Ch. 5: New Lessons

After Mom left, I snuck a peak at my watch. "10:50? Oh, shit!" I scurried over into my room, and like a great Olympic athlete, I madly finished cleaning the house in 5.5 minutes flat: a new world record.

I collapsed onto the living room couch, exhausted as though I just competed in the triathlon – you know, where the athletes have to swim, run, and then bike for miles? Let me just close my eyes for a minute, I thought to myself. Just one minute…

"Chris," the purple cactus called me. Funny, cactuses don't talk. "Chris," the cactus said in a louder and more annoyed tone. "Go away!" I told it in a sleepy murmur. Cacti are so touchy; what'd I ever do to it, to get it that annoyed?

"That would be a little difficult to do, Christina, seeing as how you have a guest over."

Guest? My eyes flung open to see my dad with his arms crossed, smiling at me with a hint of amusement in the corners of his mouth, and standing next to an equally amused –

"Ben!" I exclaimed, scrambling off the couch. I prayed to God: Please don't let me have drooled, please, please

"Pleasant nap?" Dad patiently watched as I rubbed my sleepy eyes.

"Ummm…" what exactly was I supposed to tell my dad in front of my tutor? "Yeah. I guess," is what I settled for, accompanied by a shrug.

"Well, Benjamin," my father turned, seeing that all was set into order. "Nice meeting you," he stuck out his hand, and Ben shook it. "I leave you in the hands of my daughter. If she misbehaves or –" Dad gave me a sideways glance, "starts napping again." Ben nearly choked on a laugh on that one. I gave my dad an I-am-not-amused glare which he blatantly ignored, "just call me up. I'll be in my room down the hallway," he pointed. "Don't hesitate."

Wow, it's so nice to have a father who supports you and is always on your side.

"And Chris?" the oh-so-supportive (not) father told me.

"What, Dad?" I groaned in annoyance.

"Don't give this fine young man a hard time, all right?"

"Okay, I promise," I was in a hurry to shoo my dad away. "We got it, right Ben?"

"Right," he smiled. "Nice meeting you, Mr. de Silva."

"Please, call me Jesse," Dad insisted.

"Okay. All right. He knows. Bye now, Dad." I have him a gentle push on the beck to make sure he kept walking out of the living room. When my dad was finally gone, I gave a loud sigh of relief.

"I like your dad," Ben said, with a pleased smile. "He's cool."

"He likes you, too," I said bluntly. Seriously, when was the last time my dad took the side of a guy (okay, my friends at least, seeing as how I've never brought home a "boy" before) over me?

Ben's eyes widened with surprised, which reminded me to tone down my straight-forward answers. Still, Ben recovered, and asked me, unsurely, "How can you tell?"

I raised an eyebrow up, and said to him in amused voice, "Trust me, if he didn't like you, Ben, you'd know." I gave him a pat on the back, while those words finally sunk in, and with a push, led Ben into my room, where I study.

As soon as I saw the expression on Ben's face when he realized what room I had led him in – you know, my bedroom – I immediately regretted my decision in bringing him in.

"Um, yeah. Sorry about that, Ben; it was an automatic reaction. I usually come here to study when I do my homework. If you feel more comfortable in the living room," I was already beginning to slowly back out of my bedroom. "We'll just head over there. Ben?" I was carried away with blabbering on, as I tend to sometimes do when I'm nervous, (I got that from my mom. Gee, thanks Mom) that I didn't notice Ben wasn't following me out of my bedroom.

I poked my head back in there, "Ben?" I called.

Ben was still in my bedroom, looking around as though it was an intriguing and engrossing exhibit at an art museum. After a long time of peering at old awards hung on my walls, (from my third grade spelling-bee, to this year's fourth-pace medal at an essay-writing contest), to the movie posters (Lord of the Rings, of course; and Dirty Dancing), to the collection of odds-and-ends jewelry piled up in the corner of my dresser-top. There was a clarinet peaking out from under my bed (which had an ocean-blue color bedspread on it – my bed I mean), gathering dust, a rembrandt from my phase when I was bent on becoming a musical child protégé, but called it quits when I found out it actually required work to become proficient on the clarinet.

I stood back, admiring how clean my bedroom was. And not a stuffed animal in sight, I thought to myself, smugly.

"So," Ben simply declared after he was through looking around. "This is your room."

I crossed my arms and smiled. "This is the first time you've ever been in a girl's room isn't it?" I hadn't said it to embarrass the guy, I was just commenting on his reaction about the whole thing.

Ben shrugged. He took off his backpack, which he had brought with him, and set it on the ground. I was surprised. "You know," I said. "We could study in the living room," I pointed down the hall.

Ben shook his head, "Nope. Rule Number One about studying: have a set place for doing your homework. That way, when you sit down," Ben demonstrated by plopping down on my desk chair, "Your brain will automatically associate that place with studying. That's why we are going to study here."

"Wow," I blinked at him, impressed. See? I knew I chose the right man for the job. "You certainly know your stuff."

