Dear Aaron

by Mariana Zapata

  He choked again. “I thought I had enough time to use the bathroom—”

  “How long does it take you to use the bathroom?”

  Aaron shouted out a laugh that pulled at the corners of my mouth.

  “I ran up the stairs to call, and I was dying, then you start messing with me—”

  “I told you I thought it was going to take a minute for you to warm up talking to me.”

  “—and then I learn my friend Aaron, who is basically my best friend, thought I was going to sound like Malibu Barbie, and I forgot I was nervous.”

  “You didn’t have anything to be nervous about. It’s just me.”

  Just him. Why did he have to keep saying that to me? Like he wasn’t aware….

  “I know everything I need to know now,” he stated evenly.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “We get along fine.”

  “We’ve been on the phone—” I pulled it away from my face and watched the counter on the screen. “Five minutes.”

  “I know and you made me laugh more in five minutes than I have with everybody else in the last year combined.” He had no idea how those words affected me. No idea at all, and I could never tell him. I squeezed my eyes closed without thinking about it. There was a pause on his end, and then totally seriously, he said, “Come with me.” He cleared that throat of his and added, “Us.”

  “Where?” I regretted it. Like there was somewhere else he’d invited me to.

  He let out this huffing noise that was pretty close to a groan and had me wondering what face belonged to that voice and personality. It wouldn’t be the first time that thought had crossed my mind. “Florida, Ruby,” he said a lot more patiently than anyone else would have.

  It was my turn to groan as I rolled onto my back on the bed. Something on the mattress dug into my shoulder, but I ignored it. He really was inviting me out. For real.

  “I’ve been thinking about it for a while. Since before we left for Scotland. I wanted to invite you, but…” He trailed off. There was a sound I couldn’t figure out before he said in a totally confident tone, “I want to meet you.” Just like that. I want to meet you. He let out a soft breath over the phone. “I’m not going to kill you in your sleep.”

  That made me snort. “I wasn’t thinking that.”

  “You could have your own room. I’m sure there’s a lock on it.”

  Anxiety and stress and nerves and vomit all rolled around in my belly. Go with him. To Florida. By myself. When I didn’t technically know him or his friends.

  Meet him. Meet Aaron.

  Meet this person I thought the world of who had basically called me his little sister.

  What if he didn’t like me in person? What if I liked him even more once I met him in person? What if I liked him even more and he decided he didn’t like me for some reason once he met me? What if—

  “Yes, then?”

  Yes? My heart rate sped up, excitement and nausea and something I couldn’t completely identify filling my veins. “Aaron, do you understand what you’re asking me?”

  “Yeah,” he said, but it really came out more like “duh.”

  “We’ve never met in person.”

  “So? We e-mailed each other back and forth for nine months. I talk to you more than I do my family and friends.” There was a rustling sound in the background, and I swear I heard a door close. “It’s only weird if you make it weird, and we wouldn’t make it weird. We already hit it off.” Neither one of us said anything for a moment, but when he finally spoke again, it made the hairs on my arms stand up. “You don’t think so?”

  Did I not think so? Was he insane? I groaned and brought up a closed fist to my eye socket. “Look, I want to go with you. I really do, but—”

  His voice was soft and determined. “I would never do anything to you, or let anyone do anything to you.”

  “It’s not even that—”

  “I know I’m coming on strong, but the more I think about it, the more I want you to come with us. The entire time I was in Scotland, I regretted not inviting you to come when Max bailed. I wish I would’ve invited you even if he hadn’t bailed.”

  He had?

  I blew out a breath and curled my toes together once more. Why did every single cell in my body get excited at the idea of going to Florida with someone I didn’t know that well and other people I didn’t know at all? If my best friend were to tell me she was going to meet up with her online friend at a cafe by herself, I would tell her she was out of her mind and that her body was going to show up on the nine o’clock news for being a total idiot.

  But my brain rebelled against that completely.

  Completely.

  Some part of me deep down knew that Aaron wouldn’t hurt me. I didn’t know how I knew that, but I did. I really, really did. And I did love going to Florida…

  “Look, I don’t have any money. I have a lot coins saved I can go get cashed and I have some money, but I shouldn’t be blowing it on a ticket that’s probably going to be crazy expensive because it’s so last minute—”

  That calming voice cut me off. “I got your ticket.”

  I felt myself scrunch up my nose and groaned. “You can’t pay for it.”

  “You just said you don’t have any money. I’m the one who wants you to come…” He trailed off. “If it makes you feel any better, I can afford it.”

  “I have to leave next week for California—”

  “I’ll make sure you’re back before you have to leave.”

  I was making a terrible mistake, wasn’t I? Who the heck goes to a beach house with strangers, one stranger I was pretty much totally in love with who had no idea because I’d never even seen his face—

  I’d thought about it. He could basically look like a troll and chances were, if he was as wonderful in person as he was online, I would still be in love with him. Beauty fades, a good personality and chemistry doesn’t.

  “I can afford it, Ruby, and I’ll make sure your flight gets you back home before you need to leave. You’ve sent me hundreds of dollars worth of stuff while I was deployed—no, don’t say you didn’t because we both know you did. I can cover your ticket. You’re the one doing me a favor.”

