Their Freefall At Last by Julie Olivia

6

Bennett

Fifteen Years Before

Ruby & Bennett are Fifteen Years Old

“Shop class is nowhere near Robotics.”

Ruby’s face is pulled tight in concentration, eyes darting from my unfolded class schedule to the school map in her opposite hand. I lean forward, hovering over her as I try to catch a glance too. My long hair cascades around us, creating a secret canopy. She peers up through ginger lashes, a sly smile on her face.

“We’re gonna get in trouble.”

I grin down at her. “Why do you say that?”

“ ’Cause it looks like … you know what.” She uses her delicate finger to part a piece of my hair like curtains. “Yeah, he’s totally staring at us again.”

I grumble, straightening my posture and pocketing my hands as I lean back on my heels to wave at Ruby’s Advanced Placement English teacher. He glares at me with fire in his eyes. I imagine he doesn’t like his star student hanging around with the boy in a black band tee and ripped jeans with hair that looks like I’m auditioning for America’s Next Top Biker—at least, that’s what my mom says.

He waves the back of his hand out, as if to say, Keep moving.

“Looks like we can walk until …” Ruby starts, but the words fade into the cacophony of high school chaos—loud voices, a distant whoop, and smacking sneakers with rattling key chains—as someone jogs past us.

“Hey, no running!” Ruby’s teacher calls, huffing and clenching fists by his sides as he walks off from his classroom doorway in pursuit.

I take the opportunity to lean down, placing my hand on Ruby’s lower back. My hair hangs around us again.

“Sorry, what did you say? It’s too loud.”

“Or I’m too quiet.”

“No, you’re perfect. This place just sucks.”

“No, it doesn’t,” she replies with a giggle. “I love school.”

I can’t help the grin that spreads over my face. “I know you do.”

It’s only the first week of high school, but Ruby has taken to it like a fish to water. She’s already tackling the assigned books for her new slew of advanced classes, including ones not offered to freshmen.

On the first day of school, Ruby’s dad, dressed in his golfing best, performed a very pompous, “Paul!” and, “Richard!” exchange with our new principal.

Ruby said they were fraternity brothers back in the day. But while we both scrunched our noses and scoffed at the sight of her dad acting like he owned the place, Ruby’s schedule was ultimately adjusted to fit the most exclusive of advanced classes. I guess there’s something to be said about your dad having connections.

“C’mon. Let’s just go.” Ruby laughs, tugging at my free wrist. “We’re gonna be late.”

I keep my hand on her lower back as we navigate the hallway traffic. Her petite frame allows her just enough room to squeeze through, and then my bulky body follows behind. All week, we’ve had a small line behind us, other students using our carved path like ducklings.

“Damn, it gets worse every day,” I say.

“Language,” Ruby whispers, giving me a teasing half-smile.

“Not that one either?”

“Well, if I didn’t like the A-word, I’m definitely not gonna like that one.”

“I’m just trying it out,” I say. “See if I like it.”

“You rebel, you. You’re gonna be too cool for me one day.”

“Impossible. You’re in Robotics.”

“Hey!”

“I mean that in the best way, Rubes.”

“Sure you do.”

Robotics is super cool.

Ruby stops in front of the Shop class, and I halt behind her.

“Aren’t we going to your class first?” I ask.

“Your door is here though.”

“Ruby Sullivan, walking me to class? I’m so honored.”

She pushes my arm. “Shut up.”

I let out a mock gasp. “Ouch.”

But when she turns away to blush and I try to mirror her motion to further the joke, I instead catch eyes with Sarah. She’s a girl in our grade, and, boy, she changed over the summer. Her legs are longer. Her skin is almost golden. As she walks past, her eyes scan me from head to toe. Her tongue darts out to lick her lips. They’re very pink, and for a split second, I wonder how the gloss tastes.

I swallow at the thought, averting my gaze back to Ruby, who stares at me with her mouth hanging open. Her lips are a softer pink than Sarah’s.

Wait, when did my best friend’s lips get so pink?

“Be less obvious,” Ruby says with a snort, digging into her backpack.

“About what?”

“Sarah.”

“What about her?”

“Seriously?” Ruby tilts her hip to the side.

I glance at her floral T-shirt, all the way down to her pink Converse. She sure isn’t dressed in a low-cut top, like Sarah’s, but Ruby’s attitude, juxtaposed with all the pink, is enough to make me smile wider.

“You know, you don’t think you’re cool, but I think you’re the coolest, Parrot.”

Ruby’s face flushes red, blending into her mess of freckles.

“I’m not. But maybe I’ll borrow one of your band T-shirts,” she teases. “See how the hard-core look feels.”

