Chapter Six
Do not make pinky swears with blood and spit. That’s gross.
Ruby
In my room, I change into my softest pajamas. Then I realize I’ve trapped myself in here, because William Hart hasn’t seen me in my jammies in thirteen years, and I’m not about to break that streak now. Especially not in these jammies, which my best friend, Elodie, describes as “if Cupid threw up… and not necessarily in a good way.” Pink and blue, fuzzy, possibly riddled with holes.
Only for mine and Elodie’s eyes.
Speaking of Elodie…
“Call ‘Sunny’,” I tell my phone, falling backward into the fluffy white heaven that is my bed while it rings.
The color-finding app on my phone tells me that everything else in my room is blue. Sky blue, specifically. It is, apparently, my favorite color. Roman says walking in here is like stepping out of a plane, and lying in my bed is like landing in a cloud.
I quite agree with him.
My bed is probably – scratch that, definitely the most comfortable piece of furniture in the house. Roman insists on using stuff that’s decades old from our parents. He says they hold memories.
Yeah, well, you know what they need to hold?
People.
And preferably they’d hold those people comfortably .
I love him to death, but the man is an idiot.
I sigh.
So many are.
Idiot has the same number of letters as candy. Some might even consider it code, like lovers use.
I shake my head, rolling my eyes as the phone clicks.
“What’s shakin’,” Elodie yells, the screamiest music I’ve ever heard blaring behind her.
I wince.
“Are you in a club?” I ask, pulling the phone away from my ear.
“ What? ” she yells.
“ Are you in a club? ” I yell back.
“ Oh! ”
The music gets louder, then cuts off.
Silence. Shuffling. An out of breath Elodie.
“I’m back!” she huffs.
“Where are you?” I ask, brows furrowed.
“Oh, I was just practicing some metal yoga,” she says, as if that is a thing.
“Metal… yoga?”
Surely I have heard her wrong.
“Yeah! You play hardcore metal while you do your yoga! It’s supposed to hit several parts of the brain at once, and learning how to breathe through the terrifying sounds can teach you how to be calm in stressful situations or something. I read about it online.”
Of course she did.
“And did that website list a single credible source for this information? Or was it one of your all-vibes-no-thoughts articles?”
“They didn’t cite the sources per se,” she draws out, “but the personal testimonies were really moving. This one guy, he said that it helped him through his divorce. I guess the whole thing was super messy, and the only thing that got him through was metal yoga!” A pause. “Well, and the antidepressants. But. You know. He said the yoga played a big part in his recovery.”
I blink.
“El, you know I love you, right?” I ask.
“Of course,” she answers, hesitant.
She should be.
“Then know that it is with all love when I tell you that what you’re doing is insane. This is just like that time you watched that video on how skydiving can lower your blood pressure. Or that time when you ate raw fish for a month because your ex-boyfriend’s mom said it cured her diabetes – when you didn’t even have diabetes. Or that time whe-”
“Okay, okay! I get it!” she interrupts. “But I swear this one is for real going to help me. I’m going to find my zen. I just know it. And you know what they say, when you know, you know!”
“I think they say that about finding the love of your life, not about finding your zen in dangerous and heart-racing ways.”
“Puh-tay-toe Puh-tah-toe,” she says. “Zen can reach you in the most surprising of ways.”
“Stop quoting that beach tent psychic we saw five years ago. She was a hack, and you know it. She stole three hundred dollars from you!”
“I don’t know why you always have to bring that up,” she retorts, a pout in her voice. “I told you she needed that money for her sick kid. He had cancer, Ruby! Cancer! Was I not supposed to help out a sick little cancer boy? Come on!”
“And I keep telling you , there was no sick little cancer boy!”
I’m shaking my head now, and I would bet my own three hundred dollars that she’s pinching the bridge of her nose. Will told me once that she does that every time she’s frustrated with me, which is pretty much every time we talk.
Elodie and I are, in a word, different. A real opposites attract type of story.
We met in my senior year of high school, when I was still feeling sad and abandoned after Roman left for college. I started taking a pottery class at a local studio downtown, and Elodie was there, preaching about the benefits that molding clay has on not only the body, but also the mind and spirit. We got into a semi-heated debate about the likelihood of a handmade ashtray ending personal stress, and the instructor had to physically put us in opposite corners of the room to get us to finish said life-changing ashtrays.
The next week, we were stationed as far away from each other as they could get us.