  “How am I doing you a favor?” I asked him in a mumble.

  “Because I could’ve had a better time in Scotland, and I’m being selfish inviting you to come to Florida because I want to be around someone….” He trailed off again. “I want to meet you, and I’m not giving you any time to think about it. You’re telling me you’re worried, and I’m pushing you into it. That’s selfish, and you know what, Rube? I don’t give much of a shit.”

  Was I dead? Was this a dream? Had my mom baked mushrooms into dinner last night and I was still on some sort of weird trip?

  I moaned. This was crazy, and I told him exactly that.

  “So what? It’s crazier for me to think about a girl your age going places by herself,” he said. “I’ve got you, Ruby Cube.”

  Ruby Cube. It had killed me the first time I read it and killed me every time since then when I saw the RC he wrote me. I was so dumb. So damn dumb to fall into this position again. Even knowing I was dumb didn’t change anything.

  “I want to tell you yes.” How could I explain this to him? “I really do. I’ve only gone places by myself for work without my family. They’re going to think I’ve lost my mind if I tell them I’m going with you.”

  “You’re twenty-four not ten.”

  Those words hit my chest with the force of a thousand of Thor’s hammers. Hadn’t I told him all this before? How much I hated getting treated like a little kid? It was my fault, I knew it. I let them all boss me around. I’d let them all clip my wings, and then I’d finished off the job myself.

  “I know we’d get along. I know it. You know it. I’ll send you my social if you promise not to post it on the Internet or pull out a bunch of credit cards under my name. You can have my dad’s address and all the beach house information wher
e we’ll be staying. It’s a big house. You can have your own room.” There was another pause, but it was his calm, steady breaths that I couldn’t help but pay attention to. He breathed like my sister. Like someone who didn’t get out of breath running up stairs. “I know you’ll get along with all of us.”

  My heart thought it was a downhill skier going for the gold. How I could be so excited and so scared at the same time, blew my freaking mind.

  Why wasn’t I telling him this was crazy?

  Why?

  Because it was crazy freaking stupid, but not in a bad way. I wanted to go so badly I could taste it. That part of me that wasn’t scared of what he would think of me, of what could happen if we didn’t get along in person, wanted to go so badly it made the rest of my brain shut up.

  How could I tell Aaron I didn’t usually even get to choose my seat when I flew with my family? Just thinking that made me feel so young and—

  “Ruby, don’t worry about the money. We can figure it out. I’m not expecting anything from you. I told you the truth when I said you’re my closest friend. You are. I tell you more than I tell anyone else. How the hell could I let anything happen to the one person who’s made me laugh when it was the last thing I wanted to do?”

  My whole world seemed to stop.

  And he kept going, oblivious. “If you really don’t want to go, I don’t want to force you or give you a guilt trip. Come because you want to. If not, we’ll make it work some other time. All right?”

  Chapter 15

  “We are just about to begin our descent into Panama City….”

  If I hadn’t had so much one-on-one time with heart palpitations when I was younger, I would have thought for sure I’d started having them when the pilot’s voice came over the air.

  Because holy crap.

  I was here. About to be here. In Panama City. Where Aaron was going to be.

  I was a chicken. This was my truth. I wasn’t afraid to admit it. It was me. Ruby Marisol Santos was a certified, grade-A chicken. Not even the good kind of chicken that was grass fed and antibiotic-free because I’d been on antibiotics a few months ago. I was the worst kind of freaking chicken.

  The human kind.

  I wasn’t prepared for this. It wasn’t every day, or every month, year, or decade that I stepped out of my comfort zone. Flying solo to vacation with people I’d never physically met wasn’t something I did or even thought about doing. I’d been verging on freaking out for the last twelve hours. I’d sweated, chewed most my fingernails down, sweated some more, panted so hard you’d figure I’d run a mile in heels, and had my heart racing so fast I could never tell anyone that knew me, otherwise they would send me to a cardiologist.

  Yet here I was. Trying my best to not be what came so naturally to me: a chickenshit.

  After spending an entire lifetime trying to tell myself I wasn’t scared of things while also actively avoiding those things that might terrify me, I usually didn’t find myself in situations that had me wondering what in the world I’d been thinking, because I wouldn’t put myself into that position. That just wasn’t what I did, and it shamed me.

  But someone I trusted had told me I needed to live my life to the fullest. I wasn’t brave or ballsy like a lot of people who went after the things they wanted all the time. Maybe because there wasn’t a whole lot I wanted, but I wasn’t sure. Quitting my job and coming here were the two bravest things I had ever done in my life, hands down. I’d tried being that resilient, go-getter type person once, and only once, and it had backfired on me like no one’s business. But, I’d watched my little sister fall enough times and watched her get right back up to know that you needed to do that, every single time. You needed to pick yourself right back up, even if you were bruised and hurt and just wanted to lie on the ground and stay there forever because it wasn’t as uncomfortable as you thought it’d be.

  Or because you were scared of falling again as you tried to pick yourself back up.

  Not that I knew from experience or anything.

