Authors: Wesley Banks
After walking on to the team, Ben was offered a full scholarship to keep running at the University of Florida. A lot of the athletes dormed here because they were on scholarship. They weren’t the best dorms on campus, but they weren’t the worst either.
Ben thought back to the light blue house on Citrus Drive, right next to Forest High School. The mailbox outside that looked like a bird house, and the handprints made in wet concrete when they fixed a block on the sidewalk. It had become so lonely and quiet. He looked around the dorm room again. These dorms, they were his new home.
Ben pulled the blinds open and the late morning sun washed over the room with a phalanx of yellow rays.
Parker made a noise that sounded more like a cat dying than a person waking up.
“Rise and shine, sunshine,” Ben said.
Parker made another indistinguishable sound.
“I’m going to go for a short run and stop by Broward Dining for some lunch. You want to go?”
Parker finally responded with actual words. “No, man, I’m good.”
“All right, I should be back in a few hours.”
* * *
A myriad of numbers and equations were still floating around Ben’s mind, but the sun felt good against his skin as he ran.
He jogged for about an hour. At first away from campus down Museum Road, and then back toward campus up Hull and Mowry. He took a left on Gale Lemerand, passing the empty parking lot normally filled with giant RVs during football season, and then a right back on Museum Road in front of the Physics Lawn that was mostly empty.
He jogged up the slight incline in front of the campus theater, which he couldn’t recall the name of, and ended up in front of the Reitz Union.
A small group of students that he didn’t recognize said, “Hey,” as he passed, and a guy from another group shouted, “Good luck against Missouri,” which made absolutely zero sense because the meet this weekend was in Texas and Missouri wasn’t even one of the schools invited.
Ben just raised his hand in acknowledgment and mouthed the words, “Thanks, man,” as he passed.
He’d been receiving a lot of attention ever since he broke the school record during the first meet of the season, and then the conference record during the Texas Relays last weekend.
It wasn’t going over well with some of the guys on the team who thought he was showboating, but he didn’t really care.
Ben looked over to his right as he passed McCarty Hall and then felt a strange metallic crunch under his foot. He stopped running and looked down at the sidewalk, several beads of sweat running across his face. He bent over and picked up a pair of keys and a light gray UF ID card that belonged to “Casey Taylor…”
“Thank you,” he heard before he could finish reading the name on the card.
He looked up to see a girl drawing in a couple of sharp, labored breaths. She had light blonde hair just long enough for a ponytail, several strands falling away on each side of her face. Her left hand was resting on her hip as her right hung loose at her side. She was wearing gray cotton shorts that were slightly curled at the ends, like they had been cut from a pair of sweatpants. Her top was a light purple color and clung tightly to a bright pink sports bra despite the outline of a heart rate monitor beneath.
“I think those are mine,” she said, pointing to the keys that Ben was still holding.
His eyes followed the soft tan that stretched over her body.
Ben brushed the card against his shorts, wiping it clean, and handed both the card and keys to her. “Sorry, I kind of stepped on them.”
She tucked the key fob below the elastic waistband of her shorts and held onto the card. “Thanks again,” she said, motioning a slight wave goodbye.
“You don’t like to listen to music when you run?” Ben blurted out.
She squinted her eyes. “What?”
“Music,” Ben said again. “I just noticed you’re not listening to any.”
“Oh, umm, no, I just kind of prefer to get lost in my thoughts.”
“Me too,” he said. “It just helps…” He paused looking for the right word.
“Quiet things down a bit,” she finished.
Ben smiled. “Exactly.” He stepped forward and held out his hand. “I’m Ben.” Before she could respond, a girl on rollerblades came whirling into him, arms flailing.
Casey stepped back as Ben caught her.
“Oh my gosh. I’m so sorry,” the girl said. She tried to right her balance, but as she moved backwards she almost fell again.
Ben grabbed her arms, steadying her. “You okay?”
The girl looked up and smiled at him. “Yeah. I think.”
