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Letting out a sigh, I set my mug down and finally look at my mother.
“And I let her go. That was my big mistake. Obviously, I couldn’t like…forcibly keep her here or anything, but I let her go without trying to really tell her how I feel.”
“How do you feel?” my mother asks, her face looking oddly somber.
“I’m in love with her,” I say. “I want to marry her someday. I can’t believe I feel this way about someone who wants to slow things down, but at the same time, like…I’ll slow down if she wants. I’ll drop to a snail’s pace. I’ll crab-walk this whole thing. But she shut it down completely and I just…I don’t know what to do.”
My mom assesses me for a minute before setting her own glass down and clasping her hands together.
“I feel like I need to tell you about our conversation from the other morning, about something I said to Ruby.”
“What?” I ask, confusion rushing through me that my mom has something to add.
“She was talking to me about her mother, how she’s nervous about going home and discussing what happened here with her dad. I told her it was important not to put people on pedestals, said we’re all human and make mistakes and putting someone up too high sets them up for a fall.”
She pauses, and I can see regret in her eyes.
“And then I brought you up specifically.”
My face turns to stone. “What exactly did you say to her?”
“I can’t remember my exact words,” she says, “but I basically said the beginnings are fun but she shouldn’t build you up too high because nobody is perfect. I told her to be careful of not moving things along too quickly.”
I run my hands through my hair and close my eyes, irritation rolling through my body in wave after wave.
“I can’t believe you would say something like that,” I say.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t think it would be any big deal. I just wanted to slip something into our conversation to make sure she wasn’t pushing you along too fast when I know you’ve never—”
“It is a big deal,” I grit out, interrupting whatever else my mother has to say. “Ruby has a lot of internal shit that has to do with her dad abandoning her, stuff that has been bubbling over since she’s been in town to see him. She was finally starting to open up from some of that, and you basically tell her she’s making a mistake by dating me because I’m going to let her down, too. Of course it’s a big deal.”
“I didn’t say she was making a mistake,” my mother replies. “Not at all. I never used those words.”
“How would you feel?” I ask her. “If you were at Grandma’s when you were younger, and she told you to be careful you’re not moving too fast with her son because he’s probably going to let you down? If you’d been faced with a father who abandoned you and previous relationships with partners who never put you first…what would you think?”
Her shoulders fall, and I can see in her face that she hadn’t ever thought of it that way.
But it doesn’t matter what her intentions were. Ruby heard my mother’s words as a warning, as a reminder that men let you down, and it made her believe the same would be true for me.
Then when she left, I didn’t fight for her, further proving those fears to be well founded.
“I’m sorry,” my mother says. “This is all my fault.”
I sigh and shake my head.
“It’s not your fault,” I declare. “Nobody is to blame, but now I at least know I have a chance at getting her back.”
“How?”
I look at my mother and cross my arms.
“By fighting for her the way she deserves.”
chapter twenty-five
Ruby
“Look at you!” my mom exclaims when I show up at her apartment two days after I return from Cedar Point. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so tan in your entire life, not even that one summer when you went and stayed with the Clarks.”
