Chapter Eleven
Ooo, wow, look at all this room for character growth!
Elodie
Roman is going to kill me, and I can’t even blame him.
I started out fully intending to keep my promise, mostly because my promise was basic common sense, and thus I did not believe it would require all that much effort to fulfill.
I forgot, of course, that life is life, and even something like common sense doesn’t have a whole lot it can do when faced with the space where rocks and hard places meet.
I did catch the bus, just like I said I would.
I mounted my bike to the front rack, climbed aboard all smiles, and spent thirty minutes in the seat behind the driver learning about his wife, his children, and his pet iguana.
Ben loves his iguana. I learn a lot about them during the ride, to my utter delight.
They’re incredible. They have an actual, literal, third eye that they can use to detect light.
Light that it would not be detecting now, as the sun begins to set on my back, which is no longer on the bus.
Because the bus. Broke. Down. Right outside of the city, where the suburbs start and other buses have no reason to be this late in the day. Rescue was not coming anytime soon, even with Ben calling for help, bless his sweet, iguana-loving soul.
So after sitting for a while on the sidewalk next to plumes of smoke from the bus engine, I figured that we were only fifteen more minutes from home, right? And the sun wasn’t actually setting yet. Just almost.
I could totally make it.
As I pedal my bike in the dusk of August, racing the sun, I know that past me is a stupid, stupid dum-dum, and I’m totally not going to make it.
Roman’s going to be so mad at me.
Because fifteen minutes by bus? Is not at all fifteen minutes by bike. I don’t know what I was thinking, but now the dusk is getting duskier, and I’m nowhere near home, and there aren’t enough streetlights, and it’s scary out here.
I should call Roman. I know I should. It’s just…
It’s just nothing, Elodie. It’s just your health and safety. Stop being a prideful dummy and call for help. Safety trumps pride.
I pedal harder, eyes roving for a safe place to pull over. I find my safety in the form of a—completely useless—bus stop. Two lights flicker under the shelter, lending a sense of not-quite-security to the bench as I sit, pull out my phone, and dial Roman.
It rings once before he picks up. “Elodie? What’s wrong?”
The gruff tones of his voice have me slumping on the bench, relief coursing through me even as I know I’m going to be in a different sort of trouble soon.
“I’m so sorry,” I start. “But the bus broke down and it’s getting darker and I need a ride and—”
He cuts me off, keys jangling in the background. “Where are you? I’m coming.”
I grimace, even as I’m grateful.
Why. Why can’t he just fully, one hundred percent, all-around-suck?
It’s so hard to hate a guy when he’s the type of person to drop everything to come pick me up when I’m stranded by a broken bus, even though I’ve never been anything but rude to him.
The least he could have done was hesitate. I would have hesitated, if it were him.
I blink against the wetness gathering in my eyes and shake that thought away.
Now is not the time to ruminate on whether or not Roman is a better person than me—not when I’m stuck, afraid, and needing help.
Now is the time to be grateful that he is the type of man that he is, regardless of the type of woman I am.
I can consider the implications of that later.
“I’m at a bus stop,” I tell him. “On…” I find the street name and read it off. “I don’t think that’s very far…”
“Not by car,” he says. “I’ll be there in ten.”
“Can you…” I gulp, glancing around the empty, dark streets. “Can you stay on the phone with me?” I ask. “Until you get here?”
A pause before, gently, he says, “Of course, Sweet. I’ll stay on the phone. I’m coming.”
I close my eyes, and a tear falls free, rolling down my cheek. “Thank you,” I murmur.
“Of course. Always.”
“I’m going to kill you,” Roman growls, rounding his car. “Have you lost your mind? Why are you on the side of the road? Not next to a broken down bus?”
I drop my phone from my ear, which he’s just hung up on, and wince as he takes my bike, anger lining every inch of his frame in the blinking light of his hazards. He slots the bike into the mount on the back of the car with a scowl.
“Well, it wasn’t dark when the bus broke down,” I tell him. “And I was only fifteen minutes away from home…”
“Fifteen minutes? By vehicle? What is that, forty-five minutes by bike? Elodie, what were you thinking ?”
I was not, clearly, but it’s one thing for me to admit to myself that I made a bad choice. It is another thing entirely for me to admit it to Roman .
And so, I do not.
“I was thinking I could make it, obviously,” I snap, angrily wiping tears from my eyes. “You don’t have to be a jerk about it.”
“I just found you,” he grunts, coming around the car to grab my bag. “On the side of the road.” He opens his back door, sets my backpack in, then slams the door shut.
“Alone.”
He turns to me and unclips my helmet, shoving it under his arm as he goes for my elbow pads. I step away, undoing them myself.
“In the dark,” he continues, crossing his arms, helmet dangling from his fingers.
“ Miles from home. I don’t think it’s a jerk move to be angry about you breaking your promise to be safe, and I definitely don’t think it’s a jerk move to be angry about you actively making unsafe decisions.
“You keep saying you aren’t stupid, Elodie.
Well, prove it. Tell me what about this current situation isn’t stupid?
The only smart thing you did was call me, and you should have done that an hour ago when the bus broke down.
Then, you should have waited there until I got to you.
What you absolutely should not have done is ride off into the sunset without a care in the world. ”
He opens the passenger door of his car, tosses my helmet onto the floorboard, then gestures stiffly for me to follow it in.
I do, irritation simmering beneath my skin. I’m not a child. I made a stupid mistake, yes, but does that warrant him speaking to me, once again, like a wayward child?
He makes sure I’m secured in my seat before shutting the door and moving around to the driver’s side, quickly climbing in, apparently unwilling to miss even a millisecond of the time he has to lecture me.
