joe
To say that Ruby ran off the plane would be kind of understating it. The closer and closer we got to the ground, the happier Ruby became. She was nearly screaming by the time we landed. She told us excitedly that Regina offered to met us at the baggage claim, and Caspar and I had to almost sprint to keep up with Ruby. Caspar has his phone in is hand, probably texting Maddie. I hold my vlogging camera, not really paying attention to where it's aimed knowing I'll have to cut it out anyways. Regina doesn't like being in videos, similarly to how Ruby used to be.
The black-haired girl is now standing up on her toes, trying to see over everyone to find her friend. Caspar has the best advantage to find her, with his height, but he's currently more interested in his phone than he is in finding Regina.
I catch sight of her bright pink dress before I actually see her face. I don't have to ask if it's her because I know that no one would wear a dress that color except Regina. I point off in the direction I saw her, and Ruby begins pushing through people. I pull our suitcases off before I follow her, pulling Caspar along with me as he continues to text on his phone.
"Regina!" Ruby screams loudly once I catch up with her. She stands in a small tight group of people, everyone looking for someone else. She looks frustrated and upset, but I don't know who she is upset with. "Reg!" Without an answer in return, Regina emerges from the outside of the group. Regina screams out Ruby's name as she grabs her in a tight hug.
In my head, it makes sense that they are best friends. But to see them together is just incredibly strange. They look like polar opposites.
Ruby looks the same as she always does. Messy black hair but sharp, clean green eyes. She's wearing a Marvel t-shirt under one of Caspar's jackets, but I don't think either one of them knows that it's not her jacket. She refused to change into jeans before leaving and is in leggings instead. She's slipped on a pair of flats this morning because she didn't really want to wear anything that would be hard to take off. This was because while she was on the flight, just before she went to sleep, she drew her feet up into the seats and held her shoes while sleeping.
Regina, on the other hand, looks like she has been awake for hours, which I hope she has since it's nearing twelve o'clock. Her short hair is pulled into space buns with stray hairs sticking out everywhere. Her eyes are the same color as Caspar's. She has her glasses on instead of contacts, and it's been a long time since I've seen her wear them. The dress she has on is pure Regina. It's hot pink and ends about mid-thigh with short-sleeves. It shows off quite a bit of cleavage, but that's just Regina. The locket that Caspar gave her a few years ago is hanging around her neck open. The front came off about a year ago, so now the old picture of her and Caspar always shows.
"You look so good, Reg. Have you lost some weight?" Ruby asks, squeezing her best friend's hand tightly. I hook my finger in the pocket of Caspar's jacket, ready to pull Ruby away if a fight happens.
"Ruby!" I scold quietly.
"No, it's okay. I'm trying to, and I have. I became a vegan the minute Ruby stepped out the front door." Regina defends, smiling. From the time I've known Regina, she's always been a bit heavyset, but she was always so confident with her body. She never seemed to have many insecurities, though I guess that's something that she kept between herself and Ruby.
Regina pulls away to hug me tightly. She squeezes my cheeks together like she always does when I see her. Her acrylic nails slightly dig into my cheeks but not hard enough to hurt me. "You picked a good one, Ruby." She comments, turning my head to look at Ruby.
"Jesus Christ, I feel like I'm meeting your mum." I tell Ruby as Caspar finally finds us.
"You are. I am her mum." Regina jokes before poking at her cousin. "But, like, for real. I'll forbid her from seeing you if you turn into a prick, alright?" She threatens. Before I can retort back, Ruby cuts in.
"I thought I was over awkward parent visits." Ruby says, covering her face with her hands. "Can we just go home before this turns into a scene?"
"Are you still living in the same place?" Caspar asks. It's been a bit over a year since we've been over to visit Regina in America. Between two times, she moved once, probably when her and Ruby got their place.
"Yeah. I just painted it." The blonde says, taking Ruby's suitcase from her as we all begin walking towards the exit.
"No, you didn't." Ruby says, grabbing my empty hand to pull me in line behind her where she walks next to Regina. Caspar walks next to me behind Regina, where he steps on the back of her Converses repeatedly to bother her.
"Yes, I did. It looks so much better now." She pushes the door open to get outside and lets Ruby and I through before attempting to close it on Caspar.
"Why do you pretend to hate me? We all know you love me so much. C'mere, Regina." Caspar says, trying to grab his cousin in a hug before Ruby can say something about the repaint. Almost to the car, he finally succeeds trapping the slightly shorter girl in his arms.
"Why do I pretend to love you? We all know I hate you so much." Regina mocks. She slaps at his arms lightly before holding on to Caspar's hands and leaning her head against his where it sits on her shoulder. It's cute to see Caspar and Regina actually together. When they are apart, they are constantly bickering back and forth, and if you hadn't seen this side, you would think that they actually hated each other.
"You're still driving my old thing?" Ruby comments, pointing at the convertible Volkswagen Beetle. There's a painting of Regina in this car hanging above the TV in our living room in London.
