I Can Save You
Chapter 5
By: Makena
Benji found himself in the passenger's seat yet again with Fey behind the wheel, riding off into the west. Fey's hair was down and it was blowing everywhere in the wind. They both wore sunglasses to block out the sun as they traveled down the busy freeway.
"Need a restroom break yet?" Fey asked, half yelling above the wind that rushed past their ears.
"Sure," Benji said, nodding incase Fey hadn't heard.
"I need gas anyway," Fey said, and Benji wasn't sure if she was talking to him or herself.
She pulled off into a random gas station that looked like it had the lowest prices per gallon and stopped the car.
"You wanna drive next?" she asked, leaning against her car.
Benji shrugged as he unbuckled his seat belt and let himself out of Fey's convertible. Fey glanced at her watch and softly held her upper arms, pacing up and down.
"Okay, I gotta pee," she said, glancing at Benji. "Would you mind filling the tank?"
Again Benji shrugged. Fey smiled and quickly walked off in the direction of the conveyance store. Benji watched her for a minuet before hooking the gas pump into the tank. He leaned against the body of the car, crossing his arms as he waited for the tank to fill.
"Oh my god!! You're Benji from Good Charlotte!!"
Benji growled under his breath and glanced over in the direction of who had made the observation. To his right stood a girl around the age of fourteen wearing red and black sweat bands on her wrists and a backwards truckers hat. Around her neck was a red striped tie with safety pins running up and down. He groaned and rolled his eyes, trying to ignore her.
'Please don't let her come over,' he prayed silently. 'Just... make her go away!'
He made a side glance in the girl's direction to see that she was making her way over with an eccentric grin spread across her face.
"Fuck," he muttered.
"Hey!" the girl said as she approached him. "You're Benji from Good Charlotte!"
"You said that," Benji told her through clenched teeth, resisting the urge to add "bitch" at the end.
"I'm Ashley," the girl continued. "Can I get your autograph?"
Benji groaned and turned towards her. "Do you have anything? Paper? Pen?"
From her back pocket, Ashley extracted a folded piece of note book paper and a black sharpie. Benji took them from her and quickly signed his name, thankful she didn't have a camera.
"Thank you so much!" the girl said, beginning to freak out a little. "Hey - where are the others? Are they here, too?!"
Benji hesitated. "They're..."
"Benji! There you are! Are you ready to go?"
Benji and Ashley both looked up and saw Fey, walking towards the convertible with a plastic bag of food.
"Who's that?" Ashley asked.
"She's just..."
"I'm his girlfriend," Fey interrupted, adding a grin. "Who are you?"
Ashley replied with a sulky expression and a cross of the arms as she pocketed her sharpie and autograph.
"Thanks again," she muttered to Benji before walking towards a blue mini van. Benji looked over at Fey, letting out a grin.
"There's your smile," Fey said with a slight laugh. She skipped around the car and let herself into the passenger's seat. Benji rolled his eyes and opened the driver's door, sliding into the drivers seat.
---
Joel typed in his password and scanned the messages in his in-box: there were some spam porn messages and some other messages from fans who had some how found his address. Other than that, mostly nothing. Joel sighed.
'Of course he wouldn't e-mail me,' Joel thought, putting his head in his hands, tired as hell. 'He hates the internet.'
Joel sighed again as he propped his elbow up on the computer desk, resting his head in his hand as he stared blankly at the screen and reached for the beer bottle next to him. He took a drink before wiping his mouth and sitting up again.
'Alright,' he thought to himself, blinking twice before using the "hunt and peck" method while typing in a new address. 'Lets try this again.'
He sighed as the site loaded. Before the site could fully load, some one knocked on the front door. Joel groaned and got up, taking his time as he walked towards the door. He swung it open, squinting in the noon day sunlight before making out the figures of Billy and Paul. Paul rolled his eyes at Joel's pathetic form - his hair was a mess and he hadn't shaved yet that day. He was wearing a white wife beater and a pair of boxers.
"Nice," Paul commented. Joel sighed slightly to himself and opened the door wider to let his friends in. He walked back to his computer where he sat back down and selected "interact" and "message board."
"Jesus," Paul muttered, watching as Joel searched their own web site. "What are you doing, Joel?"
"I'm looking for some sign of Benji," Joel explained, scanning the titles of the posted messages. "You can always rely on the public to tell you where someone's been."
Paul glanced at Billy, who rolled his eyes slightly as he shrugged. Joel scanned titles and paused at a message titled "I met Benji!! (and his whore girlfriend)." Joel clicked into it and read the messages.
i'm so fu˘kin' psyched u guys! i met benji yesterday @ the gas station somewhere out of Toledo, Ohio!! i donno where the other guys were @, but its still kool to meet benji! also, his fu˘kin gf was there - whore!!
Joel read the message again as he took another sip of beer.
"Benji is in Ohio," he said finally. "He hasn't gotten too far, yet... there's still time."
"Time?" Billy repeated. "Time for what?"
"To find him!" Joel explained, clicking the internet away. "Bring him back."
Again, Billy and Paul looked between each other and shrugged. Billy glanced at Joel and paused, trying to think over in his mind what to say.
"Joel... Benji is... he isn't content with what he has," he began slowly. "It's like keeping a bird in a cage, I guess. There's no way you can keep a bird locked up in a cage when you know they're meant to fly... and don't think I'm getting all mushy or something, because I'm not. I'm just sayin', and that's about as easy as I can say it."
Joel frowned slightly. "I didn't hold him back, though!"
"No..." Billy agreed. "But... bringing him back because you WANT him back is greedy. And it's like I said before - you can't do that, cause then he's gonna be a little sad. Confined. Get it?"
Joel shook his head, rising from his chair to face his friends.
"I gotta bring him back, Billy," he said. "You don't understand. He could do something stupid out there... fuckin' kill himself or something. He has to come back."
"Joel, he's gone," Paul said as gently as he could force himself to be. "Let it go."
"I can't!" Joel said. "I can't... he's... no!" He paused and fell back into his chair, his head in his hands. He sighed to himself before wiping his eyes - he wouldn't allow himself. "Fuck... he's fucking gone, isn't he?"
Paul nodded and knelt down beside his friend, patting him softly on the back.