8 am came to soon. Ruby awoke with a
pounding headache from the wine flowing the night before. How many
bottles had it been in the end? After the two boys came jaunting over
to the table and both she and Tera flirted into the night. Tera
snored beside her. Ruby reluctantly pulled herself from the bed and
got herself ready for her morning commute to the video store.
Moving into the bathroom, she splashed
water on her face and brushed her hair back into a messy bun. Back
in her room, she pulled on her work uniform, black pants and the
t-shirt brandishing the video store company name oh so proudly. She
swabbed some deodorant under her arms and quickly touched up her face
with some dabs of make-up. Then, she quickly made her way out of the
apartment, grabbing jacket and purse making a beeline for the nearest
coffee shop.
Boots pounding the pavement, a few
minutes later out she came from said coffee shop, cappuccino in hand
and muffin in the other as she quickly and panting all the way made
her way to her place of employment. She was to be a few minutes
late, nothing to be done. At least she was opening and she could
forge the time signature on her time-card to meet the required
time-slot.
At last reaching the store, she
unlocked the door, flicked on the lights, and moved through the store
towards the back, to forge the time-card.
Later, she sat, store muzak blaring, at
the front counter, staring blankly ahead of her. The slow minutes
ticked by, her life slipping gone, gone, gone. She pulled her
journal out from her purse and set it before her. Sipping her coffee
and nibbling on her muffin, she began scribbling out some lines for a
future song.
“He came into my life, then my
heart,” she wrote. “All too soon it fell apart.”
“No,” she thought. “Not that,
more like, You came into my life.” And she scratched out “he”
and re-wrote “you”. The door chime sounded and she barely looked
up with a “Hi” to welcome the customer. She heard footsteps
approaching the counter and soon felt the presence of the person
waiting her. She looked up slowly and there he was. Rob.
“Hi,” he smiled at her and she felt
her heart sway towards him. “I see you already got your coffee.”
He held up a tray with two go-cups of
coffee on it.
“Guess you don't want this latte
then?” He said, winking at her. She looked him over and reached
for the extra cup. He set it on the counter before her, brushing her
fingers with his.
“How the hell are you?” He asked,
the flirtatious sound in his voice.
Ruby looked down at her journal and
gulped in air.
“I saw you,” was all she managed.
“Saw me? Where?”
She sucked in another gasp of air and
looked him dead in the face.
“At dinner, last night.”
His face fell, in realization. And,
Ruby knew then the truth without either of them speaking. But, to be
very certain and with perhaps a part of her hoping otherwise, she
asked,
“Who is she?”
“Just a friend,” he answered all
too quickly.
“A friend,” she said, with a laugh.
“Like me, then?”
Rob looked out the window behind her
and without looking in her eye he responded, “Sort of.”
Ruby looked him over, taking him in for
what she thought was the last time. A flash of their relationship
and times together flew before her eyes, the first time they'd met in
class, their first “date” at that cheesy, cheap Chinese
restaurant, how she'd followed him to New York, how he took her
around the city, his hand tightly in hers, showing her the sights,
how she felt fully alive and in love when she was with him, and
lastly the times when they fell into bed together, pushing into each
other full of sweat and lust. She sighed heavily and then said,
biting back the tears in her throat,
“Please leave. Now.”
“I really did care for you,” Rob
tried to say and looked into her eyes fully then. “It was just a
mistake, really, never happen again.”
She looked back at him. “Just go,”
was all she could make herself say.
“Don't, Ruby, please,” he finally
said.
“Go,” she said again. And, without
another word, he turned and walked towards the door. He stopped for
a minute and said, “Good-bye, Ruby.” Then he was gone with the
swinging door chime, signaling his exit.
The tears came then as her heart fully
broke, shattered completely. She found her pen and scribbled onto
the page, without truly thinking.
“I'll never see him ever again.”
A few hours later, when her replacement
girl came into work, Ruby headed back to her apartment to find Tera
who had just come in from site-seeing, waiting for her.
Without waiting to ask how she was,
Tera bounded towards her,
“Guess what? Guess who I saw at the
Statue of Liberty?”
Ruby collapsed onto the sofa, too worn
out to play games.
Tera, undeterred, answered, “Geoff
and Les! You know, from camp!”
“Of course, I know,” Ruby sighed.
“What are they doing in town?”
“Seeing the sites, on a break from
school,” Tera rattled on. “Geoff had his new boyfriend with him,
that's so hilarious. Nice guy though. Anyway, I told them we'd meet
for drinks and dinner later. So, yeah, you in, right? Oh, and Les
asked about you, wanted to know all about, you know, everything
with...well--”
Tera looked over at her friend and
finally saw.
“Something wrong?” she asked and
came over to sit beside Ruby.
“Yeah, its over between me and Rob,”
was all Ruby could say.
“How?”
“He came into the store and wanted
to...and I told him to...leave,” Ruby informed her friend. Then
the tears came again. Tera reached for her friend and held her
close.
“I'll never see him again,” sobbed
Ruby.
Tera stroked her friend's hair and
said, “Oh, Jewels, I'm so sorry.” And, then she looked up at the
ceiling and said, “No, I don't think that's true.”
“What?” Ruby managed to say.
“Well, you know how my mom is psychic
and stuff,” Tera began. “I think I'm starting to have that too,
or something, like it was dormant but I can see things, have for
awhile, just haven't really said anything, didn't know if anyone
would believe me, but yeah, I get this feeling that this isn't the
last of Rob in your life.”
“Please, Tera, don't just say things
like that,” Ruby pleaded and Tera held her friend's face and looked
at it, fully.
“No lie, Jewels,” was all she said.
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