Chapter 24 Breaking and Entering
Breaking and Entering
Four weeks later, I have no job, no bed, and no plan, and I’ve never breathed easier.
Connor offered to pay the two months’ rent to break our lease, and I’m thrilled to have a clean slate. Last week, I sold as much of our furniture as I could and donated more than half of my depressing clothes. While I hunt for a new place, Ryan’s letting me crash on his couch.
Fortunately, Mom and Dad didn’t sound any alarms about my breakup, or even my unemployment. In fact, they sounded relieved. For years, I’ve been telling myself to be careful with my parents, but really, I was being careful with myself.
I’m done with all that. And it’s funny. Usually, I despise in-between times, but this one feels good, like a long, much-needed stretch.
The weather doesn’t hurt, either. It’s a sunny Sunday morning in early October, my favorite time of year, and my mood matches the season—as if someone’s cracked open the window of my life and let in a crisp, welcome breeze.
Along with a hungover brother.
Ryan stumbles into his kitchen, bleary-eyed, wearing flannel pants and a rumpled Chicago Bulls T-shirt. “I swear, Ruby,” he says with a groan. “If you don’t stop banging around all those pans, I’m going to start banging them on your head.”
Okay, so our situation isn’t perfect. Turns out moving in with your twin in your mid-thirties isn’t without its complications. Especially when his apartment could be confused with a decently sized walk-in closet. But we’re managing.
I reach back into the drawer. “Sorry. I—”
“I’m serious,” Ryan warns. “Enough with the unnecessary banging.”
I pause and meet his eyes. “That’s what she said.”
He grinds his teeth, unamused, so I raise both hands like I’m under arrest. “I’m just a girl. Standing in front of a stove. Trying to make her favorite brother some brunch. Can you at least pretend to be grateful?”
Ryan heaves out another sigh, silent and deliberating and possibly still a little drunk after we spontaneously bought tickets to last night’s Blackhawks game. “You don’t cook, Ru.”
“Not often,” I correct. All forms of food preparation fit squarely in the Ryan circle of our twin Venn diagram. “But look. Here I am. Trying. And don’t pretend French toast doesn’t sound delicious. Bonus points if I can pull off the rest of these recipes, too.”
I gesture to the ingredients I’ve set out beside the coffee maker. It’s an ambitiously large spread, but I can’t resist romanticizing fall-inspired dishes, so I’m cooking up vegan French toast, baked cinnamon sweet potatoes, and hot maple lattes topped with foam.
Ryan’s eyes narrow, but he says nothing. He can’t argue with sugar-covered bread. Nobody can.
Surrendering, he rounds the counter and peeks at my laptop, which sits propped open beside the stove. His head juts back. “Wait. Is that…”
“Yep,” I confirm, spraying my first pan. “It’s Wynne-ing Recipes. Back from the depths of the internet. A bit dated, but still plenty useful.”
Ryan huffs out a disbelieving laugh, uncharacteristically shy as he scratches at his head. “I thought I deleted that blog.”
“Well, luckily, you didn’t.” I reach for the bread and say, “Maybe you should give it a facelift. Bring it back. I’ve been eating better than I have in years since moving in with you. You’re really talented, Ry.”
It’s been the best part about staying here—getting to watch him in the kitchen. Seeing a small sliver of that passion I got to witness the full force of in another life.
Ryan snorts. “Yeah. So say you, Mom, and my three blog readers from fifteen years ago.”
I stop to look at him. “I mean it. You could do something with this. It’s not just that you can cook—it’s that you’re creative about it.”
“Because I have to be.”
“Right. And there are a lot of people in similar shoes.”
He’s quiet, and I can tell from how he’s skimming the recipe that he’s considering whether it works, and how he can make it better. As casually as I can, I ask, “Would you ever revisit the idea of culinary school?”
“No,” he says quickly. “That ship has sailed.”
“Has it?” I keep cooking, hoping it’ll be a little easier to say the hard thing when I’m not looking at him. “It’s just—I worry you avoided it because I discouraged you. Because I put a bunch of fears in your head.”
Ryan clicks his tongue. “Who, you? Put fears in my head?”
I make a face, and he laughs. But I have to swallow down the tough memories that rise to the surface.
We’re seven, and I’m yelling at him because he doesn’t want to wear elbow pads on his bike.
We’re twelve, and I’m checking to make sure he’s packed his EpiPen for camp.
We’re eighteen, and I’m telling him I didn’t get into Berkeley—a lie—so that I could follow him to college.
Keep him safe, like Penn said, so I could feel safe, too.
I step back from the stove and turn to Ryan, wondering why it’s sometimes hardest to be honest with the people you love the most. “I really wish I hadn’t talked you out of it. I never should’ve discouraged you from trying.”
He offers me a warm look, setting his hand on my shoulder.
“Relax, Ruby. I asked for your opinion. And you’re not the only reason I didn’t go down that path.
There was also the abject fear that I wasn’t good enough, and the genius plan to follow Molly Mason to college in hopes she might fall in love with me someday. So don’t take all the credit, alright?”
I manage a laugh. “Fair enough. Just know I think you could do anything. Okay? Anything but scarves. They don’t work on you.”
Ryan studies me. “I love you, but I’m starting to wonder who the hell you are these days, and what you’ve done with my sister.”
That cracks a laugh out of me. “You and me both.”
Bridget comes over for brunch and critiques my subpar cooking skills. Ryan saves the day by whipping up a second round of French toast drizzled with pumpkin-seed butter.
Afterward, we sit on the kitchen counters, drinking heinous amounts of coffee, laughing so hard our bellies ache.