The entire ride home—only ten minutes, but boy does he make it feel like ten hundred—he gives me lessons on safety, taking precautions, what to do in unexpected situations, how to assess if an unexpected situation is dangerous or not, and on and on until my blood pressure rises high enough to graze the moon.
It’s not that I disagree with him, really.
I agree with everything he’s saying. I agree that I made the wrong choice, and that I should have called him earlier.
I agree that I need to be considering things more carefully before making decisions that could result in me being in danger.
I agree, wholeheartedly, that I made a mistake.
I do not agree that the solution to this mistake is being locked in a car with a man who sees fit to speak on the subject at length with zero grace or consideration for my feelings or intentions.
Still, I bite my tongue. There’s no use at all in trying to talk to Roman when he gets like this, and I’m not wasting my breath attempting it.
I keep my mouth firmly shut through the ride, through storing my bike in the garage when we get home, and through getting inside, all while he monologues, following me through the garage and house, up the stairs, until we reach my room where I stop him with a hand on his chest before he can enter.
Glaring into his searing blue eyes, I take a deep breath. “I think,” I say, “that that is enough of that.” Then I drop my hand, take a step back, and close the door on his stupid, stinky face.
“And he just went on forever, Ruby. Forever. He would not stop. I know I messed up, but seriously? You don’t tell someone they can trust you in an emergency, then spend that entire emergency telling them how dumb they are for getting into it.
I’m just—” I stutter over a breath, lungs burning with the effort it takes to hold back my tears.
“I’m trying, here. Trying my best, you know?
I didn’t go into the situation trying to do wrong, but he’s acting like…
like… like I’m purposely trying to cause problems.”
I’m angry as much as I am something else—something I don’t want to name, because it would imply that I care about Roman’s opinion, which would imply that I care about the man himself.
And I really, really, really do not want to care about a man who would respond to a cry for help in this way.
Everything before he arrived? Him having his keys before I’d even told him where I was, talking to me on the phone while I waited for him, scared and alone, whispering reassurances to me that he’d be there soon?
All good things. Amazing things, even. I could care about that guy, for sure.
Everything after he arrived? Absolutely not. Nooo, thank you. I’d rather care for a death row murderer than that guy.
“I know you’re trying,” Ruby says through the phone, sighing. “And I know it doesn’t seem like it, but he really is trying too. He’s just…”
“A big, giant jerk?” I suggest.
“A man,” she counters. “He’s a man. And on top of that, a firstborn son.
Not to mention, he’s tall, conventionally attractive according to Will, and supremely good at what he does professionally.
I can count on one hand the number of people in our entire lives who didn’t like Roman.
In other words, this is not a man accustomed to being told he’s wrong, which has given him a confidence that doesn’t lend itself to second-guessing his instincts.
If his instincts say to lecture, he lectures.
And I know he’s going about it the wrong way, El.
I agree with you. The way he handled it was bad.
But as much as you want him to think of your intentions, you have to give that same consideration back.
Ignore his actions for a moment. What were Roman’s intentions ? ”
I huff. “I don’t like calm, personally developed Ruby right now.”
“Sorry, the old Ruby can’t come to the phone right now,” she deadpans. “Come on, El. What were his intentions?”
“To be a big, giant jerk?” I offer, scratching my nose.
“Elodie,” she admonishes, and I groan, rolling over on my bed and shoving my face into my bedding, sticking my nose right between two of the raised bubbles of my homemade quilt.
“To keep me safe,” I mumble into the fabric.
“Great,” Ruby drawls. “Now try that again, but intelligibly.”
Ugh.
I twist my face, blow curls out of the way, and repeat with only mild ill-temper, “To keep me safe.”
“And when people have the best of intentions, we are what?”
Ew, ew, ew. “I hate you,” I tell her. “This is abuse of the highest order.”
“That’s insensitive,” she says. “And when people have the best of intentions, we are what?”
Ugh.
“We are understanding and kind,” I parrot, words I’ve made her say often these past few months as she’s adjusted to life with Will. Words I wish I’d never thought up. “But—”
“No, no, no,” she interrupts. “ You taught me this lesson. You must now lead by example. Show me the way, El, for I am lost.”
I snort. “You’re terrible.”
“And I love you,” she replies softly. “And I love Roman. I want you guys to live in whatever harmony you can find, and, I’m sorry, but being angry at a man for wanting you to be safe is not going to promote any type of harmony.”
“Being angry at me because of a single mistake isn’t going to promote harmony either,” I mumble, not quite ready to let it go.
She sighs, not disagreeing. “He’ll get there. But you can’t control Roman. You can only control Elodie. What sort of person is Elodie going to be today?”
I sniff. “Bratty?”
Another sigh, much longer, and I cave. “Fine, fine. Elodie is going to be understanding and kind, because in a world full of hate and strife, it’s important to show that things can be better if we do better.
I will do better. In this moment, on this day, I will choose better.
” My eyes roll. “Even if it is for your stupid, stinky brother.”
“There’s my bestie,” she says. “I’ve missed you. I was scared for a minute there that I’d have to be the sunshine in this relationship. Scary.”
“You’d be an excellent sunshine,” I lie, rolling on my bed to face the ceiling.
She doesn’t believe me, and we spend the rest of the phone call arguing about it until she has to go spend time with the love of her life, who is, apparently, not me.
After I hang up, a weight settles on my chest in her absence. I miss her—miss the days when, if I wasn’t with Sol, I was with Ruby, on the phone or in person, surrounded by the love of my bestie and my brother at all times. But Ruby has Will now, and Sol has West Virginia, and I have…
School. And work. And wedding planning. And, I guess, Roman .
Life is so unfair.