Dear Aaron

by Mariana Zapata

AHall80: Ur like my little sister RubyMars: Okay

i would cry if edward said this to me, my heart would shatter

AHall80: Not that I don’t want to meet you RubyMars: I get it. People say stuff when they’re drunk. AHall80: Yeah they do AHall80: But I wouldn’t mind meeting you. RubyMars: …are you still drunk? AHall80: No AHall80: For real RubyMars: Maybe one day. :)

AHall80: I’ve been thinking RubyMars: What brought this miracle on? AHall80: I wish you could’ve come with me

RubyMars: What did you figure out? AHall80: Why don’t you come with me?

AHall80: Did you see my message? RubyMars: That’s why I dropped my phone. You want me to go with you… where? AHall80: To Florida RubyMars: …. RubyMars: You want me to go with you to Florida? AHall80: Yeah

AHall80: Come with us. RubyMars: You keep saying that. AHall80: Because I want you to

RubyMars: But you want me to go too? AHall80: Yeah RubyMars: Why? Because you want to meet up? AHall80: Yeah… RubyMars: But why? AHall80: Because what’s the point in waiting? It’ll be a while before I get more time off. AHall80: Come with

RubyMars: You can’t just decide overnight you want to meet me all of a sudden. RubyMars: I’m leaving in less than two weeks to visit my dad. AHall80: There’s no “all of a sudden.” AHall80: And I didn’t decide that overnight AHall80: I’ve been thinking about it a lot

AHall80: I don’t see a point in waiting RubyMars: Yeah, but… RubyMars: This isn’t us meeting up at a coffee shop or something. AHall80: We wouldn’t have met at a coffee shop RubyMars: Why not? We could before you went back to base.

RubyMars: Because you know me too well. AHall80: That’s a problem? RubyMars: ….no

RubyMars: You better answer the phone and that better not be one of those numbers you give strangers when you don’t want them to know your real number. I’ll never get over it. AHall80: Just call, Rubes.

“Rubes?” the male voice came over the phone again, still that beautiful pitch, a natural narrator, sounding… amused? What was he amused over? “You there? I hear you breathing.” I stopped breathing.

Lmao

I got this sinking feeling…. “What? Did you think I was going to sound like Minnie Mouse?” His “Uh” didn’t even take a second. I burst out laughing, forgetting I was out of breath and that I’d been nervous all of ten seconds ago. “You did?” He started chuckling,

“No, I know it’s you. We’ve been on the phone… four minutes and you’ve got me laughing more than I have in weeks. It couldn’t be anybody else but you, Ru.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

I had just taken a deep breath as a group of six that had been on the same flight as me walked by, when I heard distantly, “Rubes?” I stopped breathing. I almost didn’t look up, my vision bleary, but I made myself do it. Standing not even five feet away, with a torn-out piece of notebook paper in his hands that said RC SANTOS in thick, scribbly red letters, was a man. Not a boy. Not a man-boy. A man I could have looked at all day for the rest of my life.

No freaking way. Was this a joke? I turned my head to glance over my shoulder, and then turned to look over my other shoulder like there was some other Ruby or person in the world that could go by RC Santos that this man could be asking for. Because the name was common and all that.

Lmao

I blinked at those brown eyes staring a hole into me. I swallowed just as hard as he’d swallowed a minute ago. Then I told him before even processing the whispered words coming out of my mouth, “Can I see your ID?” He blinked, and just as quickly as he blinked, he smiled almost, almost tenderly and nodded.

“You could’ve told me your mom and sister are the ugly ones in the family.”

“Are you going to hug me or are you just going to stand there?” I asked him. I had no idea right then that, for as long as my soul resided in my body and I could reminisce on the best parts of my life, I’d remember how Aaron Hall leaned forward and wrapped those long, tan arms around my back and pulled me into his chest.

The way he hugged the hell out of me would be something that sickness and death could never take away.

“You’re just… not as hard on the eyes as I thought you were going to be.” His mouth did that hesitating grin again that fluctuated between a grin and a controlled smile before he winked. He winked. At me.

She’d struck out. Then she’d struck out again when she’d brought them over and taken our food order. Her squeezing her boobs together with her upper arms hadn’t been enough to get him to look elsewhere, and she had girls even I had glanced at twice. But Aaron? He’d been constantly sneaking looks and smiles at me while we’d been in the car, and hadn’t stopped doing so since we’d been seated at the café he’d pulled over at.

