Never Let You Go
Chapter 3
By: Bella
Two weeks had passed since the party and Sadie had taken every precaution necessary so as not to run into Benji, or anyone else at the party for that matter. She felt horrible. After the vomiting incident, she immediately helped to clean up as much as she could in her drunken state, said "I'm so sorry," and left quickly.
She wouldn't look in the direction of his house when she was outside or even from a window, and whenever she was out running the occasional errand or doing something with new friends she'd made at college, she prayed she wouldn't run into him. It seemed as though luck was on her side so far. But she couldn't help but remember that she couldn't avoid him forever.
She and a fellow student in her Psychology class sat on her bed flipping through magazines. They were trying to find pictures for a collage.
"Your cousin said you live next door to famous people," said Julia, her new friend, as she continued flipping through pages. Sadie stopped flipping and groaned. "What's the matter?"
"We're kind of not speaking to each other at the moment," she replied honestly.
"You got into a fight? Who is it? Are they, like, really famous?" Julia asked excitedly.
"Have you ever heard of the band Good Charlotte?"
"Holy shit, they suck so bad! I fucking hate that band with a passion."
"Hmm ... okay, well yeah, I know at least one of them lives next door," she explained. "Melissa told me there are a bunch of people who live there, but they all kind of come and go."
Julia's eyes got wide. "Oh my gosh, this is so great!"
"What? I thought you said you 'hated them with a passion?'" Sadie said, confused.
"But they're friends with Mest. I love Mest!" Julia exclaimed.
"Oh yeah, I actually saw some of them there a couple weeks ago ..." she said, but stopped remembering that night.
"WHAT?" Julia yelled and jumped off of the bed. "You met them? What are they like?"
"Calm down! I said I 'saw' them, not 'met' them. I'm pretty sure it was them because my friend gave me their cd and I went to their website and I saw pictures of them ..." she started to explain, but could tell Julia wasn't paying attention.
"Who are you mad at?"
"What?"
"Next door. Who are you mad at?"
"I'm not mad at anyone," Sadie said. She then told her pathetic story of the events that took place two weeks prior after swearing Julia to secrecy. Afterward, Julia was laughing so hard she couldn't talk.
"It's not funny!" Sadie said exhaustedly, throwing a pillow at her from her bed to where Julia was now sitting at the window seat. Julia threw the pillow back and started to open her curtain to peek out of the window and see how much of the next door neighbor's house was visible.
"Is it this house?" she asked, pointing. "Or is it the one on the other side?"
"Shut the curtain!" Sadie demanded. "Don't look!"
"Oh come on, you can't avoid him forever," said Julia.
"Maybe I can. It's worked so far."
---
The next day Sadie couldn't concentrate. All she could think about was how lousy she felt about the party and how she felt even worse about avoiding Benji. Sure, he hadn't exactly rushed to talk it over with her either, but one of them had to make a move and she was pretty sure it was her responsibility in this case.
"Again, I'm really sorry. Can we just pretend this didn't happen? I was wondering if, y'know, if you're not too busy, you'd maybe be able to grab a cup of coffee ... ugh!" she practiced in her head as she walked across the lawn to the house next door.
She considered going back, but now it would be too awkward. She was already walking up to the porch. Now she was standing in front of the door. She froze. She really had to do this. She pressed the door bell and waited.
A man who looked to be around Benji's age answered the door sleepily. She went through the time in her head. It couldn't be earlier than 4:30pm!
"I'm sorry, did I wake you? I was wondering if Benji was here," she said.
He looked at her suspiciously, unsure of whether or not she was a fan. To be safe, he gave his best clueless look. "Benji?"
Sadie was confused. "Uhh, Benji lives here, right? I'm Sadie ..."
"Oh, Sadie! From next door, right?"
She nodded. "Crap," she thought to herself. Benji told him about me. How else would he have known?
"He's on tour right now. I don't think he'll be stopping back here until around Thanksgiving. They left last week."
"Oh," Sadie sighed, disappointedly.
"I'll tell him you stopped by though," he said.
"No! No, no, it's okay," she said as she started to back up to leave. "It was, um, nice to meet you."
"Oh, my name's Sean, by the way. I'm a friend of the band's."
"Nice to meet you, Sean. I guess I'll see you around," she said awkwardly before turning to walk back.
"See ya," he said back, but he wasn't sure if she had heard him because she was walking so fast.
---
The vibrating in Benji's pocket woke him. He was in his bunk on the tour bus taking a nap. "Huh?"
"Benji?"
"Speaking."
"Hey man, how's it going?" Sean said on the other end.
"Uh, good," Benji said, trying to wake up. "How are things over there?"
"Everything's good. The pool is clear, the lawn is green, and this whole gated neighborhood thing is great. I've run into very few stalkers."
"Good, good."
"Your neighbor Sadie came by this afternoon looking for you," Sean informed him.
"Shit," was all Benji could say. He suddenly felt guilty for not telling her he was leaving.
A few minutes later Benji emerged from the back of the bus where the bunks were to find Billy, Paul, Joel, and Chris talking without noticing him.
"Should we be making a list or something?" Paul asked.
"Naw, lists are for wussy ass mother fuckers," Joel stated plainly. Paul shrugged his shoulders and nodded in agreement.
"List for what?" Benji asked.
"We're going camping!" said Chris.
"Who?"
"All of us! Come on, it will be fun. We play Reno on Thursday night and then we don't play again until Tuesday. We have Friday through Monday to tackle the great out doors," Joel said.
"Whatever, I'm in," Benji said. Before he knew it, they were parked at Wal-Mart. Once inside, they got a cart which Billy pushed and made their way toward the tents.
"We have a bus. Why do we need tents?" Benji questioned.
"You thought we were going to camp in the bus? No way," Joel said.
"What?" cried Benji. "It's like a big RV!"
"We're roughing it," Paul said as he gave Benji a swift pat on the back.
"Fine," Benji said as he began piling random sleeping bags into the cart.
---
"Hello?"
"Mom! I miss you so much," Sadie said on the phone with her mother.
"Hey honey, I miss you too," Christine, her mother, replied.
"I was thinking that maybe I could come home this weekend and visit. Thanksgiving isn't for four more weeks and I don't think I can make it until then," she sighed. She knew her mother would be smiling on the other end. She had told her she'd miss her parents more than she expected to.
"That would be great, Sadie, if you can get a flight. Surely you don't want to spend the whole weekend driving to here and back. We wouldn't get to see each other!"
"I already checked."
"Wow, you really are homesick!" Christine said, amazed. "We were going to go camping this weekend, but I suppose we could put it off until next weekend."
"No! I'll go camping with you guys," Sadie said. She hated camping, but she really needed to get away.
"You're sure you can stand to share a tent with Anna and Aidan?" Anna and Aidan, Sadie's 12 year old twin brother and sister, were hard to be around when a tv was no where in sight.
"I can take it," Sadie said, scrunching her face.
"When should we pick you up at the airport then?"
"2:00 Friday afternoon," she answered.