Ben moved away and towards Casey, still standing there watching everything unfold. “Okay, well…”
“Hey, aren’t you Benson Wilder?” the girl said. She waved over another girl also on roller blades.
“Uhh, yeah,” he said, looking back over at Casey. “Just call me Ben, though, please”
The two girls were now completely blocking him from Casey. “Oh my gosh. We were at your last race. You are so fast.”
Casey laughed lightly and then started to turn away again.
Ben put his arm on the girl’s shoulder in front of him. “It was great meeting you, but I need to…” He saw her step into a light jog. “Wait.”
Casey looked back briefly, but kept moving in the other direction.
“Can I get your number? Your email? Your name?”
She held up the card. “You have my name,” she said with a smile. Then she jogged away.
The two girls were talking between each other and then looked at him and asked, “Don’t you have a race this weekend against Missouri?”
He just stood there, shaking his head.
3
Girls
April 2, 2015
Eddie Clark and Jimmy Garcia stood up from the table. Eddie ran hurdles and Jimmy was a sprinter. They both leaned over and bumped fists with Parker. When they looked towards Ben, he took a sip of his drink and ignored them.
“Alright, Parker, we’ll catch you later.”
“Alright, guys,” Parker said. He looked over at Ben after they were out of earshot. “Why do you do that shit?”
“They don’t deserve to even be here,” Ben said as he watched them make their way through the maze of tables. “They don’t take it seriously.”
“No one takes it seriously compared to you,” Parker said.
“Whatever, man, let’s go.” Ben stood up and walked his tray over to the trash cans along the wall and Parker followed.
Parker looked right at him as he turned around. “Holy shit, are you still caught up on this girl?”
Ben didn’t respond. He just swung the door open and exited the Reitz Union. They both headed down twenty or so steps until they were walking across the north lawn. Hundreds of students were scattered across several acres of grass. Some were in bathing suits on their beach towels, silently affirming the fact that they attended the University of Florida for nothing more than a good tan and an increased shot at skin cancer. Meanwhile, others were simply lying against their backpacks, thankful for the shade of the huge laurel oaks. Sidewalks crisscrossed the cropped lawn, where even more students stood in groups talking, or hurried in directions likely opposite of the class they should be attending.
Parker was finishing off the last of his fourth Subway cookie. He ate it in two bites, as if he hadn’t also just had a foot-long meatball sub and about a gallon of soda.
Ben just shook his head. Parker was about three inches taller than him and twenty pounds lighter, regardless of what he ate. He looked the part of a collegiate runner. His DNA was the thing runners dreamed of. Only problem was he didn’t actually care that much about running. He was here on scholarship too, but running more or less got in the way of everything else for him. And by everything else, that pretty much just meant girls.
“So, what am I supposed to do now?” Ben asked.
Either Parker was ignoring him or he was busy checking out anything with a skirt and legs. Most likely the latter.
“Earth to Parker.”
Parker pried his eyes away from a tan blonde with a low cut top. “What? Yeah, I heard you.”
“And…?” Ben said.
“And…nothing. We’ll probably pass twenty more blondes on the way to class. Just pick one.”
He wasn’t entirely wrong. A few seconds later another cute girl walked by and Parker nearly tripped as he jerked his head around. Parker looked over at Ben with raised eyebrows. “See what I mean? Why are you so hung up on this girl anyways? You talked to her for what, a few minutes?”
“I don’t know man, it’s…it’s …she was just like gravity.”
“Gravity?”
“I don’t know how else to describe it. I just feel this pull.”
“Holy shit man, you sound like Nicholas Sparks.”
“Who?” Ben asked.
“Nicholas Sparks. You know,
The Notebook
,
The Last Song
,
The Longest Ride
…” Parker stopped talking when he saw Ben laughing.
“Do you like to get in your jammies with a bowl of ice cream and cuddle with your cat while you read love stories?”
“Sometimes I hate you.”
“I’m picturing it now. It’s so cute,” Ben joked.
