Page 103 of Betting on the Best Friend
She drops her high heels by the door and heads for the sofa, claiming “her” corner, the one she takes when we watch movies here. She sits story time style facing “my” corner.
“You know, when you’re not here, this whole couch is mine.”
She frowns. “What?”
“Nothing.” I take my spot. “Why are you barging in here like Kramer, Roo?”
Her smile comes back, bright and happy. “Because I love you.”
“Me too, which means respect the line.”
Her smile wobbles and fades. “No, I mean I love you.”
She looks so confused that it confuses me. She throws those words around all the time. If I bring her a treat or do something nice for her, I get a variation ofI love you, Charlie Bucket!Or if I do something that amuses her when we’re hanging out at the condo, or get drinks for all the girls from the kitchen, she’ll holler something like, “We love Charlie!”
“I heard you. I said me too.”
She wiggles in her seat, trying to straighten like she wants to show me this is serious. It doesn’t look that serious since she’s still sitting crisscross. “I mean I love you like you love me.”
“Aren’t we saying the same thing?” I squint at her. “Are you punking me?”
“No! What in the . . .” She huffs. “This didn’t feel hard to say until I said it two times and you didn’t get it.”
This feels like playing Hot Wheels with my oldest nephew, who tells me the rules for how to win—“push the car the most far”—then changes them three seconds later when I do because actually, the winner is who pushed the car the best, and it was him.
Since words have failed me, I make the “what do you want from me” gesture.
“I’minlove with you,” she says. She looks pleased and her body relaxes a bit.
Oh. The words turn me into a bruise and press against me.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” she asks. “Even, like, ‘Finally, Ruby’ or something?”
“What makes you think that?” I can’t repeat the rest—that you’re in love with me.
“Because I do.”
I’m not doing this, whatever it’s supposed to be. I stand and walk to the door. “Go home and sleep it off. You’ll feel better in the morning.”
There’s rustling as she gets off the sofa too. “Charlie!”
I turn with my hand on the knob, ready to show her out. “Yeah?”
“This is supposed to be amazing. We’re in love. That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
It's worse each time she saysin love. “Weare not.Iam. It hasn’t been going great, to be honest.”
She starts toward me. “That’s what I mean. I figured it out today.”
“Because we kissed.” I lean back against the door, and she stops a few feet in front of me.
“Exactly.”
I close my eyes and shake my head. “Nothing changed.”
“Uh, everything did.” She’s starting to sound exasperated.
Welcome to my world, Ruby. “No, it didn’t. You’re just being you.” It probably sounds condescending even though I don’t mean it to. I’m feeling resigned and defeated, not even close to arrogant.
