The Saving of Benjamin Chambers (The Uni Files)

The Saving of Benjamin Chambers (The Uni Files) by Anna Bloom Page A

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Authors: Anna Bloom
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be.
    “You know, that you never have a girlfriend and don’t plan to have one.”
    Is this what people think? That I don’t actually want to have a girlfriend? They have got it so laughably wrong. I do want one. I just don’t want any one, and I really don’t want to sleep around while I wait for whoever she is to turn up. It makes me feel cheap and used. Obviously I am only human, a male human, (so I only contain limited self-control) therefore have downfalls like last night. Then I have to spend the next day explaining why I probably won’t be in contact, and it’s just too painful so I have pretty much given up bothering.
    Naked Caitlin, to her credit, seems to understand though.
    “Don’t worry, Ben, as pretty as you are I can see that you have more baggage than Heathrow, and I am not so keen for that either.” She starts walking around gathering her stuff and then struggles into her clothes, which look like they have been applied with spray paint.
    “Oh, okay.” Blimey.
    “I will see you later at the pub, yeah?” she asks.
    She doesn’t give me a chance to say that she probably won’t before she grabs her bag and heads out my bedroom door.
    Well that was very easy. Maybe too easy.
    I dash straight into the bathroom where I stand under the steaming hot water until I feel like I may be as near to clean as I am going to get.
    This is not the start to the day I was hoping for. I have two very clear things on my agenda, and an uncomfortable conversation with a naked girl was not one of them.
    Firstly, I need to get Christmas shopping. I am going home tomorrow and right now I have no gifts to give to anyone and I am not sure the ‘Christmas Handshake’ is going to cut it two years in a row.
    Secondly, and probably more importantly, I need to build up the courage to tell the others that I am quitting the band.
    It’s going to be a tough conversation and one I am not looking forward to, but after nine years of being in the band I just need to have something more. Or something different at the very least.
    They would be blind if they haven’t seen the news coming. My enthusiasm has been lacking for a while and I can’t remember the last time I came up with new lyrics or just sat and played my guitar. The only time I play now is on stage, the same set over and over and over again. It’s soulless, and I am becoming soulless because of it.
    It’s going to stop today. I have no plan whatsoever to play with Sound Box again after the Christmas Break. I am going to leave the band where it belongs in 2011. Hopefully in my past. That’s my New Year’s Resolution and the only one I am going to bother to make.

Why Eight Pints is Always too Much
    I find Dave in the kitchen buttering and jamming some toast. He has been my best friend for as far back as my memory goes although sometimes I struggle to remember the reasons why.
    “Hey, big guy.” He pauses his studious digging in the jam jar to greet me. “How was last night?” He wiggles his eyebrows, and I grimace in response.
    “I don’t know, I can’t remember.”
    “Well it sounded good through the wall.”
    “Dave, that’s disgusting.”
    “Just saying. It sounded like Caitlin was having a great time. She was screaming the place down. Still got the old Chambers magic, hey?”
    “Hardly old! I am only bloody twenty-four!”
    “Yeah with the virtues of a granny.”
    “Sod off.”
    He gives a whatever shrug.
    “Want some toast?”
    “Yeah, okay.”
    He slides a slice towards me.
    I reckon it is about eighty percent jam, twenty percent toast. I am more of a Marmite guy so I slide it back over to him.
    Dave gives a little shrug and picks it up and shoves it in his mouth.
    “Why did you let me leave with her?” I ask. I’m glad I don’t have any graphic visual images to accompany my question. My memory is blissfully blank, and I don’t recall any screaming, but I stir a mug of coffee to distract myself from the prospect of remembering. There is a

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