Chapter Twenty
Charlie
Ruby is mad at me.
Somehow this is the one outcome I didn’t expect.
Maybe the best-case scenario I’d imagined was her saying I love you but not like that, and this doesn’t change anything about our friendship. Instead, she couldn’t get away from me fast enough. Watching her walk away with her arms wrapped around herself, head bent, not looking back . . .
A dull headache builds behind my eyes as I leave the Treehouse, turning the opposite way into the park, giving Ruby enough time to get home without our paths crossing. I wander for twenty minutes, stuck on the same question. Is this a moment? Or the end of an era? Did I truly ruin the friendship?
It’s such a big thing to consider that it makes me queasy, the misery deepening as I walk.
When I find myself near the giant troll sculpture at the north end of the park, I give up.
Her name is Malin, and she’s eighteen feet tall.
Ruby and I visit her on our way out of the park every time we come, and Ruby leaves an offering in the plate Malin holds.
A pretty rock. An interesting leaf. A flower petal.
Tiny Ruby’s absence would far outweigh the giant troll’s presence.
I can’t stay in the park. I can’t go home to stare at my own four walls and replay our conversation until I lose my mind. I can’t stand this.
I text Oliver.
You around?
Yeah. Need something?
Advice.
Come over.
Anyone else there?
Madison. Okay or not okay?
. . .
. . .
Okay
I can ask her to give us privacy
She should stay. Be there shortly.
Ten minutes later, Oliver opens his door before I can even knock.
“You okay, man?” he asks, stepping aside to wave me in.
“Not really.” In the living room, Madison is on the floor with Smudge in her lap, and she looks up with concerned eyes.
“What’s wrong?” she asks as I settle on the sofa in front of a sweating bottle of beer.
Oliver nods at it. “Drink if you need it.”
Not sure a beer ever helped do anything but cool me on a hot day. Doesn’t seem like it’s going to do much for the queasiness. I leave it untouched.
“Did something . . .” Madison starts to ask, but she trails off when Oliver shakes his head.
I appreciate both of them. I do need to talk, but I need a minute first.
Madison goes back to petting Smudge, and Oliver settles into an armchair and fiddles with his phone, taking a swig of his own drink.
I lean back against the sofa and stare at the ceiling for a minute before I say, “Ruby and I had a fight.”
“You sure you want me here for this?” Madison asks. “Because even if it’s her fault, all my advice is going to be about trying to fix you guys.”
“I’m sure.”
I can’t see them, but I can feel them exchanging glances. They must decide Oliver is the one for this.
“What was the fight about?” he asks.
I sigh and sit up. “Remember last year when you told me I should tell Ruby how I feel, and I told you to drop it?”
“Distinctly,” says Oliver.
Madison’s eyebrows go up, but she doesn’t seem surprised I have “feelings.” Maybe surprised that I’m bringing it up.
Me too, friend. Me too.
I flop back against the cushion. “I did, and then we fought.”
Madison gapes at me. “You told her?!”
She’s acting like I gave away one of her deeply guarded secrets. “Yes, Mads. Because honesty. Let me repeat that your man was telling me to do it last summer.”
“Oh, I see. This is my fault.” Oliver nods like this makes perfect sense.
“Let’s go with that.” I appreciate that he’s playing this low-key.
He cracks his knuckles. “Give me some details, and I’ll fix it.”
Like it’s that easy to explain everything. But . . . I don’t know. Maybe it is.
I struggle up enough to rest my elbows on my knees. “Short version is I probably fell for Ruby the first time we worked together. But I talked myself out of it because she was in a relationship. Except the feelings didn’t go away. Instead, they . . .”
“Lurked?” Oliver suggests.
I nod. “When they broke up, it broke the seal too.”
She and Oliver trade another look, but they stay quiet, waiting for me to unreel the story at my own pace. I tilt my head and watch her. Where is her inquisition?
“Madison,” I say slowly. “Don’t you have a bunch of questions for me, like why I told you I only care about Ruby as a friend?”
“No. I didn’t believe you. You should have let us help.”
“That would be bringing a nuke to a knife fight.”
Oliver smiles when Madison sighs and mutters, “Yeah, okay.”
“I’ve spent the past few weeks trying to get Ruby to see me in a different light.” I explain my plan, from the dating app to pickleball. “But my friend Sydney helped me realize it wasn’t working, and that I needed to be straight with Ruby.”
I expect two more nods, but Oliver looks thoughtful and Madison looks uncertain.
“You don’t agree?” I ask.
“Not sure,” Oliver says.
