necklace out of her shirt and looked at the charm. "Maybe it was irresponsible of me to keep this in the first place. Magic is dangerous enough already, and not knowing where it came from just makes it that much worse."
"No, no, no," Ben said. "The stone is fine. If there was anything wrong with it, I'm sure everything you've done to it must have fixed it by now."
Gwen looked skeptical. "Do you remember anything about the person who sold it to you?"
Ben shrugged. "Some older dude. Didn't seem like bad guy material."
"Well, he sells you an actual magic item and then disappears without a trace," Gwen said. "For all we know, you bought me a birthday present from the Devil himself."
"Hey, I'm not that bad at picking out gifts!" Ben protested. "Besides, if it was cursed, something bad would've happened already, right?"
Gwen put her thumb and forefinger to her chin. "Hmm. Well, in these kinds of stories, the cursed object would do something cool, but then the cool thing would ironically end up causing something bad. Like a pair of shoes that make you run really fast, but then you can't stop and end up running into traffic." Gwen held up her necklace again. "What if I use this to levitate one day, and I don't stop going up until I'm in outer space?"
Ben laughed. "Yeah, better watch your step. Wouldn't wanna trip and fall up into the sky."
Gwen smiled. "Well, I don't think I should actually be that worried, though. I think I've read enough about cursed objects in Charmcaster's spellbook to know how to spot them."
"Oh, good." Ben nodded. "Shame about this place, though. Guess we'll have to look someplace else for another possible Charm of Bezel."
"I guess so," Gwen agreed.
"Alright, wanna go to that ice cream place next?" Ben asked. "I'll buy."
"Sure," Gwen said. She looked at him sort of strangely.
Ben wasn't sure what she was thinking. She looked like she was looking forward to it, but also like she was being shy about something. "Okay," Ben said, shrugging it off. "Let's go."
Ben and Gwen ended up spending another hour at the mall. After that, they decided to go back to Ben's house to hang out and watch a few episodes of a show Lucy had suggested to them.
"I'm not sure I'm gonna like this season as much," Gwen commented after an episode.
"Really? I love it so far. There's a lot of cool new characters, and the fight scenes were ridiculously awesome," Ben said, disagreeing.
"Yeah, some of them are good. I just don't like how they skipped forward, like, five years between seasons. I feel like we missed out on a lot of important character development," Gwen explained.
"Meh." Ben waved his hand dismissively. "Couldn't have been that important if they skipped over it."
Gwen was going to say something in response, but Ben's phone buzzed. He took it out, saw a text message, and typed out a response.
"Your parents?" Gwen asked.
"No," Ben said, putting his phone back in his pocket. "Julie. Making plans for tomorrow."
"Oh," Gwen said. She'd been hoping she would get to spend the whole weekend with him, and now she hoped her disappointment wasn't showing.
"Cassie looks so much like Lucy," Ben said, getting back to their discussion about the show.
"What? Oh, yeah. Different hair though," Gwen said. "Hey, listen, uh…" Gwen tried to change the subject to something more important.
"Hmm?" Ben look at her questioningly.
"Well, I have a karate tournament next weekend," she said. "It's the first big one of the season. You wanna come? Grandpa's gonna be there." She asked the question as casually as she could, but she tried to convey with her eyes how much she wanted him to be there.
Ben looked apologetic, and Gwen immediately knew what he was going to say. "Sorry. I already have plans with Julie next weekend, too," he said.
"Please?" Gwen asked, a hint of desperation creeping into her voice. "It's just…This is kind of a big deal for me, since I'm so close to my black belt. And we haven't seen each other much lately, you know?" She decided to just come out and say it, hoping he'd realize it and change his mind.
Ben raised an eyebrow in confusion. "What do you mean? We spent the last two days together."
"Yeah, but until yesterday, I hadn't seen you at all for like a week!" Gwen insisted.
"What? There's no way it's been that long," Ben said, counting on his fingers. "Didn't we hang out on Tuesday?"
"We were going to, but you made plans with Julie at the last minute." Gwen hadn't really meant to put emphasis on Julie's name like that, and she hoped she hadn't sounded too hostile.
"Oh," Ben said, remembering that day. He thought back to the last week. "Huh. I guess I didn't notice," he said.
Gwen felt a pain in her chest when he said that, but she brushed it off. "Uh, yeah. So it's kinda been a while. And I'm guessing you're gonna be spending most of the next week hanging out with Julie again, too, right?"
"Well, yeah. Probably. I mean, she's my girlfriend," Ben said, not trying to hide how proud he was to say that.
Gwen rolled her eyes. "So could you maybe free up next Saturday for me at least? Please?" she asked, trying not to beg too much.
Ben considered it. He must've been able to tell how serious Gwen was about this. "I…guess," he said eventually. "We don't have anything big planned, so maybe Julie won't mind cancelling."
Gwen smiled and felt a wave of relief wash over her. Before she could stop herself, she threw herself at him in a hug. "Thank you!" she said.
"Uh, heh. Yeah. No problem!" Ben said, his voice cracking.
After a moment, Gwen realized she'd probably been hugging him for longer than was normal. She pulled herself out of the hug and, without meaning to, shoved Ben back a little. Gwen cleared her throat. "Yes. Right. Thank you," she said. Even as best friends, they still hadn't quite gotten the hang of hugging.
Neither of them said anything for a moment. "So…" Ben said, breaking the silence. "Next episode?" He gestured to the TV which was still paused at the end of the last episode.
"Yeah, okay," Gwen agreed.
"Cool. Lemme go make some more popcorn first," Ben said, excusing himself from the room and heading to his kitchen.
