Their Freefall At Last by Julie Olivia

5

Ruby

I bolt through the woods faster than I ever have before. The flashlight in my hand illuminates trees, then the ground, then branches again. I hate going down this trail by myself, but tonight, I don’t care.

I jump over the creek, barrel through the chain-link fence, and rush to the Shaws’ basement door—the direct entrance to Bennett’s bedroom.

My fist pounds hard on the wood.

“Bennett,” I say, but it’s a whisper in the night, and my chest aches at the thought of not being heard.

I’m never freaking heard, am I?

The weird mix of emotions—anger, worry, hurt—all gargle inside me. I want to yell. I’ve never wanted to yell so much in my whole life.

So, I open my mouth and scream, “Bennett!” as my fist raps on the door again.

It’s so loud.

Footsteps pound inside the house, the basement stairs creak, and through the square window, I see he’s finally here. Bennett’s eyebrows are pulled together so tightly that there’s a distinct line running between them. He fumbles to unlock the dead bolt, then the chain before whipping the door open.

Within seconds, I’m in his arms.

In even less time, he’s tugging me tighter, pressing his cheek against mine, and saying, “What’s wrong? I thought we were meeting in five more minutes.”

“I went through the woods by myself,” I murmur against his chest.

His head rears back. “Is everything okay?” His palms rest on either of my cheeks as he tilts my face to his. “Are you all right?”

“Mom is moving out.”

An exhale leaves him as he breathes out, “What?”

“They’re breaking up.” The end of the sentence is warbled as I shove my face back into his chest and cry.

I cry so hard because Bennett has always said it’s okay to cry, and I can’t imagine not crying right now.

“How the heck can you break up when you’re married?” I say, but half the words come out as garbled nonsense. I keep saying them anyway. “When you said vows that meant forever? When you laugh together? When they’re the person you can count on for everything?”

Bennett’s hand strokes my back. “Ruby …”

I wonder if their relationship flashed before their eyes as they ended it. It did for me. All the times they had sat on opposite sides of the couch but told me it was so I could snuggle between them. When they had stopped sleeping in the same bed, but it was because Dad snored too loud. How they wouldn’t kiss when Mom got home from a week of travel, but they had said that was because they needed to clean or make dinner or …

Lies. So many lies.

Bennett reaches behind me and shuts the door, but he doesn’t stop hugging me for one single second.

Myperson doesn’t let me go.

From the stairwell, I hear Brittney yell down, “Everything all right?”

“Everything’s fine, Mom,” Bennett calls back. “Be up later. Ruby …”

I shake my head. I can’t see anyone but him right now.

“Ruby’s just got some homework questions first.”

“All right then! I’ll get some extra wings on the grill!”

The door closes, and I cuddle closer.

“Want to lie down?” he asks.

I sniff and whimper out a small, “Yes.”

Running his hand down my arm and over my wrist, he entwines our fingers together and walks me back to the mattress on the floor. When Bennett moved down to their finished basement, the bed’s box spring never fit through the doorway. I like the floor mattress though.

He lies down first, scooting back to the wall of pillows. I crawl on top of him, like I always do, nestling my head onto his chest, settling my torso between his skinny legs. His hand rests on my lower back.

Finally, he sucks in a breath.

“Are you moving out with your mom?” Bennett asks.

“No,” I say. “She travels too much. Dad and I are staying here.”

He exhales his held breath, followed by a laugh. “Good. I’d hate if you left. Who would tell me jokes?”

I laugh a little, but honestly, I didn’t even think about that. The thought of leaving Bennett crawls under my skin. I would miss all of this. Bennett’s posters of professional wrestlers or rock bands; the smell of wood and clanking of screws in the corner of the basement, where Bennett tinkers endlessly; and the small, slightly battered brown desk with a computer and RollerCoaster Tycoon installed just for me.

I nestle my head into his chest more.

“What happened?” he asks calmly.

“I don’t know. They wouldn’t tell me.”

“I’m sorry, Rubes.”

“It just doesn’t make sense. I thought marriage meant forever.”

“It does.”

I lean my head up. “Was your mom ever married?”

“No,” he says.

“Because of your dad?”

“Yeah.”

“Did she ever want to be?”

Bennett slowly nods. “She told me one time that she waited for him for a while. She said she isn’t anymore, but I think she still might be.”

My heart races, sparked by anger and frustration. My emotions are fuming out of me.

“How does it happen?” I ask. “Like, how do two people who love each other finally decide not to?”

Bennett sits there, silent, before shrugging. “I don’t know, Rubes.”

“It’s so unfair,” I spit out.

“I’ve never seen you this angry.”

“I’m so angry. And you know what? I don’t think I want to get married. Ever.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not worth it,” I say. “Marriage ruins love.”

“You think?”

“Definitely. I wouldn’t marry anyone.”

After a few moments, Bennett says, “Well, I’d marry you.”

My head whips up, almost as fast as the way my heart is racing.

“What?” I ask.

“I think we could get married.”

“But you’re my best friend.”

A slow smile rises on his face, revealing the green braces beneath his lips.

“Exactly,” he says. “Maybe that’s the secret. Marrying your best friend or something. Do you wanna get married to me, Ruby?”

That sentence makes my heart, which beat with anger seconds ago, now feel different. Like those little, familiar pieces of sparkling glitter.

