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He needs paper. What a simple task. It feels impossible now, especially for what this paper will do. Whitley would normally trust on his father’s study, but he’s in there now. Whitley can’t bear face him. He will only ask questions to unwanted answers. Who knows what he would say. Doing this alone is for the best.
So if paper from the study is a lost cause, there must be another source. The safest and most practical would be his sisters’ rooms. There is Winter’s of course. She was off in the military, so her room is bare. Whitley’s other choice would have to be Weiss. She has a friend over for studying; it would be an embarrassment to bother them.
He takes several paces toward Winter’s bedroom, located at the end of the hall. With confidence, he opens the door to a desktop computer, shoe boxes, a fitness bike, and an abandoned TV. After some time in Winter’s room, he finds nothing. Just clouds of dust in the shape of a once lived-in room. Whitley curses to himself. He contemplates as he closes the door to even try Weiss’s room. She and her friend were currently occupying it. He makes his way across the hall to stand at the door.
Whitley faces Weiss’s door at a reasonable distance. It’s faint, but he hears rock music from a Bluetooth speaker and nothing else of significance. It must be pretty loud considering the door is the only barrier between the sound and his ears. No chattering from their supposed studying. He knocks. “Weiss?” No response. No need to wait.
Oh well.
Cracking the door ajar, his eyes land on the back of Weiss’s friend’s head. His sister’s manicured nails were gingerly scaping the nape of her neck and running through her short dark-red hair. Her and Weiss are extremely close--positioned on the bed. The music blasting from the speakers drowns the sound of puckering lips. Whitley wasn’t stupid. He knew what--“Whitley, get out!” Weiss screams as a throw pillow ricochets off the door, slamming it closed.
The door almost clipped his nose, but that wasn’t stopping him from getting paper. She was his only option. The music on the other side of the wall fades off. Whitley moves close to the door as much as possible. “I need to borrow some paper!”
“It’s not borrowing if you’re going to use it!” His sister’s voice yells in return.
“Please?”
“Check Winter’s room!”
He glances at the vacant room across the hall furthest from his bedroom. “I tried! It’s empty!”
“Then look in the study!”
A lump in his throat makes it hard to swallow. “Father… is in there.” He admits in defeat. Whitley doesn’t even care if she can’t hear him.
For some reason, he lingers at the door. Math test in hand--a failed math test in hand--absorbs the oil of his fingers, dampening the thin paper. He stares down at the floor under his feet. The pencil and calculator weigh a lot heavier in his other hand. Whitley might as well take the grade and leave it. Father does say redemption is a cheap way out of punishment.
A sudden rustling of drawers opening and closing catches his attention. “I don’t have any paper, do you?” Weiss’s faint voice asks her friend.
But instead of an answer, the door swings open to Weiss’s friend. She’s a tad taller than him, but not by a lot, and her smirk makes him feel pitiful inside. “Hey,” his sudden shyness stops him from a coherent response, “is notebook paper okay?” She says, coolly.
He mumbles a quick affirmative, keeping his gaze off the girl and his sister as much as possible. She begins tearing a couple of pages of lined paper. He feels Weiss’s glare on him, piercing through his skin. Whitley isn’t doing anything wrong, he’s just standing under the door. Weiss’s friend says something, but Whitley doesn’t catch it.
“I’m sorry, can you repeat that?”
She hums, “What’s the paper for?” She asks halfway into the tear.
“Oh,” he feels foolish for not hearing her the first time, “a math assignment.” He almost stutters.
“Ooh, math,” she gasps, “do you need help or anything?”
“Ruby,” Weiss whines behind her. So the girl has a name.
“What?” The paper he needs is in her hands. She turns to Weiss, “as a member of the math club, I gotta know some math.” He reaches for the stack in her hand but misses by a fraction.