Ben shrugged off my compliment. "Do you have another chair for me?" he asked, all of a sudden becoming the gentleman and offered me the chair he was just in.

"Oh, here," I left the room, and brought him one.

We sat down comfortably and set to studying. My best subject was Spanish – um, hello, I have my dad to help me with that class. I found government the most difficult, so we focused on that.

"What's the most challenging subject for you?" I asked, conversationally. "I mean, after all, you are only the most brilliant student at West Carmel High," I teased him. "Surely the great Ben Matthews has an Achilles' Heel."

"I have AP classes," he was grinning, the corners of his mouth curled upwards. "They all follow a different curriculum than normal classes."

"Fine. But still," I persisted. "I want to know: which class?"

"Honestly?" Ben gave me a rueful smile.

"Yeah."

"English."

"English?" my eyes widened with surprise. "Why?"

"The thing is," Ben looked away, uncomfortably. "We're going though poetry, and that's just the prob-"

"Poetry?" I sprang up excited.

"Well, yeah -" Ben looked at me curiously, as I dashed over and began rummaging though the top drawer of my dresser, which was filled with all sorts of odds and ends. "Ah ha!" I cried triumphantly when I found what I was looking for – a dogged, tattered, raggedy spiral notebook. I bounced back over and hopped in my seat.

"'Ah ha' … what?" Ben looked puzzled.

"'Ah ha' this," I thrust my notebook towards Ben, and he began flipping through its old, worn pages.

"You write poetry!" He declared with amazement after a few short moments.

"Yup," I said, proud of myself.

"This – this is actually good," Ben couldn't keep the surprise from seeping into his voice as he rummaged through and read a handful of them. "Very good. But I couldn't help but notice two things," he told me, as he handed back my poetry notebook.

"And that would be?" I raised a guarded eyebrow up. I didn't take criticism of my work too well. I know that's bad, and I should be able to, but… they're like my babies you know? And you can't just insult any one's baby and expect them to be happy about it.

"Nothing bad, I mean," Ben amended hastily. "But, it's just that I didn't see two types of poetry in it – two very major genres: love and angst poems."

"Yeah, but good sir," I said, in a mock-old-English tone as I flipped past the section of blank sheets of paper in the middle to the very last pages of my notebook. "Thou doest not look hard enough."

There, at the last pages of the notebook, resided my angst poems, filled with imageries of sorrow, grief, and plain black moodiness.

Ben flipped through those as well. "I see…"

"I put them in the back," I said, feeling as though I needed to explain. "Because even though I write sad poems on occasion, putting them at the end reminds me that whatever pain I'm going through now, the good in life will forever outshine the temporary anguish we experience 'today.' All of my brighter poems are in the beginning, in case you didn't notice that, too."

He nodded, with comprehension on his face. "True."

"But still," he said in a different tone. "Why no love sonnets? You didn't answer that part of the question,"

"Oh, that. I believe that authors should write what they know -"

"– a very good premise," he interrupted, and laughed. I smacked him in the upper arm for being so obnoxious – but a nice obnoxious.

"- and to write what about something you don't know anything about would be stupid-" I continued.

"- not stupid, per say-" he corrected me. "But difficult, yes. So that's why you don't write poetry about love?" he asked.

"Yeah," I replied, neutral.

"Because you only write what you know?"

"Yup."

Meaning…" he gestured with his hand for emphasis. "…that you've never fallen in love before?"

"Well… yeah," I gave an unembarrassed shrug. "Oh don't look so surprised," I exclaimed, indignantly. "I mean, this coming from you, who claimed that you can't get poetry."

"I'm not surprised by the whole 'not writing about love' thing, but by the fact that you haven't fallen in love before." I bluntly corrected me.

It was my turn to look amazed. "Why is that so shocking?" I asked.

"Well," Ben looked away, seemingly horrified with humiliation. "You are kind of pretty," he said in a rush, awkwardly and uncomfortably embarrassed. "And outgoing; not to mention really outspoken."

"Aw, thanks Ben," I gushed. But I didn't get a chance to be too mushy with my thank yous, because Ben promptly switched over to a different subject. "So, back to English. The whole poetry thing…"

"Right," I said, getting to business, flipping through my notebook. What just happened here? It's almost as if we did a one-eighty degree flip-turn, and now I was the tutor, and he, the student. "You understand the essential tools of poetry, I presume, correct? What a metaphor, a simile, a meter, and all of that are and how they are used?" I elaborated.

He nodded "Yes." Taking that as my cue, I riffled though the pages of lyrical rhymes, haikus, and blank-verse poetry. "For example, in this line here," I pointed. Like a candle hidden among the shadows, the line went.

Ben leaned over my shoulder to get a closer look. I turned my head to the slightest degree, to see if Ben was paying attention, and I was all of a sudden alarmingly aware that his face was barely a few millimeters from mine. Ben wasn't looking at the poem. He was looking piercingly dead into my eyes.

