Dear Aaron

by Mariana Zapata

I couldn’t say no to my sister. I didn’t want her to skate in front of hundreds of people looking raggedy.

Maybe I shouldn’t pick favorites, but… go Mom, you know?

My mom is a hell of a woman. I’ll send you a picture as long as you promise not to become my new stepdad. I like #4.

If a little distance is all that it takes to tear a relationship apart, that should tell you something.

Everything happens for a reason, remember? :)

Every bad decision my friends have made has been with guys they met at bars. If I wanted to make a bad decision, I’d go to the grocery store on an empty stomach.

Everyone knows she has a gift that not many people have. You have to watch her skate to know that’s what she was born to do.

AHall80: You’re something else RubyMars: Something good? AHall80: Very good RubyMars: :)

AHall80: You forgive everyone, don’t you? RubyMars: For the most part. Holding grudges takes too much energy and time. RubyMars: I don’t want to live my life pissed off, you know? AHall80: I know. AHall80: Huh RubyMars: We’re still the platonic version of Ruron. RubyMars: If you want. AHall80: …yeah

That term “wearing your heart on your sleeve” had been written with me in mind.

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.

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.

He looked like a model. If this was him, it was no wonder he’d had so many girlfriends and they’d all been nuts. Nobody gave up this kind of guy without a fight. But it couldn’t be him. There was no way…. No freaking way. Was this a joke?

But it was the smile on the blond man’s face that seemed to just… click. To say maybe this wasn’t a prank. That I wasn’t imagining this. “Aaron?” His name out of my mouth sounded as wary as it seemed in my head. “Yeah,” the man my gut was 99 percent sure was the person I’d spent a year e-mailing, said.

Aaron who was so good-looking my eyeballs could have started hurting in the three minutes we’d been face to face if I hadn’t been flipping out internally. And it wasn’t a big deal that he didn’t look like what I’d pictured. That if I’d known he looked the way he did, maybe I wouldn’t have been making jokes about his butthole.

“You could’ve told me your mom and sister are the ugly ones in the family.” I didn’t even get a chance to throw my head back before I laughed, laughed like I hadn’t just been on the verge of crying and then on the edge of having a panic attack. I just laughed my butt off. Loud and dorky and big. When I managed to open an eye to see what he was doing, and what that was, was him crouched all over again in front of me like he’d been, with his cheeks and neck colored. He was blushing. And that only made me blush.

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

Aaron was smiling at me. This could-be runway model, with cheekbones that could cut glass if they wanted to, a jaw that was so defined it would give a sculptor a hard-on, and a mouth that must have given hundreds of women over the years countless raunchy dreams, was smiling at me from across the table. Me. And he wasn’t looking anywhere else.

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.

he was giving me that smirking little smile that seemed like it had secrets stitched in some compartment below his practically flawless skin.

“I’m really damn happy to see you, Ruby.” His voice was quiet, not hesitant but more cautious. “I look at you and I can’t stop smiling. That’s all. You’re adorable.”

“I like you just the way you are, stalker.” 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. I had no idea.

“You don’t have to be nervous. You meet your friends’ friends all the time, I thought.” One explanation after another backed up inside my throat, and I couldn’t pick one that made me sound less lame and self-conscious, but I had to. I tried to reason with myself that he already knew nearly all the worst things about me and I was still here. What was a little more embarrassment after I’d already called him gorgeous? “But these are your friends,” I explained, hoping he’d understand what I meant. Which was that he was special to me. More special than he should have been. But there was my newest truth out in the open.

Coming here had been a mistake. I realized that. A giant mistake. The worst kind of mistake. Because I’d come to hopefully get over him, or at least cement our platonic relationship and move him into the friend zone, and in less than four hours, he’d pretty much built himself a house in I Will Never Look at Him as Just a Friend land, and that was worse. But it wasn’t like I had another choice.

Aaron stepped forward first, unlocking the door and swinging it open with a, “Rubies first” that had me holding back a smile that would for sure tell him how much I liked him.

He smiled at me and I smiled at him, and I felt… I felt something. In my heart. On my skin. On my fingers and toes. Along my spine. It wasn’t a tingling. It wasn’t some earth-shattering sensation. It was something I wasn’t totally sure of, but it was enough for my smile to grow wider.

I don’t want them to think I’m stuck-up or anything.” It was the tightening at his jaw that told me he didn’t like something about what I’d said. “Somebody thought you were stuck-up before?” “Once or twice, but I’m just quiet until I feel comfortable around complete strangers, you know? That’s all.”

“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.”

I saw the rest of my life in that split second. There was never going to be getting over Aaron. Ever. I was going to die alone.

“You can start small. Look forward to… the smell of fresh coffee. The smell of a pizza you’ll have for dinner. The way nice, clean, cool sheets feel when you crawl into them.” I squeezed his hand and made sure those brown eyes were on me when I told him, “Plumbing.” The smile that came over his face at my last word was worth… everything. Everything in my kingdom for that smile. I’d never felt more powerful in my life than I did in that moment.

Me: Mom, I’m 24. Mom: You’re still my baby Me: Jasmine is your baby. Mom: Jasmine came out an old woman.