“That’s not the point I’m trying to make,” Weiss stops and regains her composure, taking a couple calming deep breaths, “we have our studying to do. Remember? That is why I asked you here in the first place.” Whitley knows she doesn’t want him here. And he feels guilty for even asking for anything from Weiss.
“I thought you invited me over to make out?” His sister’s face turns red in record time.
Whitley thinks this is flattering, seeing Weiss in such a state of vulnerability. “Actually,” Whitley cuts in before Weiss can say anything else, “I could use some help…” Ruby snaps her head back to Weiss. He doesn’t see her face, but he notices Weiss’s; her expression softens and she sighs.
“Fine.”
Ruby cheers in celebration. “All right, is this it? Let me see.” The two trade papers. Ruby now carrying the tarnished math test and him with the torn paper.
He peers over her shoulder. “This is my most recent math test.” He says quietly. “I failed it, but I have a chance to get ten points back if I do the questions that I have missed.” Ruby nods at the explanation.
Pin dropping silence fills the room. He knew Weiss heard him say the word “fail.” That word holds an undesirable weight in their family.
“You failed your math test?” His sister asks with a stern gasp. He doesn’t know what to say, so he’s left with nothing. “Close the door, please.” She commands without looking up. Her eyes lay on the textbook in front of her. Ruby steps in and shuts the door for Weiss.
Whitley stands motionless in the middle of the room. “Are you going to tell Father?”
“No.”
Ruby joins her on the bed, flipping the pages of the test. Weiss whisks it off her hands. She mindlessly blinks at the act. All he can do is watch Weiss scan every flaw marked in red. Who knows what’s running through her mind. Once she’s done, Weiss tosses it on Ruby’s lap and pinches the bridge of her nose. “And neither will you.” She directs at Whitley.
He shuffles over to the foot of the bed. “Are you sure you can help?” He asks Ruby.
She waves a hand at him. “Nah.” Her negatory response confuses him. “I’m pretty sure I remember somewhat. Where’s this from, eighth grade--ninth grade--”
“He’s in the seventh grade--”
“Seventh grade? You’re in the seventh grade? This is seventh-grade math?”
“Why?” She leans toward Ruby. “Is it too hard for you?” Weiss teases.
Ruby sputters. “No. Nothing’s too hard for me. I didn’t skip a grade for nothing… I hope.” She gulps.
This factoid fascinated Whitley. “You skipped a grade? Like, on purpose?” Weiss chuckles at the jab.
“Hey,” Ruby elbows her gently, “yes I did. I went from the fourth grade to the sixth grade.” She answers proudly.
That’s nothing. “That’s nothing,” Weiss says.
“Well,” Ruby sticks her nose in the air and crosses her arms, “I think it’s impressive.”
Weiss rolls her eyes. “You say that all the time. From that time in the music hall to nearly every pep rally we attend, you have to bring it up.”
“Only if they ask…”
“They rarely do.”
“But I can see it in their eyes.”
“Please.” She scoffs at her.
Whitley didn’t exactly know what he was witnessing between the two. It’s confusing, yet mesmerizing. He thought he witnessed affection earlier, but maybe that was a mistake on his part. Although, this was not the sort of arguing he was used to. Whitley doesn’t know what to make of their interaction.
“Okay, whatever, whatever,” Ruby slows down the banter to a stop. “Are we here to do math or what?”
He was ready. With a pencil and calculator in hand, he was ready to do some math. Weiss, however, isn’t and steps out, “I have to use the bathroom.”
That was odd, why was she telling them-- “Have fun,” Ruby says with a playful grin. His sister leaves the room with a scoff. Whitley was sure he saw an eye roll. And now Ruby’s attention was completely on Whitley. They went over what he learned from the unit. It was a mix of elementary geometry with some algebra. Most of what he got wrong was in the geometry category. Finding areas for domes, cones, and other complex three-dimensional figures resulted in many careless mistakes, as Father would put it. “Okay.” Ruby flips to a page of more area problems. “You could also use some help in combining two areas of a plane while also finding for ‘x’ which shouldn’t be too hard.”
