37

RUBY

“Hey,” I say, walking into my house. I left early this morning to run an errand before my pageant today. Chuck is still asleep, but Mom is already at the kitchen table with her coffee. She looks sleepy and warm, happy in a way she only gets on pageant mornings . . . which makes this so much harder.

“Morning,” she says. “Where were you off to so early?”

“I had to drop off notes for a friend.”

“This a school thing?”

“Just someone from my Government class.” I pull out my chair and sit down in front of her. “But I need to talk to you about something. And don’t get mad, okay? Please?”

Mom sets her mug down. “How do I know if I’m going to get mad until you say it?”

“Well, it probably will make you mad.” I run my tongue over my teeth, biding my time, working up the courage to say it. “But I hope you hear me out anyway.”

“Ruby, what are you talking about? Did that Tyler boy get you—”

“No, no, I’m not pregnant.”

“Oh, thank god,” she says, picking her coffee back up. “Don’t go scaring me like—”

“But I need you to know that no matter what happens today, I’m not . . . I’m not doing pageants anymore.”

“Nonsense,” she says, raising her voice. “I am not letting you throw away your life! I want better for you. I—”

I reach across the table and grab her hand. “I’m not throwing away my life. I’ve got a plan. There’s this great automotive program, and I . . . Pageants are your thing, Mom. They always have been. Please try to understand.”

“You’re good, baby. You’re really good. I refuse.”

“Refuse what? I’m eighteen! It’s time to let me start figuring out what I want, instead of just—”

“Just what?” She pulls her hand back, her eyes going cold.

I look away. “Just trying to make you happy. I know you gave up a lot for me, and I’m grateful, but you have to actually let me live my life now.”

“And what exactly do you think you’ve been doing?”

“Living your life, the one you lost when you had me. I’m sorry that happened to you, but I need to be done paying you back for being born. I just . . . I want to make my own decisions, even if you think they’re wrong.”

“Ruby, quitting pageantry isn’t just wrong. It’s throwing away everything we’ve been working toward since you were a little girl.”

“But I’m not. You know I’m not on track to actually even go to Miss America, let alone win it. I haven’t had a major title in years, and I’m not even winning the little ones anymore.”

“We’ll work harder. You still have a few more years of eligibility, and you’ll have a lot more time for it once you graduate.”

“No. This is the last one.” I meet her eyes and take a deep breath. “But . . . I’m also not just talking about pageants.”

Her eyes narrow and then go wide. “What, then?”

“You know what I’m talking about, Mom. You even know who I’m talking about.”

“Get out of my kitchen.” She stands up so fast her chair tips over.

“Mom—”

“Get out of my sight right now, Ruby,” she says, her hands shaking. “Go.”

So I do. I run to my room and grab my stuff as fast as I can, but she follows me anyway.

“I raised you better than this! I tried my hardest to do right by you!” she shouts, grabbing a trophy off my shelf and throwing it to the ground. “I gave up everything—everything!—so you could live, and this is what I get?” She grabs another trophy. “This is my payback for working shit jobs and putting every penny I could toward these competitions?”

“I didn’t ask you to do that!” I say, ducking as she throws the next one right at me. “I didn’t ask to be born!”

“Maybe that was my first mistake,” she says, and then room goes silent. Even the dogs stop yipping as her words land like missiles all around us.

“Wow,” I whisper.

“Ruby, honey,” she says as the realization of what she just said seems to wash over her.

I run out the front door.

“Baby, wait,” she calls from the porch. “I didn’t mean it. We’ll figure it out. Just like we did with Katie. You don’t have to—”

I slam my car door shut and peel out, choking back sobs until I get to Everly’s. I’ve barely got my car in park before I’m banging on her front door.

A very sleepy-looking Everly pulls it open, her eyes going wide as soon as she sees me.

“Ruby?”

“Can I come in? I just need a place to—”

But I don’t get any more out before she wraps me up in a hug so tight that I can’t breathe.

“You never have to ask,” she says as I bury my face against her. She runs a hand over my hair and tells me everything is going to be okay.

And even though it feels like my entire life just got bounced up on a trampoline, somehow, I believe her.