I think if someone tried to take me, you’d at least fight them for me a little…” I watched his face for a moment before narrowing my eyes. “Wouldn’t you?” That had his other eye popping open, his cheeks still slightly pink, but everything else about him completely alert. “You know I would.” Why that pleased me so much, I wasn’t going to overanalyze. “If someone tried to take you, I know aikido, some jiu-jitsu, and kickboxing,” I offered him up. “But my dentist says I have really strong teeth, so I’d be better off trying to bite someone’s finger or ear off instead.” Aaron’s eyebrows climbed up his forehead almost comically. “Like a little Chihuahua,” he suggested, the spoon going into his mouth with a sly grin.

Aaron had kissed me on the forehead. I was naïve but not that naïve, and it confused the heck out of me.

“Aaron’s not too hard on the eyes either if you like that kind of Captain America thing,” she joked.

Instead, I shook my head, as every cell in my body cried out for this man who always made sure I ate and had made me something to eat for breakfast again. I wanted him. I wanted him so badly I could barely breathe. And… I couldn’t have him.

“I’d want to hold something more than your hand going into the water—” Aaron choked. Literally choked. Gasping out, “Jesus, Ru.” Oh no. The blood drained from my face. “You know that’s not what I meant!” His laugh was so rough and loud and happy it made something in me click. “Do I?” “Yes!” I didn’t know it was possible for him to laugh louder, but he did.

“Come on, will you? Just you and me,” he said gently. “Ruron forever.” Of all the things he could have said, he went with the one that I loved and wanted to hate at the same time. Ruron. Ugh.

“But I swear, if we become a shark attack statistic, and it bites me in the face, and the surgeon can’t repair the damage, you’re marrying me so you can look at my face the rest of your life and remember it was your fault.”

“I think I made him mad.” Max’s facial expression changed so quick I almost missed it. He rolled his eyes and let out a snort. “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.”

“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 was a goner from the first time you gave me hell.” Aaron smiled. “Maybe even before then.” I was going to pass out. Right here on this crappy dance floor, I was just going to faint. And I highly doubted anyone had smelling salts. I honestly couldn’t do a single thing but just… stand there, and that was just barely. Because my knees… they had turned into jello. That hand that had held mine countless times over the last few days came up and Aaron brushed at my cheek with his thumb. I heard him gulp. Heard him breathe. I felt him over the entire length of my body. “You are so goddamn special, Ruby. I’ll tell you every day if I have to.”

“Do you…?” I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t say it, but I needed to. Had to. The words came out of me in syllables, a blush rising to my face at the fact that I was even about to ask this because it seemed so unreal. “Do you like me? Is that what you’re trying to say?” He squeezed my hip, his gaze intent. “Yes.” My entire world went hazy as I got out, with more hope than I ever could have dreamed, “As more than a friend?” All of Aaron’s facial features gentled and dropped, even his shoulders seemed to slump a little, those mahogany eyes boring right into mine, capturing them and not letting them go as he said one word and only one word, “Yes.” It was a miracle my mouth didn’t just drop open so I’d gape at him.

“You said I was like your sister,” I pretty much accused him. He made a groaning noise deep in his throat, his gaze never straying. “Not even a little, Rube,” he replied. “I was drunk, and I’d been…” He swallowed and shook his head. “I’d been having a real hard time trying to talk myself out of thinking about you like that, but it didn’t work.”

“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.”

“I care about you so much… I love you, Aaron, but I don’t want to get shut out. I told you yesterday. Every time I ask you something you don’t want to answer, you don’t. You tell me almost everything, I think, but the things you don’t….” I shrugged. “I don’t want you to be alone. I want you to know I’m here, even if it’s just as a friend. But I can’t love you when you just brood about things and bury them inside you. I get how it is, I get there’s a lot you don’t want to tell me because I wouldn’t understand, but I’m sure there’s a lot of stuff where that isn’t the case.”

“You’re not crazy. You’re the best, and you deserve better than me, but I hope you don’t care.”

“The idea of you being with somebody else… even just texting them… him… even before I saw your face or heard your voice, Rube… I don’t want you with anybody else. You’re my Ruby, and you have been for a long time.”

For the first time in my freaking life, I was sitting on a man’s lap. I’d thought about this moment a dozen times in my past, but each time had been with someone who didn’t look anything like the one next to me. I’d thought, back then, that nothing would have made me happier than sitting on this other man’s lap and being the object of his affection. That’s what I’d thought. And I would’ve been a moron. An idiot. It was like… this moment was what I’d been waiting for my entire life. Like anything else, if there would have been anything else, would have been a pale, pathetic imitation. It would’ve been a drop in a bucket that I would never remember. But this, this was not that. Sitting on Aaron’s lap on the deck of his beach house, with a handful of stars out, and the sounds of people on the beach… it was just one of a dozen other memories I’d already made with Aaron that I would never forget.

In my gut, as we lived in the moment, I knew I could never or would never forget the way he smiled at me as I sat on his lap.

“Do you ever look at yourself in the mirror and think, man, I got lucky?”