“Do you think we can go over one of each?” Whitley suggests. “Maybe the hard ones. That way, I can do the rest on my own.”
“Yeah!” Ruby says. “That’s a good idea, Whitley.” Hm, a genuine compliment not filled with overt sarcasm. Her words warmed his heart, unexpectedly, to a certain degree. He watches her tentatively work; drawing the figures from the test onto a scratch sheet of paper. Then it pondered him: what he saw earlier was no delusion. Whitley couldn’t believe it for himself. That was the kind of man his father frequently taught him to be; people simply can’t take everything at face value anymore.
“Do you like my sister?” He asks flatly.
Ruby stops in her tracks, accidentally drawing her line an inch too long on the paper. “Uhhh. I hope so.” The pupils of her eyes glance over at him as she answers awkwardly.
That answer wasn’t clear enough for him. “Does she like you?”
“Maybe.” Her vagueness was putting him off tremendously. “I asked her out, and she said yes.” Ruby continues the problem, number 14, on the sheet. She was writing the problem down in simpler terms.
“How do you know each other?”
Her hand combs over the mess of dark-red hair. “Oh. Um. School. Music camp.”
Music camp? “Weiss never went to a music camp.”
“It’s not a ‘camp’ per se,” she says with air quotes, “more like, going to school in the morning the week before school officially starts to practice and hang around.”
He waits for a beat before asking again, typing in the numbers on the calculator. “So you’re in the school choir, too?” He copies the answer onto the piece of paper.
“Oh god, no.” Ruby checks in what Whitley wrote. “I’m in the band--percussion.”
So they attend the same school, that much is clear. From their uniforms to the time they arrived at the house. Ruby is musically inclined like Weiss. She’s somewhat competent at math; he can’t remember if Weiss enjoys math as well. Plus, she skipped a school year, so she must be gifted… at least scholarly. He can’t quite put a finger on Ruby’s intentions.
Weiss re-enters her room. She heads straight for her desk chair, reaching over her bed to gather her things, and resumes working on the desk in silence.
All she and Ruby communicated were secret glances reserved for them. “Hey,” Ruby tells Whitley, “I gotta work on my paper, if you need me, you know where I am.” And lays down on Weiss’s bed with a laptop tucked in her lap. “Did you have fun?” She asks Weiss.
“I took a shit,” Weiss answers with a straight face, making Ruby giggle and Whitley’s eyes shot wide open at the profane response. Weiss would never say such vulgar things in front of their parents, much less around his ears.
Ruby’s laughter dies down. “For a second there, I almost believed you.”
Her eyebrow quirks. “Did I?” Leaving the room in a wading silence. All Whitley could do is look at Weiss. “We’ll never know.”
The pleased smirk rests on Ruby’s face. Weiss’s sense of humor was never flattering to him. Ruby seems to enjoy it.
Their relationship is odd.
Just as Whitley was about to find ‘x’ for an area problem, he noticed markings written along the margins of the paper. ‘RR+WS’ was doodled in block letters. There were also multiple iterations of Ruby’s first and last name conjoined with Weiss’s. ‘Ruby Schnee,’ ‘Weiss Rose,’ ‘Ruby Rose-Schnee,’ Weiss Rose-Schnee,’ ‘Ruby Schnee-Rose,’ ‘Weiss Schnee-Rose.’ It was all very elaborate for such a tiny space. Strange. He looks between the two, neither of the two minding him at the slightest. Whitley decides to confront Ruby about it since it was part of her belongings.
“Ruby. What’s all this writing on the--”
“Aaahh!”
The sheet of paper was out of his hands and quickly thrown out the window. Ruby’s face was flushed and she let out hard and uneven breaths--out of relief, out of agility, or both.