“You’re gorgeous,” I said to him almost painfully, prying the words out. “Like… the army should put you on their recruitment ads or put you as the face on their website. I feel like I can’t look you in the eye or I’ll turn into stone, and they’ll need to add my statue to a garden of other women who have made eye contact with you before and lost their lives.”

Looking back on it, it’s weird thinking about the moments you don’t realize are important. The sentences, the touches, the actions that seem so innocent in that second, you take them for granted. The words that make water into wine in the course of your life. But I would never forget the way his words made me feel. The way he made me feel right then.

The second man, with light brown skin and bright green eyes, nodded as he gazed directly at the hand I was clutching, his eyes seeming to sharpen and narrow enough so that I started loosening the grip I had on Aaron’s hand. He held my hand tighter.

My friend made a dismissive noise in his throat as his hand slipped out of mine all of a sudden, and before I had a chance to snatch for it again, he moved it… and settled his palm on my lower back.

“I think I want to wake up every day and watch this,” I whispered to him, pulling my knees into my chest so I could settle my chin on top of them. “It would be worth waking up early for.” And all Aaron said, in his low, soft-spoken voice that he’d been using on me since yesterday, with something in the notes I couldn’t classify that sounded almost like hope, if hope had a sound and if a promise could be made without vocalizing it, was, “Any morning you want, Rube. I’ll watch it with you.”

“Have I told you today that I’m glad you’re here?” “Not today.” He spread his fingers and laced them through mine, still smiling. “In that case, I’m really glad you’re here, Ru.”

Aaron had kissed me on the forehead.

“I’m really proud of you.” I did know he was proud of me. He’d kissed my forehead once more after I’d caught the fish and told me those same exact words, and when I’d gone to hug him for the first time since the day he’d picked me up at the airport, he’d hugged me back.

“I’ve tried asking Des what’s going on between you two and he says he doesn’t know.” “Oh, there’s nothing—” She rolled her eyes. “Really, there’s nothing. He called me his little sister one day,” I explained, reaching up to scratch at my neck.

I told myself the same thing I had from the moment I became aware I had feelings for him. He didn’t see me the way I wanted him to, and even if he did, did I want to be with someone who kept so much to himself? Not really, my head said, but my heart said it could deal.

“Come on, will you? Just you and me,” he said gently. “Ruron forever.”

What had to be his toes pressed to the side of my foot. “Ruby Cube. You can hold on to whatever you want if we go in. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“You don’t even know how much I needed your e-mails, Ruby.” There was a pause. “I didn’t even know how much I needed your e-mails.”

It wasn’t until you that I heard myself laugh, Ruby.”

I didn’t get a chance to say anything before he’d turned himself around and dropped that rounded butt into the sliver of space separating me from Max.

Lmao oh aaron

“Ah. Don’t worry about it. That just means he cares about you. That’s the only reason he ever gets mad. I piss him off all the time.”

When the hand over mine squeezed it one more time, he leaned to the side and whispered, “Come dance with me.” Uh. “Okay? I don’t really dance though…” “We’ll make it work,” he said, already pulling me up to my feet, his gaze so intense, I almost started to worry.

“Why are we so close together?” “Because.” One of the hands at my waist tightened. “I want to.” I stuttered. “Why?” “Ruby,” was all he said.

“I wasn’t thinking anything bad about you, RC.” He continued speaking in that low voice. “I’m not mad at you. Most of what I’ve been thinking about is how I’m going to beat that piece of shit’s ass the first chance I get for what he did to you, and nothing you do or say will talk me out of it.”

“I was a goner from the first time you gave me hell.” Aaron smiled. “Maybe even before then.”

“You are so goddamn special, Ruby. I’ll tell you every day if I have to.”

“Do you like me? Is that what you’re trying to say?” He squeezed my hip, his gaze intent. “Yes.”

“At first, you really were just a nice stranger. Then you were my friend, and I really did want you to be happy and do your thing,” he explained softly. “And then it changed. The next thing I knew, you were telling me about some dick kissing you and it pissed me off more than anything ever had before.”

“Aaron, why are you telling me this?” That had him blinking. “Because I need to. I want you to know.” “But why?” “Because you make me happy, Ruby. Because there’s no one else I want to be around more.”