We swipe through every guy and girl on Ryan’s dating apps, and I give Bridget a strappy lavender top I picked out for her earlier this week.
It looks an awful lot like the one she chose for me to wear in MASHland, and she has a date with Ethan tomorrow.
I’ve suggested they try roller-skating, because there’s something to be said for holding hands in the dark.
It’s a good day. A great day. The kind of aimless, meandering afternoon I stopped leaving room for in my life, too rigid or maybe too fearful to allow myself the simple freedom of an unplanned moment.
I go to sleep feeling happy in the bone-deep way that comes from doing nothing with the people who are everything.
I’ve been so focused on who I want to be, trying to map out exactly how I want my life to look, but really, what matters is who’s in it. Who I love, and how well I love them.
The rest, I hope, will fall into place.
—
I drive to the suburbs in the morning, missing my Jeep. My white Nissan just isn’t the same.
I’ve avoided Lakeville ever since I woke up in Penn’s apartment.
I told myself I had no reason to go back, but I think I steered clear so that some part of me could pretend it was all still there: The Disco Diner, the mansion, a Penn who saw me differently.
After talking to Ryan, though, I’ve realized how good it feels to shake loose from the stories that hold me back, and I’ve decided I need closure.
I can’t move forward if I keep straddling worlds.
Main Street is bustling when I pass through town. A few blocks away, I park and get out of the car, struck by a sense of loss so swift and intense, I lose my breath.
There’s no seventies-style sign with a disco ball spinning on top. No marquee talking about rollin’ with the homies. And no pink-and-teal roller skates have been painted on the outside of the nondescript, abandoned, run-down brick building in front of me.
I step through the gravel, grieving that I’ll never get to revisit my ridiculous, perfect rink again. That it lives only in my heart.
I should’ve taken more pictures. I should’ve tried to email myself footage of Disco Penn in his Saturday Night Fever best, just in case the photo might make it through time.
Unsteady and unnerved, I tug at the door, surprised when it pulls open. Inside, I’m overwhelmed by the emptiness, and the darkness. Although it’s nothing that couldn’t be solved with a few glow sticks.
“Hey!” It’s a man’s voice from outside. “What do you think you’re doing?”
How embarrassing, sneaking into an abandoned building like a criminal. “Sorry!” I call out. Sheepish, I head back outside, nearly running into a familiar face.
His airy chuckle is music to my ears.
“Theo,” I say, delighted at the sight of my favorite former tween heartthrob.
“Well. If it isn’t Ruby Wynne,” he croons, offering me a ridiculous wink. He must be walking home after his Curly’s shift. “I take it back. You’re allowed to be anywhere you please. And I’m happy to see you upright after the birthday wipeout of the decade.”
Theo Ford is a mess, but he’s my mess. I engulf him in a hug, and while we aren’t as close in reality, he’s all too happy to hug me back.
“Aren’t you a little overdressed for breaking and entering?” he asks.
Perhaps. I’m wearing my brand-new purple coat with jeans, leather boots, and a brightly striped purse. “I just got…a bit turned around,” I tell him.
“Is everything alright?”
I sigh. “Yes? Sort of? Maybe?”
“Want to talk about it? Step into my office?” He gestures to the dusty curb beneath us.
I smile at him. “Yeah. Actually, I do.”
We sit side by side on the curb. Theo offers me a mint, and it’s strange to see him in a Curly’s uniform again, but I’d bet he’s got a Noah and the Weekenders T-shirt underneath it.
“Can I ask you something, Theo?”
“Of course.”
“Why’d you quit acting?”
“You’re going to laugh,” he says, sliding me a look.
“I won’t. Promise.”
He toes the gravel with his sneaker, then turns to me and shrugs. “I was homesick.”
That’s not the answer I expected. In high school, rumors spread that he’d been sinking auditions. I’d always assumed he left Hollywood because Hollywood didn’t want him anymore.
“About a year after The Weekenders ended, I had my biggest audition ever lined up,” he says.
“I would’ve nailed it, too. It was that big surf movie?
” I nod, because yes, Theo absolutely could’ve landed that low-budget surf thriller and won his very own Razzie.
“I was on the precipice of something big, and I knew it, but my life was a circle: auditions, meetings, parties, trying to meet the right people. Be part of the scene.”
“The hamster wheel,” I acknowledge.
“Exactly. And I didn’t recognize the guy I’d become.”
“You didn’t like him?”
“No, he was fine. Had incredible hair,” Theo jokes, and I laugh. “I just felt sorry for him, to tell you the truth. I wanted to come back home and be with the people who knew me, so I could remember how to be me, too. Know what I mean?”
“Yeah.” My throat tightens. “I do.”
“I love it here,” he says, wistful. “I’ve been staying in Baker’s carriage house, but I’m moving out this week. Got my own place.”
“That’s great,” I tell him. “Congrats.”
“What’s your deal? Is it about work? A boy?”
He flashes me a playful smirk, and I laugh. Here I am, gossiping with Theo Ford on a Lakeville curb like we’re in middle school. We may as well be drinking slushies.
“Yeah,” I admit. “It’s about a boy.”
Theo clicks his tongue. “Uh-oh. What’s the problem? You like him, but you shouldn’t? He doesn’t like you back? He doesn’t know?”
I wince. “D. All of the above.”
“Woof.”
“Yeah,” I say on a laugh. “And…I really miss him.” That’s been the hardest part: I miss being around Penn. So much. He makes me feel more like myself—the one I want to be.
“So, he’s not around here?”
“Actually, he is,” I say.
Penn is literally two blocks away, at Curly’s.
Theo hits me with his elbow. “Then what the hell are you sitting here with me for?”