My breath hitched, caught somewhere in my throat. I was so close that I could have easily counted every single last one of his long, inky-black eyelashes, which were drooping over his eyes in a manner that was too alarmingly sexy for my peace of mind. And his amber eyes were burning fervently, with some sort of tempest-storm, so penetrating, that it was almost forced to carry over that storm into my eyes.

Every one of these reasons alone would be a valid reason to set a girl's poor heart racing, but when they were all striking together? The force of it was too strong to do anything but get my heart beating as fast as my furiously scratching, scribbling pen, when I have just been inspired to write a brilliant, moving poem. I would write the words down so rapidly, all that was left was to hope to God I would forget the moving words I was thinking of. That's how fast my heart raced.

All the while this occurred – which was only a work of a few, heavenly seconds, really – Ben didn't pull away (so neither would I). Quite the opposite: Ben started leaning in.

Ever fiber, every nerve in my body was shutting down, and began being lost in the thrill and apprehension of a (apparently) marvelous kiss approaching me. We were so close that I felt his warm breath tickle my skin. I leaned, about ready to kiss him.

Until I saw it down the hall.

I could have just closed my eyes, and ignored the thing and kissed Ben, but the sight was so unexpected that instead of closing my eyes, as I should have, and making the distance between Ben's mouth and mine zero, I turned and looked at the silver glimmer (which flashed like the belt buckle from the attic, now that I think about it) outside my room, and in our hallway.

That's when I realized what it –

or should I say, he - since it was definitely a he - was. And he caught me staring at him; so the guy sauntered over in my room, and crossed his arms across his chest. His face was contorted into a permanent scowl.

Finally I remembered – Ben!

What was Ben doing – thinking – right now? He certainly wasn't kissing me, that's for sure. I found that he was staring in the same direction I was.

Impossible, I thought. It must be Ben's reaction to what I was doing. He was probably trying to figure out what I had been staring at. Only Ben couldn't see it, because the man I was staring at happened to be…

dead.

A ghost. Extremely mortified, I rushed, "I just have to go to the kitchen really fast. I forgot. I was supposed to phone… Ashley… hold on a sec." I scrambled to my feet. Either he thought I didn't like him and didn't want to kiss him, (I didn't… did I? Well, back there, I desperately did. I wanted to be kissed by him more than I cared to think about. Why? Did I like him? Well, did I?) or he thought I was some sort of freaky girl with a tendency of "remembering" what she had to do at the worst possible moments… like now.

The scowling man crooked a long, wicked-looking tan finger in our direction. He was dressed up like he came straight out of the Wild, Wild West film. Or Zorro, even. What, he wanted a conference too? Geez. Ben suddenly shot up like he just sat on a porcupine. "You know, I need to go to the restroom. Can you show me where it is?"

Gosh, scare away boys much, I thought quietly to myself. Its wonder why boys aren't flocking to my door, asking me out (not). Still, that's what I get for being a freaky girl who can see dead people.

With my head bowed down in private, silent shame, I was about to lead him to the restroom, when the dead cowboy looked at us, and said rudely, with a sardonic, unpleasant sneer, "I don't need to talk to the two of you. Just the girl."

Ghosts. When will they ever learn, I pondered. So through gritted teeth in the shape of smile, I hissed to him, "He can't hear you, idiot."

Ben froze as soon as that hiss escaped out from between my teeth.

Crap. Ben heard me, too. Now not only am I "mad woman" (as Ben so plainly put it, back at the picnic) in his eyes, but I'm also some sort of freak who talks – hisses – to herself.

Before I could give some sort of reasonable excuse, he murmured quietly, frightened as though he was walking over a glass bridge, and a wrong step would send him crashing through into a bottomless canyon, he was careful as he asked me, "Could you hear the voice, too?"

I panicked, and replied swiftly, "I heard it, if you heard it."

"I heard it if you heard it," he whispered back.

The world as I knew it would forever be flipped upside-down, inside out with these words: "Chris," Ben said slowly. "Don't tell me you can see ghosts too."

Ghosts. He saw ghosts, too. He saw them; like Mom, Dad; like me. He was a mediator.

I had to sit down. I was going to throw up. Oh God! I was going to faint. Was the rooming spinning or was it just me?

It was the ghost-dude who replied for me, in a disgusted voice, "Of course she can. Why else would she be talking to me?"

I barely heard these words. I was too preoccupied with leaning against the wall, and trying to keep breathing.

I was hyperventilating. I don't remember having done so before, now that I thought about it. Was I supposed to put my head between my legs, or was that for asthma attacks?

I was really going to hurl now. I finally managed to pull my gaze from the ceiling, which I had been staring at, to Ben, wondering how he was talking all of this news.

Our eyes me, and his eyes widened, like mine. It felt like we were truly seeing each other for the first time.

"Chris?" he asked, in a nervous , raspy voice.

I gave a trembling nod of my head. "He's right. I can. See ghosts, I mean."