“Well, I literally did.” Ruby looks at me warily.
“Oh. What did you take? I’m sure it wasn’t important if I haven’t noticed. The guitar? I said you could have that.”
“Jem, I’m pregnant.”
The world shifts into slow motion, the words exploding through my mind as I grab at the scattering thoughts; making attempts at sentences or a reaction. Ruby launches into a burbling breakdown of what she’ll do, how she’ll fix the situation.
I grip her hand. “Ruby, stop talking. Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Not very pregnant, I mean, early days and that makes the decision easier.” She’s breathless and staring at the wall.
Finally, my brain processes the world-shattering information. “Holy fucking fuck.”
“I thought something along the same lines. I didn’t do this on purpose, Jem,” she says. “Kids aren’t something on my life plan for the next few years.”
“Or mine.”
Ruby chews her lip. “Yeah.”
“No, I don’t mean…” I tip her chin to me. She’s scared and I fucking hate Ruby scared. “Falling in love wasn’t in my plans either.”
Ruby tries to move, but I hold tight. “I need time to process this. I just came from my mum’s funeral and that was a big enough headfuck.”
“I didn’t plan on telling you right now. But I thought before I went home with you, I had to, in case this changed your mind.” She might not have told me at all? Surely, she would. “I couldn’t stand to go back, spend a night with you, and be kicked aside, Jem.”
She’s rambling again, and I wipe the worry from Ruby’s face with both my hands, kissing her cheeks, lips, forehead—anything to show her that words don’t matter. Even though the ones I heard blew my world so far off its axis there’s no way I’ll ever get back into the same orbit again.
“I can say with complete honesty and certainty that whatever happens, this will not change my mind,” I tell her.
I squeeze Ruby to me, in case she changeshermind and wants to run or doesn’t believe my words. I came to speak to her tonight because I put my past to rest and had to know if Ruby belonged there, or in my future. Now Ruby is where she should be: in my arms and my heart.
Ruby’s body trembles against mine and I hold her tighter. I will never, ever let this girl go. Whatever she needs, she gets; and if that’s my love, then I have that covered.
“I love you,” I whisper against her hot cheek. “I have never loved anybody before—never knew how until you. You found your way to the deepest part of my heart where that love hides and claimed it.”
“Only because you were ready to love someone,” she says against my neck.
“No, only because I love you. I was always waiting for Ruby Tuesday to come into my life and show me who I really am. Hers.”
I discover I’m going to be a dad on the day I say goodbye to my mum and the crap of my childhood. Can I do any better than my parents?
This is fate’s ultimate demonstration I belong with Ruby. For the first time, the future exists and life is no longer the past or the day-to-day survival against relapsing. I have a place to go and somebody to take with me.
Sure, this isn’t tied up in a neat little bow or a verse in a Hallmark card, but we can do this. I will always give Ruby what she needs because I’m not giving. I’m sharing a part of myself that always belonged to her.
More than that, somebody somewhere decided we should share ourselves with another person, and that’s fucking fine by me.