Page 40 of Riot of Autumn

“Cube, you’re killing me.” I slowly lower myself back in my seat as a snarl appears on Ruby’s face.

“God, how many times do I have to tell you not to call me that? I’m here trying to be a fucking adult and you whip out Cube?” Ruby runs a hand through her hair and then squeezes it into a ponytail like she’s desperate for something to squash.

I ease back in my chair, my lips parted in shock. Ruby and I fight all the time, but she rarely yells at me with any intensity. Not like this. But she did it at her studio the other day, too.

“I’ve called you Cube since we were kids. Why do you suddenly hate it so much?” She always jokes with me about not calling her that and turns right around and calls me Ezzie. Have I really misread her all these years?

Ruby stands, pushing back her chair, and starts pacing. “I’ve always hated it. From the first second you started calling me that damn name.”

“What? Why?” I push my chair back, ready to stand. And do what? I don’t know, but it feels wrong to be sitting when Ruby’s so viciously stomping back and forth across the carpet. The look she gives me has me freezing in place.

“Do you think I don’t know where that fucking name came from?”

My heart does a swan dive and then soars back up into my chest, making my breath catch. She can’t know what it means, because I’ve never told a living soul. “Well, that makes one of us. What do you think it means?”

“You know, I thought you were my best friend.”

“What?” I frown at Ruby, confused about the jump in her train of thought, but she’s not even listening to me. There’s a sad, lost look on her face that scares me. “Ruby, I am one of your best friends.”

“I was in such a bad place. My mom was at her lowest, right before she OD’d. She’d get pissed every time she found out Birdie bought me new clothes or fed me fucking dinner. Home was a nightmare. I was barely surviving, but at least I had my friends.”

My mind is transported back to seventh grade. Ruby was in sixth grade, but we only have one school on Wild Haven Island because it’s so small. My parents were already dead, and Ruby’s mom was a mess. Ruby always came to school in clothes that didn’t fit, and she was so damn scrawny. Despite the problems at home, or maybe because of them, she was also tough and scrappy. But she was just a kid.

“I remember.”

Ruby’s still pacing, but she won’t look at me. I want to grab her and force her to meet my eyes.

“I thought you were my friend, but it’s like as soon as we got to a certain age, you were too cool to be seen with me.”

“I never felt that way.”

“Oh, so you just talked shit about me to impress your friends.”

“Yes. No. Fuck, I don’t know what you’re talking about, Cube.” I run a hand over my head, stumbling over my words because I’m afraid of what I may have done. I wasn’t in a good place back then either.

“Then do you remember talking shit about me with Timothy Boston and Johnny Halsey?”

A horrible feeling sinks like a lead balloon in my gut. Those two were pricks. The kind of little jackasses who make fun of other people to make themselves feel superior. I didn’t hang out with them a lot, but my uncle was friends with Timothy’s dad. At that time, my uncle had moved back to Wild Haven Island to take care of me. He was my only living relative and, thank fuck, he hadn’t taken me away from my home. With the trauma I’d suffered, he hadn’t wanted to make things worse by removing me from everything familiar. He’s a good man who stepped up and helped me become who I am today.

Occasionally, I was forced to spend time with Timothy when my uncle and his dad hung out, and Johnny was always there. I wasn’t with them by choice.

“Ruby, I…” My words are pleading, but I don’t know what I need to apologize for. What the hell did I do? “What happened?”

Ruby laughs humorlessly, shaking her head and pressing her lips together. She sits back down in the chair and thrusts her hands under her thighs, like she can’t keep them still otherwise. “It was Parents’ Day at the end of the school year. Do you remember how they would always do that for the awards ceremony?”

I swallow thickly and nod. Heat burns up my neck as I recall the memory I think she’s talking about.

“Birdie came, even though my mom didn’t. Those two assholes lasered in on that like little shit seeking missiles. They called my mom a whore and a druggie. They said I was trash, that I was so poor that homeless people felt bad for me. They made fun of my dull blonde hair, my skinny ass, and my flat fucking chest. Ruby, whose boobs were flat as a fucking cube.”

Oh, shit. You’ve got to be kidding me. Does she associate my nickname with that? Fuck me. All these years?

“I was twelve. I didn’t even get what little boobs I have until like five years later.” Ruby frees one of her hands and rakes it through her violet hair, making the vibrant strands tumble over her shoulders. She looks like a goddess, a hero born out of a tragedy that’s risen to fight back against the pricks who have wronged her.

“But do you know what the worst part was? Out of all the shitty things they said, I could have ignored it all without so much as a middle finger. But you listened to them say this shit about me and didn’t say a word. You didn’t stand up for me, you didn’t tell them to fuck off.”

Ruby’s cheeks are red, as though she’s embarrassed just remembering what happened.

“I was already breaking, Ezra. I was barely holding on by a thread and I needed my friends to support me. God, do you know how much I idolized you back then? The sun shone out of your asshole, and I lov…I…” She shakes her head with a ragged exhale. “You crushed me. And then, you decided to use their fucking insult as a nickname.”

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