“Your first instinct with Ruby might have been right,” Madison says.
“Over being honest?” There’s no way. I can’t believe Oliver especially isn’t advocating for being direct.
“You can be honest without words,” Madison says. “But tell us about the fight.”
I do, finishing with a slump against the sofa as I picture Ruby trudging away.
“Why did Ruby get mad? She has to know my intentions were good. She knows me.” That’s what unsettles me the most. Feeling like I’m suddenly not Charlie to her.
Or that what it means to be Charlie is suddenly different in her eyes.
Madison settles back to the floor, squeezes her eyes shut, and heaves a big sigh. “I got this.”
She sounds grumpy about it, and I send Oliver a questioning look. He presses his lips together to fight a smile.
Madison opens her eyes. “I’ve been listening to some therapy podcasts, and I’ve learned that I’ve been acting out for several years.”
I shoot Oliver another look. She needed a podcast to figure that out? Anyone who knows her could have told her that. But Oliver avoids eye contact.
“I act out when I’m angry,” she says. “Anger is usually about something else though, so you have to pick it apart. Lucky for you, I might have the whole anger section of the emotion wheel memorized.”
Emotion wheel? I mouth to Oliver.
Another slight nod.
“Could Ruby have been frustrated? Resentful? Anxious? Scared?” Her eyes widen. “Betrayed?”
“What? Madi, no. I didn’t betray anything.”
Oliver gives a maybe-yes-maybe-no side-to-side head nod. “You changed the rules.”
“Ruby likes rules,” Madison says.
“When she makes them,” I point out.
“Yes. Exactly.” Madi smiles like I correctly identified the color of the bear in a story time book.
“I didn’t betray her. Your wheel is broken.” That brings Ruby’s words back. “That’s what she said. She said I broke things.”
“Babe, what do you think?” Oliver asks Madison. “Scared?”
She nods. “Pretty sure that’s it. You know Ruby. She is so attached to her people.”
“We’re still attached,” I say.
“But it’s changing,” Madison says. “She has a hard time with that. She’s had the same best friend since they were eight. Same roommates now that she had when we were college freshmen babies.”
“Don’t you think that’s why her breakup was hard?” Oliver asks. “That her ex was a five-year habit and it was a change, not that she missed him?”
“I do, yeah,” I say. “But this is different. I told her we would be fine eventually.”
Now it’s Madison who does the side-to-side head thing. “Eventually could be bad. Too squishy.”
“I can’t say for sure what it’s going to take for us to get back to normal,” I say. “Or when. But I promised her it would. That’s a big promise considering up until yesterday I was convinced she’d wake up to realize she loves me.”
In a fierce voice, Madison says, “She does love you.”
“She also loves Josh and Joey and Oliver.” The tiredness is returning. Madison’s wheel would call this feeling defeat. That’s when it hits me. “Neither of you is trying to encourage any Ruby-ever-after plans.”
“Don’t give up hope,” Madison says.
“Of fixing things,” Oliver says with a warning look at Madison.
“Maybe more,” Madison persists even though it seems like Oliver wants her to drop it. “We don’t know how this is going to go.”
Oliver leans forward to make his point. “If this isn’t what Ruby wants but Charlie stays hopeful, she’ll feel that, and it’s going to make their friendship awkward.”
“We’re already there.” I picture Ruby’s face as I confessed. “She looked like she was watching me come in last in a race I never should have been in. Embarrassed like she wanted to look away, but she wouldn’t let herself because she’s too nice.”
Oliver winces. “Brutal.”
“Honestly? The pity might be harder to get over than the rejection.” I stand, and Madison scrambles to her feet.
“Don’t leave. We haven’t fixed it yet.”
I shake my head. “You can’t, and don’t feel bad about that. I feel like trash right now because it just happened. I’ll figure it out.” I give a tight smile. “Eventually.”
Madison wrinkles her nose. “You might should banish that word from your lexicon, cowboy.”
“I might should,” I agree. “I’m going to get out of here. Clear my head some more.”
Madison hops up to give me a hug. “You’re the very best, Charlie.”
“Thanks, Mads.”
Oliver walks me to the door. “Anything I can do?”
“Not unless you have a time machine,” I say.
He gives me a courtesy laugh as I pull the door closed behind me, but my smile fades as soon as it shuts.
Even if I had a time machine, how far back would I have to go to fix this?
Right now, it feels like it would have to be far enough to make sure I never meet Ruby if I want to escape the inevitability of falling for her.
Because carrying the weight of thwarted destiny? Sucks.