"Why buy a new car?" She shrugs, opening the boot of the car to put our suitcases in. I go to open the passenger door to get in since the top is up and find that there is no door handle.
"Here. I got it." Regina says, sinking into the driver's seat to let the top down. With the top about seventy-five percent down, it gets stuck, but Ruby only slams it down like it's normal. She hops over the side of the car to get into the back, and I follow her lead on the other side.
While driving down the road, I watch Ruby as she happily looks at all the buildings we pass. She looks through my sunglasses at the bright, yellow sun. She looks so much more at peace in the hot and dry weather than she does in the cold and damp weather in London. The sun beams off of her pale skin, making her freckles look darker than normal. The small stud Zoe bought her has become her favorite, I think. It doesn't irritate her like the other. Not to mention that she almost never wears the hoop anymore. I take this time in the car to pull my camera back up to vlog, as Caspar and Regina bicker back and forth in the front.
"I miss the blue paint." Ruby complains as we begin walking toward the peach-colored house on the beach. Since it's on the beach, it is lifted off the ground with large stakes to keep it from getting flooded. To get to the front door, you have to go up a small set of stairs connected to their wraparound balcony. I've only been here once - last summer, actually - but Ruby was gone then. Regina said that she was out with her mum, but I don't know what of that is true. Ruby probably had herself holed up in her bedroom.
"What happened to it?" Ruby gasps as she begins running up the stairs.
"It's still there. I wouldn't paint over it. You know that." Regina answers, following her up the stairs. I look at Caspar, but he only shrugs. We walk up the stairs to meet with the girls where they stand on the opposite side of the house.
On the side of the house is a painting of Ruby and Regina. I can tell it was done by Ruby, but it's been up for a few years. The paint is beginning to fade because of the sun. Ruby's hair is starting to turn almost a grey, and Regina's tanned skin is looking like Ruby's pale skin. "Two years ago?" I guess as Ruby leans her back against the railing to look at it.
"Like, two and half." Ruby answers. "Back when I hated drawing eyes." She points at the back of their heads. Most of the paintings from a couple years back, right after her flower phase, were people from behind. It's also when she started with her - kind of, but not really - contemporary art, like the balloon and the painting of a motorcycle hanging up in Caspar's room. Ruby absolutely hated it and even tried to toss it away when Caspar pulled it out of the box. "I guess it was pretty easy to paint around. Especially with the background just being a sky."
"Yeah, it was really fucking easy." Regina says sarcastically, gesturing to the hibiscuses and other flowers and swirls at the bottom of the drawing, probably so Ruby didn't have to finish off the bodies because she was still quite uncomfortable with body shapes. "Look at all those super tiny holes. It took me the same amount of time to paint this wall as it did to paint two of the other ones."
"You lived, Regina. It's fine." Ruby says turning around to look at the shoreline. "Probably never had this kind of view from a hotel room, have you?" She asks Caspar and I.
"I can't believe you even live here. How can you still afford it?" Caspar turns towards Regina. The blonde girl shrugs.
"Daddy's money." She answers. Both of Regina's parents are incredibly rich, and they are also incredibly competitive when it comes to their daughter. Regina is really good at guilt tripping her father for money. She can pull the "you were never there when I needed you" line and give him the sad, puppy eyes, and he'd probably sell his soul for her. She knows it's wrong, but none of us will stop her. Her dad was kind of a horrible father, but it wasn't really his fault. He was always working, so he was never around, but he didn't have to take all the hours he could.
"Are you even working anymore, Reg?" Ruby asks, holding her hand out to take my camera from me. I join her by the railing as Regina finally answers.
"I got the job at the record store, so I quit at the coffee shop." She says before Caspar gets a slash of paint across her cheek from the can sitting on the porch.
"I miss them." Ruby says next to me. "Caspar and Regina together. I wish she would come back with us." She angles the camera towards the shoreline. She smiles almost sadly as she watches the waves come and go. "Eventually this is all I'm going to have. Just watching your old vlogs so I can see California."
"Do you want me to break your heart, so you don't have a reason to come back?" I tease, bumping into her gently. She places her hand between mine, and I hold on to it tightly.
"No chance." She mutters. She leans her head on my shoulder for a small second before she speaks again. "I don't think you could bring yourself to break my heart." I know I couldn't. I'd break my own in the process.
I shrug. "I mean, in that case, you have to break my heart."
"Oh, don't worry. I'm good at breaking hearts." She says sarcastically, rolling her eyes. She stands up and pulls me up with her by the front of my shirt like almost every time she kisses me, which is exactly what she does. I wrap my arms around her waist to pull her as close to me as possible.
"Okay, Jesus. Calm down." Regina says. Ruby laughs and turns her head away, but I only kiss her cheek.
"It's fine. They always do it." Caspar waves it off. "If they aren't attached to each other, something's wrong."