Saving Ben by Ashley H. Farley Page A

after lunch on the second Saturday in November. Even though she was all bundled up against the cold, her face and neck and the outline of her legs through her jeans told me she’d lost even more weight since Labor Day. Her parents came up to the room with Abby on the pretense of meeting my roommate, but I knew they were scouting out the place to make sure it was safe for their daughter. They didn’t hand me a list of special instructions, like making sure Abby got plenty to eat, but the manner in which they turned their daughter over to me—the concerned glances at one another and their hesitancy to leave—reminded me of a new mother trusting her infant child with a babysitter for the first time. These nervous people were not the same parents who once let Abby and me spend our days running wild on the creek. Had things gotten so bad with her eating disorder that her parents were afraid to let her out of their sight?
    Abby brought with her a fresh batch of blonde brownies and four fifty-yard-line tickets to Saturday’s football game against Duke, a gift from her father’s colleague who was unable to use them due to a prior engagement. We texted Ben to bring a friend and come sit with us, but when he didn’t respond, Abby was kind enough to invite Emma to tag along. The tickets were ideal, midway up and dead center on the fifty, but the crowd around us was too tame for our taste. When the Cavaliers scored a touchdown within a minute of the half to tie the ballgame, 14–14, we could no longer contain our excitement and joined our peers in the student section on the other side of the stadium.
    “Isn’t that Ben down there?” Abby pointed at my brother who was sitting seven or eight rows in front of us, flirting and laughing with the girl next to him. “Is that his girlfriend?”
    I nodded. “She’s pretty, isn’t she? Her name is Maddie Maloney. They’ve been dating for a couple of months now.”
    Emma removed a flask from her shoulder bag, took a gulp from her Coke, and filled her cup to the brim with bourbon. “Want some?” she asked, holding the flask out to Abby and me.
    When I waved her away, Abby followed my lead. Normally I would’ve accepted, but I didn’t want to encourage my anorexic friend to put any unhealthy substances into her feeble body.
    “Where’d Emma go?” I asked Abby, five minutes into the second half when I realized Emma was no longer beside Abby. We scanned the crowd until we saw her making her way toward Ben like a torpedo searching through the waters for its target. She wedged herself between Reed and Spotty, who were sitting directly in front of Ben. Pulling her flask out of her bag again, she offered it first to Reed and Spotty before turning around to Ben, as if realizing for the first time that he was there.
    I rolled my eyes at Abby. “She’s a smooth one, isn’t she?”
    Abby nodded. “She’s trying to make Ben jealous. Just like on Labor Day weekend. What’s going on between the two of them?”
    I explained to Abby about how Emma had manipulated Ben for a date to the Monster Bash. “Poor Maddie doesn’t stand a chance against my roommate. If Emma wants Ben, she’ll find a way to have him.” Sure enough, halfway through the fourth quarter, Maddie got up and stormed off.
    After the game, in an effort to avoid Ben and Emma, I guided Abby out the opposite end of the stadium from the crowd. Temperatures had risen quite a bit during the day, leaving us with a mild and pleasant evening. We took our time in wandering down to the Corner. Abby’s parents had made me promise to take her to the College Inn for a burger—one of their favorite hangouts when they were students at UVA twenty-five years ago. Abby settled into our booth as though she’d been there many times. When our burgers came, I gobbled mine down, but she only nibbled on hers, pinching tiny pieces off her bun without touching the meat.
    “Are you just gonna pick at that?” I asked her. “Go ahead. Take a