Maybe she doesn’t remember, but she already did borrow one of my shirts. This summer, Ruby had to throw on my Red Hot Chili Peppers shirt after we both fell in the creek. My T-shirt swallowed her whole, landing just above her skinny knees and onto freckled thighs that I couldn’t tear my eyes away from.

“Maybe not,” I find myself saying, running a hand through my tangled hair.

Ruby huffs out a disbelieving breath. “You just don’t want me to be cool!”

“I told you, you’re already cool.”

“No, I’m not. I need a new personality.”

I laugh. “A new personality?”

“I don’t know. I want some type of change.” The energy shifts, and her pink lips turn downward. “Something … new.”

Ruby’s been doing this more lately—finding little things about herself to change. First, it was trying out different shoes—from bulky sneakers to Converse. Then, it was wearing pants instead of skirts. Then, it was skirts again or dresses or something called skorts.

And it all started because of—

Oh.

“Ah crap, I forgot,” I confess. “Wicked stepmom’s moving in this weekend, isn’t she?”

“Yep,” Ruby mumbles, popping the P.

“God. I’m sorry. That’s weird.”

Ruby’s eyes grow wide, and her hand flies in the air. “It is weird, right? Like … Miranda’s his assistant.”

After her parents’ divorce, her dad and Miranda started dating. We don’t talk about it much because Ruby tends to shut down when we do, burying her nose in homework or hunching over my computer to build yet another theme park in RollerCoaster Tycoon.

Part of me wonders if the timeline is correct. I have a theory Miranda and Mr. Sullivan started dating before the divorce, but I try not to think about that too much.

Miranda is Mr. Sullivan’s prized possession. Unless Ruby is getting the highest grade in class, all conversation is turned to Miranda. Something about her captured Mr. Sullivan, and Ruby has been working to get his attention back ever since. I guess if my dad wasn’t a total piece of garbage, I’d want the same thing.

I curl my thumb under her matching pink string, placing a hand on the hallway’s brick wall behind her. “Okay, new personality then. Oh! I’ve got an idea. How about we call you Ruby 2.0? That’s a cool nickname, right? Fits your Robotics image?”

“Bennett, we’re going for cool.”

“Robotics is totally cool, Robo-Ruby.”

She smiles. “R2-B2.”

“The Rube-inator.”

“Rube-E.”

“Nice.”

I raise my hand for a high five. She smacks her hand with mine. And just as our hands meet, I see her eyes wander over my shoulder. Those green eyes get a weird haze to them, and I don’t need to look to know why.

Michael.

I follow her gaze to confirm—yep, there he is—then roll my eyes.

Football team captain. Swoopy hair. Blue eyes that look too blue. It’s all part of his image. I’m convinced he’s secretly an alien, posing as a person. Plus, I think his face looks like a lopsided potato. His cheekbones are too high. His jaw is too curved. I don’t know; maybe girls like that kind of thing.

When I turn back to Ruby, I can’t see the pink of her lips anymore. They’re pulled in.

It’s definitely Ruby’s kind of thing.

“Earth to Ruby?”

“Hmm? Oh. Right.” She shakes her head. “Um, what were we talking about?”

But just when I open my mouth to continue, a body bumps into me. I twist, accidentally bumping them backward again. Books clutter to the floor.

It’s a girl with wavy brown hair, pushed back with a headband. She bends to pick up the books. Ruby and I crouch to help her. I grab a binder, littered with various Honeywood Fun Park stickers.

“I’m sorry!” Flustered, she waves her hand around. “I should watch where I’m going.”

“Nah, it’s fine.”

I hand her back what I picked up. So does Ruby.

This girl is tall, maybe only a couple of inches shorter than me. She wears a T-shirt with The Grizzly’s logo.

“Honeywood fan?” I ask because I know Ruby wants to, but probably won’t.

When it’s just me and her, Ruby is confident and loud and the funniest person I know. But new people? It takes a bit of time.

The girl grins. “Big fan. You?”

“She is,” I say, throwing a thumb over my shoulder.

“I like your shirt,” Ruby comments.

The girl pinches the T-shirt up at the shoulder and looks down at it, as if admiring the design.

“Oh. Thanks!” she says. “Yeah, The Grizzly’s my favorite.”

Ruby smiles. “Me too.”

“Me three,” I say, which makes both girls laugh.

“I’m gonna apply to work there this year,” the brown-headed girl says. She crosses her fingers. “Well, hopefully.”

“Same,” I say. “Next year, I mean.”

“Are y’all freshman?”

“Guilty,” Ruby chimes in, making this girl laugh.

She points to herself. “I’m a sophomore. It gets easier, I promise.”

“Lore! LORELEI ARDEN!”