The sidewalk forked to the right and Ben turned towards McCarty Hall. “See you at practice?” Ben asked.
“Unfortunately,” Parker said
Ben kept walking towards Carleton Auditorium, but all he could think about was Casey Taylor.
4
Camouflage
April 2, 2015
By the time he got there, all the lights were turned off in the auditorium full of about four hundred students. He found an empty spot towards the back left. Looking around, he noticed half of the students were at least making an attempt to watch the video about camouflage among animals in nature. The other half were either scrolling mindlessly through Instagram or drooling on their backpack as they slept. Wildlife Studies was probably the stupidest class in the history of college classes.
Everyone took it because it satisfied three of the required six “B” credits, which stood for biological studies. Most people think that colleges make some freshman classes difficult to weed out those who can’t cut it. The opposite is actually true. They make some classes so incredibly easy to weed out those who would be better off not wasting the best four years of their life learning about camouflaged frogs.
He tried to join some of the other students and pulled up Instagram on his phone. When Parker had found out Ben wasn’t on social media, he set up Ben’s Instagram and Facebook. Apparently those are must haves for looking up hot girls you meet—and to give Parker credit, as soon as his account went active, he quickly racked up hundreds of followers, most of them girls. Still, he thought back to all the stupid stuff Parker did. He couldn’t believe he was actually following advice from a guy who once ran a race with two left shoes.
He started to type her name into the search field, but the kid next to him hit Ben’s arm with a stack of papers. Ben looked over at the kid, a little confused.
“Take one and pass it on, man.”
Ben grabbed the stack, taking the top sheet off before passing the stack to the girl on his left. He looked down at the paper in front of him, focusing on the bold black letters at the top of the page that read “QUIZ.”
Shit.
For a moment he was a little nervous. Then he read the first question.
“Animals use camouflage in the wild as a defense mechanism. True or False?”
Like I was saying, weed out class.
5
Facebook
April 2, 2015
Parker unlocked the door to their dorm room, and Ben walked in behind him.
“I can’t believe we’re still talking about this girl,” Parker said.
“Just help me look for like ten minutes. If she’s not on Facebook or Instagram or whatever other social media crap you have on your phone, then I’ll stop talking about her. Deal?”
Parker thought about it for a minute. “No.”
“No? Seriously?”
Parker tossed his backpack on the floor and it slid underneath his desk. “If I help you,” he paused, “then you owe me.”
“Okay, whatever.”
Parker sat down at Ben’s desk, pulled up Instagram on his laptop, and punched in her name: Casey Taylor. Thank goodness for IDs.
“There are fifty-one Casey Taylor’s on Instagram. Most of them are ‘private,’ though.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you can scan through these tiny-ass profile pictures, but that’s it.”
Ben leaned over his shoulder while Parker scrolled through them.
“Well?” Parker asked.
Ben’s eyes scanned down the center of the page over each of the circular profile pictures in the drop-down menu. Not a single one was the right Casey Taylor. “None of them are her,” he said.
“Alright, let’s try something else.” Parker switched to Facebook and typed in her name again. There were only twenty-two results, and more than half were spelled “Cassey” or “Kasey.” Of the seven remaining there was a freelance photographer, a manager of relations, a musician, a host of some weird television show, and then staring back at Ben, a doctor.
Ben pointed to the screen. “Holy cow, that’s her.”
Ben watched as Parker clicked on her picture. A little box on the left popped up that read:
Studied medicine at University of California.
Graduated in 2014.
Lives in Gainesville, FL.
Born March 23, 1990.
Work. Ask to see info.
“Can we ask to see info?” Ben asked.
Parker looked back and laughed at him. “That’s not really how that works, man.”
“Okay, well, then it’s pretty dumb to put that button there.”
“I have so much to teach you young Padawan…” Parker said.
The rest of her profile was pretty empty. Parker explained that she hadn’t updated her timeline in several years, which meant she probably forgot she was even on Facebook. It didn’t matter, though; at least he had a starting point of how to find Casey Taylor.