"Okay." Once Ben was out of the room, Gwen thought about his agreement to come to her karate tournament next Saturday. Even though she was still a little upset that she wouldn't get to hang out with him again tomorrow and probably most of the next week, she smiled to herself.
Good job.
As planned, Ben spent most of Sunday with Julie. They went to the pier, saw a movie, and hung out at Julie's house. The whole time, Ben was putting off telling her that he'd have to cancel their plans for next Saturday. He felt kind of guilty since he had made the decision without asking her, and he wasn't sure how she would react.
Hope she won't be too mad.
"Ben? Ben?" Julie said, waving a hand in his face.
"Huh? What?" Ben said, snapping out of his thoughts.
"You alright?" Julie asked. "You kinda spaced out just now."
"Oh. Sorry." From the way she looked at him, he could tell she knew something was bugging him, but she didn't press him on it. Ben was about to do the same thing and maybe put off telling her about his change of plans until tomorrow or the next day. But he decided he should do it now.
Like ripping off a Band-Aid.
"Hey, uh, Julie?" he said.
"Hmm?" Julie turned to look at him.
"Um, you know how we had plans for next weekend?" he asked, already looking apologetic.
"Yeah?" Julie said, allowing him to continue.
"Well, uh, my cousin kinda has a karate tournament on Saturday. And she wants me to come watch her compete. So, you mind if we cancel for that day?" Ben left out the fact that he'd already agreed to go to Gwen's tournament, hoping he wouldn't have to say so at all. He gave his best apologetic grimace, waiting for Julie's response. He was expecting her to be upset.
"Sure," Julie said.
"Sure?" Ben repeated in surprise.
"Yeah, no problem," Julie said. She smiled. "How long's she been doing karate?" she asked out of curiosity.
"Uh, since we were seven, I think," Ben said.
"Cool. Is she a black belt?" Julie asked.
"No, not yet." Ben was surprised at how well she was taking this. But then he thought, she'd always seemed pretty level-headed, especially compared to himself, and especially compared to Gwen. Maybe he was being stupid for expecting her to be pissed off.
"Can I come, too?" Julie asked.
"To Gwen's tournament?"
"Yeah. A karate tournament sounds like it would be fun to watch. Plus, I still haven't met your cousin."
Wait, really?
That came as a surprise to Ben. He thought back to the past year. He'd spent so much time with Gwen and so much time with Julie, he could've sworn they'd already run into each other at some point.
"Uh, I'm not sure. I'll have to ask Gwen," he said.
"Okay." Julie smiled. She went back to what she was doing.
Ben stopped to think about what it would be like when Gwen and Julie finally met.
Would they get along?
As far as Ben was concerned, they were both brainiacs, they both loved to beat him at everything, and they both had a weird mix of 'tomboy' and 'girly girl' to them. In many ways, they were a lot alike.
He instantly regretted having that thought.
No! My girlfriend is nothing like my cousin!
Since Julie had taken the news so well, Ben was inspired to stick with the 'ask right away' strategy when asking Gwen if Julie could come to her karate tournament as well. He couldn't imagine a reason why she wouldn't want Julie to come with him, and it was probably a public event anyway. Plus, Julie seemed interested in meeting Gwen, so maybe Gwen would want to meet her too.
He decided to call her when he got home from Julie's that night. After a couple rings, she answered.
"Hey!" Gwen said through the phone. "What's up?"
"Hey, Gwen. I just got a quick question about your tournament," Ben said.
"Oh, cool. What do you wanna know?" Gwen sounded excited to talk about it.
"Can I bring Julie?" he asked.
It was a simple yes or no question, but for some reason it took Gwen a moment to respond.
"Gwen?" Ben asked after a few seconds of silence, unsure if the call was going through.
"Uh, no. No, sorry, um…I don't think you can do that," she said. She didn't sound as excited anymore.
"What? Why not?" Ben asked.
"Well, we were told we could just invite our families. There's a maximum capacity that they don't wanna hit, so, um, I don't think she can come." Gwen didn't sound very sure of herself.
"Hmm. That sucks," Ben said, disappointed.
"Yeah. I guess. Sorry," Gwen apologized.
"Nah, it's alright," Ben said. "Thanks anyway. Guess I'll see you—"
"Wait!" Gwen interrupted him.
Ben pulled the phone away from his ear for a second, surprised at the sudden outburst. "Uh, yeah?" he asked.
"Um," Gwen said. "While I have you, you wanna hang out after school tomorrow?" she asked.
Ben hadn't actually made any concrete plans with Julie for tomorrow yet, so he agreed. "Sure, I'm up for that. Meetcha at the usual place?"
"Cool!" Gwen said. "Alright, I'll see you tomorrow, then."
"Cool. Night, Dweeb."
"Night, Doofus."
Ben hung up. He wondered if Julie would be upset that she couldn't come to Gwen's tournament after all.
Nah. She'll understand.
Author's note:
Thank you for your kind words, everyone! Sorry if I didn't get around to responding to you personally, I try to do that as much as I can.
Some of you may have been a little thrown off by the story having so much focus on Gwen in an arc about Ben dating Julie. I switch perspectives a lot, but even in other arcs, you may have noticed I tend to write from Gwen's perspective more often. There are a lot of reasons I end up doing this, but it's mainly because I identify with her character more and her thoughts are usually more relevant to the overall story. The only real problem I've seen coming from this is that some people think Ben is being a jerk since we're seeing their conflicts from Gwen's perspective first most of the time, and maybe some of you huge Ben fans are feeling a little cheated by his lack of 'screen time.' So sorry if that's been an issue for any of you, that's just how I write.