I Can Save You
Chapter 1
By: Makena
If you want to,
I can save you,
I can take you away from here,
So lonely inside,
So lonely out there,
And all you wanted was for somebody to care...
Benji closed his eyes and let his head rest against the wall. He turned his head phones on - all he wanted was to be left a lone. All he ever wanted was be left alone. The world hadn't been kind to Benji, not even as a small child. He was used to it by now, though, and he didn't care. He didn't like to be noticed anymore, because he hoped if he wasn't noticed, nothing bad could happen.
"BOO!!" a voice yelled in Benji's ear.
Benji's eyes snapped open and he looked around for the source of interruption. Sitting next to him was Billy, grinning.
"What the fuck do you want?" Benji snapped, re-adjusting his headphones.
"I just wanted to know what you wanted for dinner," Billy said, his grin turning into a frown. "We're at a rest stop, so I figured you wanted something."
"I don't want anything," Benji growled. "Leave me alone."
"You don't have to be a bitch about it," Billy muttered. "And don't be such a fucking downer all the time."
Benji didn't say anything and didn't pay any attention to Billy. What he had said hadn't really hurt him - he'd been called a downer most of his life. Bitch was a new word, but he wasn't going to let it bother him. Not at the moment, at least.
Just as he was thinking about how wrong Billy had been about him wanting something, his stomach growled and Benji knew he was hungry. He hadn't really eaten much all day.
'At least we're going home for a couple of days,' Benji thought bitterly with a sigh. He ripped his headphones off his ears and hopped out of the tour bus. They had stopped at a gas station with a Burger King attached to it. He could see Joel and Paul in a heated battle on opposite sides of the restaurant. They shot fries at each other until Joel got poked in the eye and tackled Paul.
"Mature," Benji muttered. He walked into the gas station and looked around for a minute or two. He ended up with a Pepsi and a pack of cigarettes.
"Decided you were hungry after all?" Billy questioned, standing behind Benji to make his own purchase. Benji shrugged and laid his cash out on the counter.
"Sleeping Beauty has awoken!" Joel shouted, walking into the gas station with Paul in a head lock.
"Sleeping Beast," Paul corrected, his face growing red from lack of oxygen.
"That's Beauty and the Beast, dip shit," Joel laughed, giving Paul a noogie.
"Both of you are dumb," Benji said, taking his change and his things. "Shut up."
Neither Paul nor Joel really heard him - if they did, they ignored him again. Billy heard him, but didn't want to say anything. Fights with Benji usually ended up with Benji "leave me the fuck alone" or "I swear to god I forget why I don't just kill myself." Sometimes he DID hurt himself, but he'd never kill himself... right?
"Can we PLEASE just go?" Benji asked, watching Paul chuck stuff at his brother.
"Ohhh," Paul joked. "Sleeping Beauty hasn't really woken up from her nap..."
"NOW it's Sleeping Beast," Joel said, paying for a soda. "Paul would you knock it off already?"
Benji just rolled his eyes and walked back out to their bus, which had moved from the gas pump and somewhere in the parking lot. Not that it was a hard thing to find. He boarded the bus and lit up a cigarette. Once he had gotten everything in order and the bus was rolling down the highway for the millionth time, Benji put his head phones back on and closed his eyes.
----
Home was the same. Nothing new, nothing old. Everything was boring and everything sucked. It was a warm day and Benji was bored out of his mind. He tried going on the internet, but that was always boring, and he tried to watch TV but their cable hadn't been hooked up yet, so there was nothing on.
"Go outside," Joel suggested to Benji. "It's a nice day, anyway."
"I don't see you going outside," Benji retorted, sitting on the counter.
"That's because I have something to do," Joel pointed out. "Plus, your in a bad mood, so you need to leave before my aura is destroyed."
Benji frowned.
"Your aura?" he asked.
Joel grinned and shrugged.
"No clue," he said. "Just go outside, huah? And wear sun screen... you'll burn if you don't."
"Wear sun screen... you'll burn if you don't," Benji mocked behind Joel's back. "Jerk off."
Benji grabbed his CD player and went outside anyway. It was warm so he took his shirt off before he laid down on his stomach for a little nap in his yard. He closed his eyes and listened to Rancid's "And Out Come The Wolves" CD for a while and got all the way to the song "Junkie Man" before he was interrupted.
"You're going to burn if you don't put some sun screen, you know," a hovering voice said.
Benji frowned and looked up for the source of the voice. Standing over him was a girl with long hair and her hands were stuck in her back pockets. He couldn't see her face, because she was standing directly in front of the sun, but he'd be damned if she wasn't a she.
"I don't think I asked you for advice on sun screen," Benji said, trying to go back to sleep.
"That wasn't very nice," the girl said, kneeling down so that she was more level with Benji. "I'm Fey. And you are...?"
"... Tired and pissed," Benji told her. "Go away."
"Oh, come on," Fey said. She wasn't going to give up. "Why don't you start over. Say something like, "I'm Benji, I'm in a band called Good Charlotte and I'm temporarily your neighbor while my brother Joel and I rent out this house, cause we're too busy to actually OWN a house.""
"Okay," Benji said, looking at her and rolling over on his side. "I'm Benji, I'm in a band called Good Charlotte and I'm temporarily your neighbor while my brother and I rent out this house, cause we're too busy to actually OWN a house." Benji paused, then added "-And YOU are a stalker."
Fey laughed.
"Actually, I already talked to Joel," she said. "And I don't listen to "punk" anyway."
"Good," Benji said, rolling back over on his stomach.
Fey grinned.
"You remind me of a song by Michelle Branch," she said, ignoring the fact that Benji was trying to turn the volume of his CD player up. Benji coughed and took his headphones off.
"Excuse me?" he said, turning to face her.
"I said you remind me of a song by Michael Branch," Fey repeated. "That one- I forgot the title, but its something like, "if you want to, I can save you, I can take you away from here..." Have you heard it?"
"No," Benji said coldly. "I hate Michael Branch." He paused. "Why does that song remind you of me?"
Fey rolled her eyes and pressed her hands in the soft grass, as if she was about to stand up.
"Have you looked in the mirror lately?" she asked Benji.
She was referring to his tattoos, his piercing, his spiked up hair with the pink patch and the eye makeup that made him look unapproachable. Benji rolled his eyes and looked her up and down. She was, more or less, a prep in his eyes - she had on the flare jeans and a light pink shirt with the collar on it that was buttoned once up by her chest to show a white tank top underneath. Her long hair was light brown and was pulled back in a part pony tail.
"I'm serious about the sun screen," she told him, starting to walk away. "Don't say I didn't warn you."
Benji watched her walk across the street to the small one story house that was across from his own home.
"Bitch," he muttered, listening to his CD player again.