We still managed to start a full-class argument over whether or not a ring dish was capable of “centering our qi,” whatever that means.
The next week, hoping to contain our inevitable throwdown, the instructor put us right next to each other on the wheels closest to his station.
This did not work.
At the end of the class, he called us up to stand before him – clay in our hair and pottery glaze covering our arms – to tell us that we would not be welcome back to his class.
We were outraged.
And why wouldn’t we be? We paid for an eight-week class, and we’d only had three!
An hour of arguing got us full refunds, including for the classes we’d already attended, which did exactly nothing to appease us.
In a moment of enraged solidarity, we took our returned money and blew it in a swanky store downtown that only sells glass ware, making a pinky promise sworn in spit – ew, never again – to not even look in the direction of a clay vessel for the rest of our days.
After our vow – and washing our hands – we took our glass goods and we, allegedly, threw them all at the back wall of the building that housed the pottery class.
Then, guilt-ridden, we went to the dollar store across the street, bought a broom and some trash bags, and promptly cleaned up the giant mess we had made.
Once the glass was safely bagged up and in the pottery building’s dumpster, we swore an oath in blood – from all the cuts we got picking up glass – that we wouldn’t do anything mostly illegal together ever again. Except for speeding when she drives us places, or guilt-tripping our way into a really good discount with my sad-little-blind-girl bit when we go to the mall. But. You know. Everything else? Off the table.
She drove me home after that, making me wait before I went inside so she could put her number in my phone and call herself so she’d have mine.
We’ve talked every day since.
“We’re not arguing tonight,” she says in my ear now. “I can’t keep giving in to your sick little games like this. You derive way too much pleasure out of winding me up.”
My jaw drops. Me . Sick little games? Is she kidding?
“Winding you up? You answered the phone trying to blast my eardrums out of the atmosphere!”
“No, Ruby. No! I am not playing with you!” she asserts.
I open my mouth to protest my innocence, but she cuts me off before I can utter a word in my defense.
“We’re not discussing the cancer boy. Tell me about your day instead.”
I huff. “Fine. We’ll talk about cancer boy later. Again, ” I warn her. “What would you like to know about my day?”
“I want to know about Will,” she answers straight away.
My eyes roll. Of course she does. She always wants to know about Will first. She’s obnoxiously fascinated with our dynamic, particularly the way he acts. She believes that when he says he’s in love with me, he truly means it.
Did I mention the girl is a hopeless romantic?
“Brian was being weird,” I tell her instead. “I ran into him after hours and he said he was working on something passionate in the mail room.”
“I don’t care about Brian!” she groans. “Give me the good stuff! What happened with Will?”
Ugh.
Fine.
She wants to know about Will? I’ll tell her about Will.
“He’s an immature, spoiled brat,” I grumble. “That’s what happened with Will.”
“Ohhh!” she squeals. “Tell. Me. Everything!”
I frown. “You don’t get it, El. He has this report he’s supposed to give me every quarter. An important report that I need to be able to do my job, that he has to give me, and today he held it hostage like a total jerk instead of doing the professional thing and doing his literal job .”
“Huh,” she says. “What did he want in return?”
“What?” I ask. Did she not hear what I said? We’re supposed to be bemoaning his jerkdom right now.
“You said he held this report hostage. Hostage for what?”
I sniff, turning my face into my pillows for comfort in the face of such trying memories. “He wanted me to say something nice about him.”
“What was that? You’re all muffled. I can’t hear you.”
My nose wrinkles, and I uncover my face. “I said,” I grump, “He wanted me to say something nice about him.”
A pause, and then…
“ Hahahahahahaha !”
Right. Of course. Laughter.
“What’s so funny?” I grunt into her cackling, but she only laughs harder.
I wait, my frown deepening every minute her tinkling fairy princess giggles go on.
“This isn’t funny,” I finally snap. “It’s unprofessional!”
She laughs harder.
“I’m going to hang up if you don’t stop it!” I warn, starting an internal countdown from ten.
She doesn’t stop laughing.
I get all the way to two before she calms enough to get back to the phone, chuckling as she says, “He had to know you wouldn’t go for that.”
I harrumph. “And I didn’t,” I concur. “I took him to a higher power to get reprimanded.”
Never she mind that I also got reprimanded. Silly little details like that aren’t important to the story.
“Uh-huh,” she says, totally knowing I’m holding back. “And what did you eventually have to do to get the report? I can’t see Will giving a hoot about any reprimand.”
