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“How about you stop doing that? Because you know who that hurts in the end, right?” she said.
“Me.”
“Yep. Does your mom love you? Does she deserve to be treated like that?”
“She loves me a lot. I know she’s sad that I’m here.”
“Well, then maybe you can make the best of the time you’ve got here, like River said. Think about who you want to be when you leave.”
Damn. This kid was looking at Ruby like she set the sun. Hell, I glanced around, and they all looked at her that way.
“I’d like to be a fireman someday,” Duncan said unexpectedly. “But my stepdad said it won’t happen because I’m not big enough.”
“Pfft,” Ruby huffed as she shook her head. “You’re fourteen years old. You don’t know how big you’ll be when you’re older. But do you know what the best revenge is when someone tells you that you can’t do something you’re determined to do?”
“What?” he asked.
“You go out there and you do it. You leave here, and you work hard in school because you need to be a good student to become a firefighter. It’s competitive, and they won’t hire someone who causes trouble. So, you put your head down and start making good decisions. It doesn’t mean that you won’t make mistakes, but when you make them, you learn from them. And you keep that goal of becoming a firefighter in your mind the whole way. Let that drive you toward becoming everything that you want to be.”
“Is that what you did?” he asked.
“Yeah, something like that.” She smiled just as Terrence came over and told us it was time for the kids to go outside and get some fresh air.
He walked Ruby and me back to the front lobby and asked for her number to see about her coming back to speak to the kids again sometime.
We thanked him, and when we were both in the car, she turned to look at me.
“You were great in there.”
“You were fucking amazing. You had those kids eating out of the palm of your hand,” I said.
“Whatever. They idolized you.” She shrugged. “You were very inspiring, River Pierce.”
“Remember that when we’re naked later.”
I could feel myself getting pulled in deeper with this woman.
It should terrify me, but it didn’t.
I only wanted more.
twenty-four
. . .
Ruby
I hada call with Dean Langston, and my palms were already sweating. Over the last two weeks, I’d had a few interviews for positions I’d applied to for different programs working with children in varying capacities. So far, I’d been told that I was overqualified for almost every single position.
And the truth was, I needed to have a job lined up when my father came home, which was not as far away as it once was. It was the Fourth of July weekend, and time was flying.
I couldn’t put the dean off much longer, as the fall semester was right around the corner.
I clicked on the Zoom link on my laptop, adjusting the collar on the button-up I was wearing, and smiled as Dean Langston came into view.
“Dr. Rose, hello. It’s lovely to see you,” he said. There was nothing informal about this man, and there would be no sense wasting energy asking him to call me Ruby. He’d called me Ms. Rose when I was a teaching assistant at the university for the last two years.
“Hello, Dean Langston. Thank you for taking the time to meet with me.”
