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“I uh, I really need someone to drive me to the library,” the kid said, and Ben didn't think of himself as a bad guy, but there was not being a bad guy and being a softie who got made fun of for being a pushover, and it was very, abundantly clear what would happen if he offered some kid he didn't even know a ride to the library.
So Ben said, “Sorry, kid, but I don't even know who you are.” He hoped they weren't in any classes together. He might feel a little awkward about that, about this kid telling him Oh, I've been sitting two rows behind you for almost a year and I think you're great.
Instead the kid said, “Oh, right. I'm Reed. Reed Richards.” He didn't hold out his hand or anything.
“Reed Reed Richards, huh?” Ben said. Teasing, because he felt himself start to give in. “That's a funny name. What happened, your parents couldn't come up with a second name?”
“No,” Reed said. “No, I'm sorry. My first name is just Reed,” and Ben wondered if the kid was setting himself up for another joke on purpose - like, he had to know, didn't he? This wasn't advanced algebra or Shakespearean wit: this was basic human interaction.
He said, “Fine, I'll drive you.”
Ben meant it to be a one time thing. A no big thing thing. A look, I'm not an asshole kind of thing.
“Hey, Reed? Got a sec?” What Reed got was a book that looked like most adults would have a hard time with it.
And Ben had interrupted him, and Ben could see the way Reed kind of minded. The way Reed felt annoyed that in the middle of a school day, in the middle of a very public space, someone would interrupt him like this. But then Reed saw it was him, and Ben could almost see the way Reed re-categorized him from nuisance to friend, which was nuts, obviously, because Ben was pretty sure they weren't friends. They weren't anything.
Reed said, “Oh, Ben. hi. I don't need a ride to the library right now, thank you.”
“So that's what I am to you, huh?” Ben said. “Some kind of personal chauffeur?”
“I'm working on getting my driver's license,” Reed said, as if Ben had asked. “Only it's more difficult than I expected. And I suppose it doesn't feel so very urgent anymore, now that I have you.”
“I drove you to the library one time,” Ben said. “One time. And that was just because it was raining.”
“No, it wasn't.” Reed frowned. “Was it? I didn't notice. I think I would have noticed. Does this mean your availability is dependent on the weather?”
“Pal,” Ben said. “Please. You're … ” but none of the words that came to mind were words Ben wanted to say out loud. He knew, sure he knew, the type of words people used for people like Reed, but they weren't nice. They were hurtful, and Reed hadn't done anything to deserve being hurt. He was a bit awkward, that was all. A bit weird, sure. Unusual. Nothing wrong with being weird and unusual.
And Reed hadn't said anything at all while they were driving, except at the end, when he'd told Ben, “Thank you,” and Ben had said, “No problem, pal,” and Ben figured that well, that had been a perfectly normal interaction, at least, and then he'd gone home, feeling good about himself.
“I'm being pushy, aren't I? People tell me I'm pushy,” Reed said. “They tell me that I jump to conclusions too quickly, based on insufficient evidence.”
“Maybe a little bit, yeah,” Ben said. “But hey, knowing what the problem is means you're halfway to solving it, right?”
“That is actually completely wrong,” Reed said. “Sorry if I was pushy. Can I still ask you for a ride to the library next time I need one?”
“Sure,” Ben said, and it wasn't until he was walking away that he remembered he'd meant to ask Reed for help with his physics homework.
And the thing was, Reed did kind of seem to think of Ben as his personal chauffeur. Ben never turning him down probably didn't help though, so Ben figured he was more or less okay with that.
“You uh, you know that if you ever need something from me, you can ask, right?” Reed said during one of their drives.
“Yeah.” Ben had a car. He had a part-time job. He had a girlfriend. He got good grades. His life, in general, was pretty good, and if he had no idea what he wanted to do once he finished high school, well, him and just about everyone else.
“Because we're friends,” Reed said. “And that is what friends do. They help each other.”
“Uh-huh,” Ben said. Reed didn't usually talk this much during their rides.
“I feel like you're always the one helping me.”
“And that bothers you?” Ben asked. “Why? I got a car, you don't. I know how to drive, you don't. It's not that deep, pal.”
“I do know how to drive,” Reed said. “In theory.”
“In theory,” Ben echoed.
“I could build this car,” Reed said. “As a matter of fact, I could build a better car. I could build a car that goes twice as fast on half the gas. I could build a car that runs on water or solar power. I'm very smart, Ben.”
“I know you are,” Ben said.
“Good,” Reed said. He sounded relieved. Finished.
Ben imagined driving a car that ran on solar power. It seemed pretty cool, except that a car that ran on solar power might also be a car that stopped running as soon as it got dark or started raining, and Ben could see a couple of drawbacks to that. “So is that what you're going to do with your life? Invent new cars and then build them?”
“Oh, no,” Reed said. “I don't really care about stuff like that. I mean, cars are just so ... they're very nice, of course. It's a good thing we've got cars. But I think that we're going to move beyond them at some point.”
“Really?” Ben tried to imagine a world without cars. “Huh.”
“No, what I'm working on right now is ... I'm working on a way to get to space. I'm designing a spaceship.”
Going to space wasn't much easier to imagine than a world without cars. Seemed a lot more fun though. Ben liked cars. He liked things that went very fast - and a spaceship sounded like something that'd have to go pretty fast.
“But, I mean, isn't a spaceship just a car that can go into space?” he asked.
Reed blinked. “That's - yes, I suppose it is. If that is how you want to look at it.”
Ben grunted.
“I don't think it's quite the same thing, but I do see your point,” Reed said.
“That point being that if you ever build this spaceship of yours, you'd better not ask anyone else to drive it?”
“I don't think there are any libraries in outer space,” Reed said.
“Says who?” Ben said.