The three of us turn at the screams of another girl barreling down the hall, mouth open in a Muppets-like gesture, still mid-yell. And she’s coming right toward us.

Our new brown-haired pal—I guess, Lorelei?—says, “Oh my God, what’s going on?”

And that’s when I realize the running girl is crying. Or on the verge of tears. Wetness bubbling up beneath her eyes, red-rimmed with blotchy cheeks. She’s looking away from Lorelei, as if she’s holding them in. It’s such a contrast to how she’s dressed. The girl’s clothes are black on black on black. Thick black eyeliner. Bulky black shoes. Black fishnets. The only thing not seemingly menacing about her are her pink braces and her long blonde hair—so light that it looks like it belongs on one of Ruby’s old Barbie dolls.

“Your brother and his football buddies,” she says, gritting her teeth. “And Michael.”

“What’d he do?” I ask.

The goth girl is having trouble forming words.

“They stole … I …”

Lorelei reaches out and strokes her arm. “Quinn, breathe.”

The girl—Quinn—nods quickly, sucking in a shaky breath and letting it out less than a second later. But it’s overshadowed by a small cough and a wet laugh, as if she’s disappointed in herself for getting overwhelmed.

“If you breathe slower, it helps,” Ruby says.

Quinn sniffs and wipes the back of her hand across her face. Then, she does exactly as Ruby said—she breathes slower. A couple of seconds in. Then out. At least she isn’t laughing at herself anymore.

Her eyes focus on the door Michael just passed through, then back to Lorelei.

“Sorry, I can’t believe I’m crying over that jerk,” Quinn murmurs.

I shrug. “It’s okay to cry.”

She eyes me, then Ruby, her eyebrows furrowing into a glare. “Who are you?”

“Sorry, I’m Bennett. This is Ruby.”

Quinn shakes her head with a grimace. “Uh, okay. Whatever.” Her head swivels back to Lorelei. “Lore, we’re skipping class.”

“What?” Lorelei hiss-whispers. “Quinn! It’s the first week!”

“I can’t be in class right now. Look at me! I’m a fucking mess.”

Ruby lets out a small peep behind me at the curse word, and I have to cover my mouth to stop from laughing.

Lorelei bites her lip, tilting her head side to side.

“Lore,” Quinn whines, her hands slapping together in prayer. “Please.”

Lorelei’s eyes dart to the clock on the white brick wall.

“Okay. Yes,” she whines. “We’ll skip. But only this one time!”

“One time,” Quinn agrees. “Promise.”

She grips Lorelei’s arm, tightening like she’s her lifeline. Lorelei grips hers back with a weak smile. It reminds me of when Ruby and I hold hands sometimes. I think I might like these two.

“Go to the locker rooms in the basement,” I suggest. “I bet the teachers don’t check there.”

Quinn’s eyes roam over me, as if assessing me. A squint here, a snarl there, and finally, she must see something satisfactory because she sniffs out, “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

This girl might look tough, but the tears say otherwise.

“Do y’all want to come?” Lorelei proposes, looking between me and Ruby even though Quinn is already rolling her eyes in disagreement.

I open my mouth, then close it and let out a breathy chuckle. “Yeah, probably not. I don’t think I should be in the girls’ locker room.”

Lorelei laughs. “Fair. Okay, well, you are coming then.”

“Wh-what?” Ruby stammers out before her arm is getting tugged forward by Quinn, mumbling, “If we must.”

The warning bell chimes through the hallway speakers. Quinn waves her hands in the air.

“Okay. If we’re going, let’s hurry, team!”

I can see the nerves transform to giddiness in Ruby’s eyes. That same look she got wearing Converse for the first time. It’s rebellion she’s interested in. Her version of it, anyway.

I nudge her with my elbow. “Go.”

“No pressure,” Lorelei says.

Quinn starts to walk backward. “Nope, tons of pressure. Move it or lose it, lady.”

I place my palm on Ruby’s lower back and lean down so my hair shrouds us once more. Our own fortress of solitude.

“Be a rebel, cool girl.”

Her face flushes again—that light pink that matches her newly pink lips.

She swallows and nods. “Yeah. I can be cool, right?”

“So cool.”

I hold up my hand for a high five. She slaps my palm.

“Okay,” she says. “Let’s go.”

Our new friend Quinn grabs her arm once more and drags her off. I watch the three of them run until Ruby’s panicked giggles disappear around the corner.

Ruby is the absolute coolest.

The bell rings.

Looking back down at my schedule, I follow the map until I find the doorway in front of me. A sign above the threshold reads Shop Class. And it’s the same doorway Michael passed through minutes before.

I groan.

Here we go, I guess.