Ben (The Sherwood)

Danni wasn’t the most popular girl even though she was gorgeous like Disa. She didn’t like the in-clique like Disa didn’t. They were both hard working and kept to themselves. Danni liked her books. I guess I know now what Disa liked, her art.

“Were you shy like Dan is that why you stuck to yourself?” I asked her, trying to understand her younger self better.

“Not really shy but I couldn’t bring kids home to my house. Against the rules. I couldn’t go to anyone else’s house either. They might not be God fearing people like my parents were. It all became too much. That is one of the reasons I left home.”

“You still go to church every Sunday.” I knew she did because she went to my mother’s church.

“Your mom and I go to the same church,” she agreed with me.

I nodded.

“You go whether you’ve had a late shift or not.”

“I do. I believe strongly and have my faith. I have a strong faith in God’s plan for me and yes, I do go to church every Sunday.”

“You don’t drink, you don’t date, and you don’t have fun,” I declared not realizing how mean that sounded.

Disa lowered her eyes. “I deserve that after calling you a man whore. I do have fun, Ben. I do date, remember Kevin? I just dated him for a year. Then before him was Alex Roberts for six months or so. Then,” I cut her off.

“I don’t need to hear about all of the men in your life.” I rolled my eyes at Disa. I knew each one of them. I lived through them filled with regret that I had let her go.

She laughed but it sounded hollow to my ears. “I just prefer to save myself for the right man. Most of the men I’ve dated have had a hard time with accepting that I’m not having sex until I find the one I’m spending my life with. Is that so wrong?”

I hadn’t had sex in ten months. I knew what I was missing. She didn’t yet. “You might think otherwise if you knew what you were missing.” I tried lightening the moment between us with a little teasing. “Is that why you and Kevin broke up? He didn’t understand?”

She twisted that curl around her finger and stared at me. “Part of it,” she declared. I wondered what other reason there was. “There’s a rumor that you aren’t quite as easy as you used to be,” she stated.

Her eyes were focused on me. The color more intensely stormy-blue like a cloudy day in Ohio during the summer months when we had a bad thunderstorm that had just passed through. I was waiting for the thunder to boom and the lightening to strike. Her calm though maintained throughout. Disa took a lot before she lost her cool.

“A baby tends to do that to you,” I agreed after several moments of silence.

She nodded. “But you didn’t get tied down to Asia until a week ago,” she said to me. She wasn’t letting me off the hook that easily.

“Why did you run from me?” I asked her again. Two could play her game. I put her on the spot.

She didn’t flinch. She kept staring me down when she replied. “I told you Ben.” Her voice grew softer even though her gaze was bold. “I wanted to know what was wrong with me. Jasmine was nineteen for God’s sake.”

“I explained to you that I didn’t know that.”

“And I didn’t know that you didn’t know,” she declared. “I feel like I’m the only woman you won’t give the time of day to. We dated six and a half months then you walked away with that lame speech. It’s me babe not you.” Her voice dropped low like she was mimicking me. I almost chuckled at her but knew that she wasn’t in the mood for kidding. She was being serious right now.

“Ben, I was happy. I thought you were too. You never tried anything with me which surprised me because of your previous reputation.”

I frowned for a second. “Did you want me to disrespect you?” I blurted out the question without thinking.

She blinked a few times. “Actually, I did,” she snapped. “I thought you had the prettiest green eyes that I had ever seen. The moon has your eyes. Your lips. I noticed you in high school Ben, every time I hung out with Danni, I hoped that I would see you, but you never noticed me until I started working for your dad.”

“What?” I didn’t understand what she was saying, and she didn’t know what the truth was.

“Look at the moon’s reflection in the water,” she said. I turned and carefully tried not to jostle Asia as she was sleeping. I tilted my head to the side and gazed at the moon’s reflection and could indeed see more of a man’s i

mage in the face of the moon.

It wasn’t so obvious at first, I think because there was so much in the painting capturing your attention all at once that I had missed the likeness. The image she wanted to convey was that of a magical far away land like in a storybook that Mom used to read to us but darker, a little scarier even.

“When did you do this?” I asked. Those were my eyes and my lips as she suggested.

“My junior year in high school when you were a senior. Nobody, not even Danni caught on to the fact that the moon resembled you.”