I laugh. “You’re ridiculous.”

“I’m serious,” he says. “Why not?”

“Because we’re twelve.”

“Okay, obviously, we won’t get married now.”

Bennett sits up, and I crawl off him. He pulls his knees to his chest. His smile is getting so big that his eyes start to squint. I see the full range of green tracks on his teeth. He only smiles like that when he’s the happiest. I just didn’t know the thought of marrying me could make him that happy.

“If we’re not married when we’re old, let’s do it,” he says.

“When?”

“I don’t know. What’s an old age?”

“Thirty seems super old.”

“Definitely,” he says with a laugh. “So, thirty then.”

“Well, what if we break up?” I ask. “I could never not have you in my life.”

He leans forward, placing a palm on the bedsheets between us. My heart jumps.

“Rubes, I would never break up with you once we’re married.”

The promise hits me in the chest, leaving my nerves sizzling afterward, like fireworks slowly crackling out and disappearing. It’s that energy again. The need to do something. To be louder. To run down that spooky trail between our houses. To feel the energy flow out of my lungs.

“You promise?” I whisper.

“Here, hang on.”

Bennett stands from the bed, walking over to his corner workshop. He digs through the messy toolbox, tossing aside a tape measure, a hammer, a box of nails. It all clatters to the floor, the carpet barely managing to silence it. Whenever Bennett gets an idea, the whole house knows about it.

“You should get a new box,” I observe.

“Nah, works just fine,” he says. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Oh! Here we go.”

He rips out a small spool of pink string—the same string we looped through his wires years ago when he first got braces.

“Okay … what about it?”

Bennett crosses over to me, crawling back onto the bed. He sits on his feet, just like I am, and our knees knock against each other.

“Ow.”

“Sorry. Okay, so my mom told me some people get promise rings if they wanna get married later,” he says. “So, what if … we do that too?”

“With string?”

“Sure!”

He’s holding the string in the palm of his hand, his grin so wide that it’s infectious, and a smile pulls up my cheeks as well.

With a breathy, excited laugh, Bennett pulls the end, sending the spool bouncing to the mattress. He keeps tugging until the string is long, and then he pulls it between his teeth and gnaws until it breaks.

“Gross,” I say with a laugh. “Now, I’ll have your spit on me.”

“Whoops.” But he still carries on, wrapping it over and over so the string layers up. “Okay, now, give me your arm.”

I hold out my wrist, and his hands slide over mine. The pads of his fingers feel rough. It must be from the constant building and hammering and whatever boy stuff he gets into. But as they slide over my wrist, they’re lighter. Gentler. Like he’s handling me with care.

I watch him work, thinking about what Miranda said about crushes. How my chest does feel like sparklers are glimmering inside. How maybe crushes are just the people you like having around you.

Bennett’s thumb lingers on my wrist bone as he knots my bracelet.

He holds out his palms, as if saying, Ta-da!

I twist my wrist around to see the knotted and frayed string. It’s haphazard, but it’s also very Bennett.

“What do you think?” he asks.

“It’s perfect.”

His smile beams at me before he picks up the thrown-aside spool and tugs out a fresh piece of string.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m making one for me too.”

“Isn’t pink too girlie for you?”

“Nothing with you is too anything.” He says it so casually, like it’s as routine as brushing your teeth or eating breakfast.

Is promising to spend forever with me really that easy?

Bennett twirls and tugs the string before biting it off, then loops it around his wrist.

“Can you knot it?” he asks.

“I don’t know how.”

“I’ll walk you through it. Go over the—yep. Then make the—uh-huh. See? You know what you’re doing.”

The sentence, low and whispering, has me smiling wider. He’s always whispering encouragement to me. He’s the most supportive person I know. But this feels different.

When I sit back, I look at him. Really look at him. How his cheekbones are a bit more defined than they were last summer. How his shoulders are wider. How his wrists are bony with little veins trialing up his skinny forearms. How he has an Adam’s apple that moves when he laughs, which he’s doing now, as if this whole process is just another one of our adventures.

We sit there with our wrists side by side, branded by a knotted pink string.

“See? Easy-peasy. And when we’re twenty-nine or whatever, I’ll propose at Honeywood and everything.”

“Why?”

He twists his bracelet around. “I don’t know. That’s what people do, I think.”

“Can I have flowers too?”

“Roses?”

“No. Yuck. They smell.”

“They really do,” he says, laughing. “So, what flowers do you want?”

“I don’t know.” I run a thumb over the pink string. “Anything. As long as you handpick it.”

“I can do that.”

I swallow, twirling the knots of my bracelet and sighing. “You’ll never leave me, right?”

His thumb and forefinger land on my chin, and he tilts my head up. My heart catches in my throat when his dark brown eyes meet mine.

“Never. And you’ll never leave me either, right?”

“Right.”

“Good. Only”—Bennett looks away, counting on his fingers silently—“eighteen more years.”

“Not too bad.”

“Nah. It’ll fly by.”

“What do we do until then?”

“I don’t know. Wanna watch TV?”

We search for the remote in his messy room, then turn the TV on. Once we do, there’s a commercial for those cheesy mixed CDs with a bunch of love songs. Celine Dion. Etta James.

I wonder if these songs will play at our wedding one day.