  Which was why and how I found myself stuck in the middle seat of an airplane, smashed between one stranger trying to hog my armrest and another stranger using my shoulder as a pillow. Not surprisingly, when you try to buy a ticket the day before you want to leave somewhere, you aren’t exactly going to find a nonstop flight at a decent price, much less score a window seat. But I’d been okay with that. All that had mattered was that I was on my way.

  Nonstop from Houston to Panama City Beach, Florida.

  I still couldn’t believe I was about to touch down, and my family definitely hadn’t been able to believe what I was doing either.

  Yesterday, my mom and Jasmine had both taken turns yelling at me.

  What is wrong with you? You’re already leaving next week!

  Have you lost your fucking mind, Squirt?

  “You’ve never done crazy stuff,” my mom had argued, not knowing that those words alone had backfired on her so much. It only egged me on to insist on doing what I wanted to do. And that was go.

  “I’m going to” and “No” hadn’t been the right thing to answer back with because that was when they’d started yelling over each other for half an hour, give or take. At that point, I did the exact same thing I had done hours later when the older man sitting beside me in the plane had slumped over midsnore and rested his head on my shoulder: I had let it happen. Except, I had let my little sister and mom yell all the reasons I shouldn’t go.

  What if something happens? My little sister had asked, one hand flailing around her face while her other hand held a chocolate chip cookie clutched in it. I didn’t need to answer because my mom had rattled off a dozen things that could happen, including but not limited to me getting kidnapped, sold into slavery, and being used a drug mule.

  But I managed to keep my mouth closed and let them keep going and venting and turning red.

  Until finally, I said as calmly as possible, loving them so much even though they blew my mind, “I get that you’re worried… but I’m going.”

  It had set them off all over again, but after a few minutes, I turned around and walked out on them for the first time in my life instead of breaking down and agreeing that going across the gulf was freaking insane.

  It was. I knew it was, but as much as it scared me, their words only made me want to go so much more. Whether it was to prove it to myself, prove it to them, or neither one, I had no clue. All I knew was that I wanted to go, even more because I was nervous.

  But mostly because I wanted to meet Aaron, though it scared the heck out of me.

  I wanted to meet him so I could get it over with and move on with my life, or so I told myself. I could see him and know that all I felt was friendship. I figured it would be like meeting a celebrity in person and seeing they were human instead of this imaginary, perfect person you had built up in your head.

  And when my mom and sister showed up at my bedroom door after I walked out on them to start packing, I stood my ground as they still attempted to talk me out of going.

  I wasn’t going to budge. And I hadn’t, despite my stomach hurting and how unnatural it felt to not do whatever was in my power to please them. Because that was what I usually did. That was what came naturally to me.

  Somehow, someway, I made it to the flight that Aaron had e-mailed me the details of not even two hours after I’d agreed to go to Florida, before I’d told anyone I lived with. Even leaving on bad terms with my mom, with her husband being the one to drive me to the airport because the two I was related to by blood were too pissed off to want to take me, I hadn’t been able to stop being excited. And scared. Mostly scared. Maybe fifty-fifty.

  I was about to land in Florida, a place I’d been to a dozen times before.

  To vacation with my pen pal I was a little in love with and his friends.

  There was no need to freak out.

  According to his last IMs, he and his friends were driving overnight and should have arrived at the beach house they were re
nting four hours ago. After that, he was driving back to Panama City to pick me up, and then we were going back to the house. I’ll meet you outside Arrivals, he’d messaged me. So we were meeting outside of Arrivals.

  Hopefully.

  I hoped.

  I really hoped.

  This tiny part of my brain kept warning me to expect the worst. That maybe he wouldn’t show up. That maybe Aaron Hall didn’t exist. That I should be prepared for him not being there, and if he wasn’t, it wasn’t the end of the world. I could figure something out. I had a credit card. Maybe I didn’t have a lot of money in my bank account, but I had my credit card, and I’d gone to swap my coins for cash the day before and come out with almost two hundred dollars.

  I was good. I was good.

  That’s exactly what I kept chanting to myself as the plane landed and everyone filed off. I lugged my weekend bag through the airport, so much smaller than the one back home, and stopped at the first bathroom I could find. I used it, but while I was washing my hands, I made the mistake of looking at myself in the mirror.

  I was a wreck.

  The light brown hair I’d been dyeing since I was fifteen had decided it was done being straight and wanted to resemble something out of a frizzy hair product commercial. The color I usually carried from lack of sleep under the blue eyes I’d inherited from my mom had decided to darken to an almost purple. And my mascara… I almost shuddered. Beauty was on the inside, I knew that, but a little makeup never hurt anyone.

  After putting on a little more foundation, blush, and lipstick, and giving my hair a brush with my fingers, which had it looking decent again, I reminded myself that I was here for my friend and not for any other reason. I’d already told him I didn’t look like my mom or Tali. If he was disappointed in my appearance… I could get over it. I really could. I would. It wouldn’t be the first time that happened.

  I didn’t even believe that myself, but I needed to.

  Friends didn’t care what other friends looked like, unless this was Mean Girls, and it wasn’t. As long as we got along, that was all that mattered. Our friendship had been built on our personalities. Everything could be fine.