Page 116 of Betting on the Best Friend
“Yeah.”
I grab my toiletry kit and pajamas and shut myself in the small bathroom. It’s a nice hotel, but we got budgeted for the cheapest rooms. At least, the one of us who remembered to reserve one did. There’s only a shower, no tub, and the vanity isn’t big, but it’s big enough. I change into my pajamas, thankful I brought my long-sleeved knit ones because I’m always freezing in hotel rooms.
Ten minutes later, I emerge with my hair pulled back by a soft headband, secured in a stubby ponytail to keep it off my clean face while I sleep.
Charlie is sitting at the foot of the bed, elbows on his knees.
“All yours.” I pass him to put my stuff back in my suitcase.
“Ruby.”
“Charles.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Forgiven.”
“No, I mean I’m really sorry.”
“It’s okay. I pushed and I shouldn’t have.”
“It wasn’t okay for me to snap at you like that.”
I turn to face him. “That’s true.”
He looks relieved that I’m not letting it slide completely. “You’re too important to me to lose. I don’t want to be ruined.”
“You won’t be,” I say softly. “I would never let that happen.”
He speaks as quietly as I do. “Those weeks after the Treehouse were hell. But instead of learning my lesson, I kissed you. Told myself as long as you were good with it, I could satisfy my curiosity and think of it as a goodbye kiss to pointless hopes.”
“I wasn’tgoodwith it. I wanted it,” I say fiercely. “Getting it was what made me understand why I wanted it. Untangled some things.”
“It’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.” His voice is flat, and his eyes look both restless and bone weary. “Knowing makes everything harder.”
“Knowing what? That we kiss each other like it’s what we were born for?” I’m standing in the corner where I left my suitcase wedged between the desk and the wall, but it would only take three steps to reach him. To remind him.
“I don’t think this is how love is supposed to be. The kind I feel, it doesn’t take figuring out. It just is. I’ve been over here, grateful for every crumb you give me, but at some point, you’ll run out of them, because it’s not the same kind of love. That poem—”
“I’m really beginning to dislike that poet.”
He gives a soft laugh. “I keep coming back to lines from it. He said that love will crown you, but it will also crucify you. Only one person ever came back from that, and I’m no saint.”
“And I’m not a distant mountain or whatever else he said. I’m right here.” I point at the floor. “I’m just a girl standing in front of a boy—”
“Do notNotting Hillme.”
“Don’t call me a mountain.”
“You’re not a mountain, Ruby. You’re a gem.”
“I might actually kill you.” But I can’t fight a smile.
He returns it. “At least it would stop the merry-go-round.”
It’s a merry-go-round we don’t need to be on, but I can see I’m not getting through to him. It’s time to retreat, but only to regroup. “I’m going to ask you a question that I don’t want you to answer yet. I want you to think about it. We can talk about it when we get home.”
“Can’t promise I’ll answer.”