Whitley saw Weiss looking at the two in the corner of his eye. She turned in her chair to face them completely, “Ruby…” she addresses her sternly, “you know I have a perfectly good bin in the corner of my room, right?” Their eyes follow the direction of the bin sitting on the floor, next to the doorway.
“Yeah, I know.” She plays off her panicked display as nonchalant. “The window was closer.” She lies.
Weiss turns back to her textbook. “Okay…” Whitley looks between the two before resuming his work on a different sheet of paper. So those markings were only private for Ruby…
The trio passes the time by working on their assignments. Whitley occasionally waves Ruby with a question or two; she is a much better tutor than his father. When he got frustrated over a simple negative equation Whitley couldn’t answer for the life of him, he would yell at the top of his lungs, everything he was doing wrong. The solution was so simple, the equation was so simple, yet the concept of solving it was difficult for Whitley.
Ruby isn’t like that. She is patient and only helps out with details like drawing the figures clearer for Whitley to understand. Soon, he was further along than he would have been if he worked on the test alone. All that is left is a couple of area questions he can figure out on his own.
“I think I’m done for the day.” He slowly gathers his items off the bed.
Weiss doesn’t say anything.
Ruby takes the reigns. “Cool. It was nice to officially meet you, Whitley.” She held her hand out. Whitley knows better than refuse a proper introduction.
“You too.”
“Y’know, Weiss talks about you sometimes.”
He looks at her in shock. “She does?”
She nods. “You play piano right?” He nods. “I played piano before joining the band. It helped a lot with my percussion audition.”
The sound of a clearing throat interrupted their chat. “Don’t you have to go soon?”
“Are-are you kicking me out?”
“Yang might be getting worried,” Weiss says.
Ruby holds her phone up for Weiss to read, “I told her to come get me at 7.”
“Do you want to at least stay for dinner?” She offers.
“No. I can’t. Early morning practice tomorrow.”
She sighs. “Maybe now is not the best time.” There’s tension across the two’s faces. A mutual understanding between them.
“Are you still up for the movies tomorrow?”
“I am.” The downcast remains on her face.
“There’s also prom,” Ruby says.
Weiss giggles at the suggestion. “If only…” her words say something else… a desperate longing across her lips.
Whitley tucks his belongings under his arm. What he is witnessing is a completely different side of Weiss he didn’t even know existed. “I’m leaving.” He announces, opening the door to the hallway.
“Close the door, please.”
He obliges.
He returns to his room, a childhood wonder, but he’s a foreigner in his sheets. Like Weiss’s bedroom, there’s a desk, a bookshelf, and the bed as the centerpiece. The furniture comes from the same collection--all serving a different function. The condition of the books on the shelf is different--less worn. The same goes for the desk, it barely even has a proper working space. Whitley spent most of his time studying in their father’s study--nowhere near the privacy of his room. His bed remains somewhat tidy, it’s only meant for him to sleep in. Whitley has always proclaimed to be more mature than most of his peers. That lens changed when he met Ruby. Now that’s maturity. He’s simply playing the part.
The clock was ticking closer and closer to 7. And when it was near, the sound of voices outside crept in from his window. He has a pretty decent view of the main street. Whitley also sees Weiss and Ruby standing along the curb. They were chatting more affectionately this time; maybe it was because he isn’t in their space. Their hands are clasped together, swaying casually. He looks away when Weiss leans in for a kiss. Whitley eventually did glance back down as a motorcycle roared in front of their house. It must have been Ruby’s ride because they broke away and she hopped on the back of the bike, stealing kisses with each other as Ruby straps on a bike helmet. The woman driving the bike looks very annoyed and inches off the property more and more until they’re left off waving as if they’ll never see each other ever again.
Weiss watches her leave, hugging herself from the soft chill of the evening. He watches her walk back through the front door as if nothing involving Ruby happened. She quickly became a figment of their imagination.
Whitley hates to admit it, but he wishes to see Ruby around more often.