Letters From Ruby

  They said she died suddenly. Unexpectedly. A tragic accident. A fluke of nature, some even called it. Dale wasn't so sure. He saw how she looked at him that night, he saw how frightened she was - that look in her eye was enough to send his mind into a paralysing state of fear. Ruby was something else, he knew it the moment he met her. She didn't show emotions often - a trait he found endlessly annoying and slightly terrifying. 

  The night she died wasn't anything out of the ordinary. Dale spent the night in his dorm room studying, much like he did every Friday night. His roommate had popped out for a quick fag under the yellow glow of the streetlights outside. That's when he got the call.

  "Dale Archard?" Dale quickly brought his phone from his ear to check the caller ID.

  "Ruby?"

  "I'm sorry Sir, this is the metropolitan police. Am I speaking to Dale Archard?"

  "I - Yes. Where's Ruby?" Panic filled Dale's throat. What had she done now?

  "Can you please tell me your current location? I'm afraid I have some bad news."

  ***

  Dale could feel someone watching him. He could feel the presence of someone other than himself in the room. He could also hear the incredibly irritating voice that belonged to that presence.

  "Come on, Dale."

  "Move." Someone poked his leg. He ignored it. "Dale, I swear to God."

  "Fuck off Jack." Dale hissed through the protection of his bed sheet. After a second he could hear footsteps padding softly away from his bed. Relaxing, he pulled the sheet tighter under his chin and rolled to face the wall.

  "I. Said. Move." Dale's bed sheet was ripped from him and thrown somewhere on the floor of his dorm room. Dale snapped up, anger overcoming him. He leaped for the boy by his bed, and with a thud pushed him up against the wall. He could hear his heavy breathing like a steam train at full speed.

  "Dude, your breath stinks." Dale squeezed Jack's polo-shirt collar, pulled him towards him then bashed him into the wall again. Satisfaction made Dale smile when Jack bit back a gasp of pain.

  "Calm down, I only - "

  "Calm down?" Dale pushed him hard against the wall again. "Calm the fuck down?"

  Jack struggled against Dale's grip, which would have freed him on any normal occasion, but the circumstances weren't normal - Dale had become someone so full of anger that it showed in every move he made, in every vein that jutted from his almost translucent skin.

  Dale's fingers were curling into a fist but before he could take aim at his friends head, a hand tugged his arm. All air left his body when he felt just how soft the hand was, and how the room seemed to tilt and shift, as if someone had turned up the heat. He felt his hands drop from Jack's collar and rocked unconsciously back on the intruder. He closed his eyes, savouring the heat; the sensations racking through his body. A tiny frame brought him into a tight embrace.

  He sighed into hair that smelled like strawberries.

  "Ruby."

  "Dale..."

  "Oh, Ruby." He sobbed into the top of her hair, eye's clenched, unable to believe what was happening, unable to look at her for fear she'd disappear.

  He repeated her name with a sigh, a sigh of the purest relief, as though the whole universe had just been lifted from his shoulders. He ran a hand from the top of her head, letting strands of her silky hair fall like sand through his fingers. He stopped short when there was no hair to run his fingers through anymore. Which was at shoulder level. Ruby's hair spilled to her waist.

  The woman must have felt him start, as she detached herself gently from his crushing grip.

  Tears were in her eyes. She tucked a strand of ordinary blonde hair behind her ear.

  "I -" He couldn't bring himself to say the words, I thought you were Ruby.

  "I know."

  "You smell like her." He took the girl in. She was much shorter than Ruby, and far more frail. This girl looked like a lanky school boy playing dress up in his big sisters clothes - her clothes hung off her. "You're wearing her sweater."

  "I - It smells like her." She struggled with the words. "I miss her."

  Nodding slowly he turned from her. He couldn't bear to look at her ordinariness anymore. No one compared to the beauty of Ruby. Especially not her mousy best friend Katie.

  Jack pushed himself from the wall he was frozen against and put a hand on Dale's shoulder. Dale flinched from his friends grasp and ran his hands through his hair, which had grown a considerable amount in the past few weeks.

  "We just want to help you, Dale." Jack started. He looked at Katie for help but she looked too shaken to form words. "You've been sulking around for weeks. Ever since the funeral. It's not healthy."

  Dale laughed. He stopped abruptly, looked at both Jack and Katie standing in his room then laughed again. His laugh was full of a new kind of malice.

  "Are you both trying to hold an intervention here? Is that what this is? You woke me up for this?"

  Jack and Katie looked at each other.

  "Dale -"

  "Because interventions are for drug addicts, or alcoholics. Not for people who have just lost someone. Don't you understand what mourning is?" He laughed. "Of course not, you happy git."

  Jack's mouth twitched. Dale could feel the tension in the room. He'd said the wrong thing. 

  "You're depressed." Katie interjected. "You're lashing out. We understand. Ruby was our friend too, you  know. We're mourning her too."

  "You both? Mourning her?" He looked between them both with a laugh. "Is that what you call it? You call partying every night mourning? Hitting up at five in the morning? Oh you must be devastated."

  "Listen - " Jack took a step closer to him, his eyes narrowed. "I'm your friend and I'm not going to sit around while you destroy yourself."

  "Friend?" Dale hissed. He leaned in closer to Jack, until their noses were almost touching. "Friends?" He repeated, laughing. Saliva flew from his mouth and speckled Jack's lips. Jack flinched away, his eyes growing hard with anger.

  "The only reason I'm like this is because of you." He poked a finger in Jack's chest. "You killed her. You got her as high as a kite then made her drive to the shop to get you more booze. You killed her. You may as well have pushed her in the Thame's yourself."

  Before Katie knew what was happening, Jack had tackled Dale and they both struggled with each other on the floor. 

  "You killed her." Dale repeated, accompanied by a fist in Jack's gut. Jack spluttered for a moment but recovered fast, pushing Dale from him and gaining the upper hand.

  "Me?" Jack shouted. His fist landed on Dale's jaw. "If you hadn't been so clingy maybe-" Punch. "-she wouldn't have felt the need to-" Panting. Blood spilled from Dale's lip. "-escape."

  Dale stopped struggling. He went limp under Jack, who finally stopped drumming his fist in Dale's face. Jack panted, then shifted from Dale and lay beside him. They both stayed silent for minutes at a time. They could hear footsteps approaching - one of which was Katie's, who'd gone to get help.

  "She's gone." Dale heaved. "She's really gone."

  "Yeah." Jack sighed.

  "She can't be gone. She was everything."

  "She's gone." Jack turned to his friend, but instead saw someone else all together. Grief had made him harder. It'd taken the Dale Jack had known for years.

  "Ruby's dead."