Saving Ben Read Free Page A

my lips. “Okay, now you can open them.” She pulled a handful of silver bangles out of the bottom compartment of her bag and slipped them onto my arm. She held a mirror out to me. “That little girl look is now sexy innocence.”
    “Me? Sexy? That’s a stretch, but thanks.” I handed the mirror back to her. “By the way, I met some girls down the hall. They invited us to make the party rounds with them tonight.”
    “I’ll pass,” she said. “Big groups are not my style. But you go ahead.”
    I shook my head. “No way I’m leaving you on our first night as roommates. I just thought it might be fun to get to know some of the other girls from our hall.”
    “Oh! I do too. Just not tonight.” Emma placed her cosmetic case and mirror in her top dresser drawer and turned around to face me. “Let me ask you this. Do you have any interest in joining a sorority?”
    “Maybe. I haven’t decided yet.”
    “Well I want to, and I don’t see how moving around from party to party in a big group, like a pack of dogs on display at the Westminster Kennel Show, will help my chances. Why would anyone want to put themselves in a position of having to stand out in a crowd?”
    She pulled the tank top off over her head, and I watched her waltz around the room in naked perfection as she gathered her things for her shower.
    Seriously? Emma lost in a crowd? Like that’s ever gonna happen.
    “Okay, so I can kind of see your point,” I said, “but networking is the biggest part of rush. Who knows? One of those girls down the hall might have a sister who can help you get in the sorority you like the most.”
    She considered this for a minute, and then shrugged it off, sauntering toward the door. “We have three days of orientation ahead of us,” she said over her shoulder. “Which is plenty of time for networking. Tonight is all about us. A time for new roommates to bond.”

Three
    In the early fall of my eighth-grade year, my mother was seen making out with my best friend’s father during a party at the Farmers’ house one night. It was Maggie Farmer herself who spotted the lovebirds when she snuck outside to the rose garden for a smoke. According to the rumors that circulated before breakfast the following morning, they were going at each other like teenagers, which was not an easy thing for my tender adolescent ears to hear. Our family lived for weeks in the shadow of my mother’s shame, but as typical of most juicy scandals, the gossip had run its course by the time we sat down to Thanksgiving dinner. At least amongst the adults.
    The kids weren’t nearly as indulgent, especially at my all-girls school where drama was as much a part of the curriculum as algebra. Under normal circumstances, eighth grade is a volatile year for most girls, when some are experimenting with boys and drinking and others are not, when the lines are drawn between those who do and those who don’t . Never mind that we’d all been together since nursery school, only one of my friends stood by my side. Archer Roland, my best friend for life.
    I never understood why the others granted their allegiance to Ann Patton instead of to me when her father was as willing a participant in the affair as my mother, but their support boosted her confidence and fueled her anger. All throughout the winter months, Patton and her puppets staged vicious attacks against me. I never knew for certain which puppet was responsible for which prank, except for the most brutal of the assaults. One day in late January, Ann Patton faked cramps and broke into my gym locker while the rest of us were at swim practice. Not only did she put bleach in my shampoo bottle, which rendered my hair a disgusting shade of puke green, she used my phone to text an up-close-and-personal picture of a girl’s private parts, presumably her own, to everyone on my contact list.
    The irrational part of me yearned for my mother’s touch when I cried myself to sleep at night. I wanted her to