“It wasn’t just ‘any reprimand’,” I say. “It was the CEO of the company. The owner. The head honcho. The man of all men.”
“Right,” she says. “So what did you have to do?”
I swallow.
Elodie knows all about my mortifying crush in middle school, as well as the subsequent shutdown. She’s endured many an irate rant on the subject.
So it shouldn’t be embarrassing to bring it up now.
I mean, this is Elodie . I tell her everything. I should be able to tell her about today, no problem.
And yet, it takes every ounce of courage I have to whisper a recap through the phone of what he made me do, my face flaming as I repeat the dreaded nickname.
Another bout of cackling meets my woes.
“You know what!” I huff. “I don’t have to take this abuse! I’m hanging up now!”
Her laughter only grows louder.
Making good on my threats, I hang up, slapping my phone down on the bed and glaring at the ceiling.
Sure. It’s just sooooo funny that I was blackmailed at work. Hilarious.
“Incoming text message from Sunny,” my phone tells me.
I sniff.
“Well, you might as well read it to me,” I answer. Not that I care what she has to say or anything. But. You know.
Whatever.
“Sorry for laughing, Rubes! But also, you have to admit that it is kind of hilarious, right?”
I have to admit no such thing, actually.
The message goes on.
“I don’t know why you won’t just put that boy out of his misery. He’s been married to the promise of you the entire time I’ve known you guys. I know men who are married for real that aren’t half as committed to their wives as Will is to you.”
Frankly, that’s just sad for their wives. I don’t see what it has to do with me at all.
“Incoming text message from Sunny,” my phone chirps again.
I roll my eyes. Not the double texts. It’s like she wants the robot to interrupt her.
“Read it.”
“You know you can do what you want, though, and I’ll love you no matter what. But maybe consider letting him off the hook if you don’t want to take the bait, you know?”
Letting him off the…
“Call Sunny!” I bark.
She picks up on the first ring.
“He-”
“Letting him off the hook?” I all but yell. “I didn’t ask him to stay on it! You can’t seriously be implying that all of this is my fault. That’s some misogynistic, woman ha-”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” she interrupts. “Let’s take it back a step here, yeah? I’m not saying anything is your fault!”
My eyes narrow.
“You better not be,” I snap.
“Ruby, take a breath, please. It’s me, Elodie. Your best friend in the whole wide world. Your sister in all but blood. The sister you’re accusing of misogyny, which I’m sure is just a stress-induced bit of insanity, and not something you actually think.” She pauses. “Right?”
I take a deep, deep breath, letting it out on a count of five. Then I do it again.
Heart rate lowered, the guilt trickles in.
“You’re right,” I answer, abashed. “I’m so sorry, El. Of course, I don’t think that of you. I’m just- he’s just so- ugh!”
My fist hits the comforter once, twice, three times.
“I want to throttle him some days!”
She hums.
“I forgive you. Of course, I do. I know how frustrated he makes you, but, Rubes – and I say this with so much love and support and respect – but don’t you think you should just tell him it’s never gonna happen? He’s been so hung up on you for ages, and I think at this point we have to admit that your avoidance and denial strategy is just not working.”
I snort.
“I’d agree with you if I believed his whole schtick was real, but he’s about as in love with me as the moon is with the sun.”
She sighs.
“You know that’s like, a whole thing, right? The moon and the sun? There are fanfics about it.”
“People wrote fanfics about a rock and a giant ball of gas?” I ask, brows furrowed.
“Your denial and avoidance is showing again,” she says.
My nose wrinkles. “I’m not in avoidance of anything. He’s just not on any hook. He likes to irritate me, is all.”
More sighing on her end. “You know,” she says. “I think you enjoy it, too.”
I gasp. “How dare!”
She laughs. “It’s okay, bestie. If our enemies-to-lovers friendship hasn’t satisfied your cravings for snark and banter, I’ll support you through your enemies-to- lovers arc with Will. That’s just the kind of friend I am.”
My stomach revolts, and I gag. “Don’t you ever say that again!” I squawk. “Ever!”
She starts making kissy sounds. “Ruby and Will-iam sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G,” she sings.
“No, stop! Lalalala!”
She’s laughing again, and before I know it I am too.
“You’re sick and twisted!” I say through my chuckles.
“Maybe,” she concedes. “But I’m your sick and twisted.”
I grin.
Yeah, she is.
And I wouldn’t have her any other way.