“Do you spend a lot of time in Hawaii? Is that a required school trip for kids who can’t do their own laundry?”
“Hardly. But I’ve gone the past three summers. For water polo tournaments.”
I tell Charlie that last summer Mila convinced us to sneak out past bed check to hang out with a boys’ team at the hotel pool because they had tequila and a hot team captain. Mila got drunk in record time, then insisted I balance her on my shoulders so she’d have a height advantage as she wrestled a guy from the other team in a water jousting match. I can still feel the way my fingers dug into the soft skin above her knees as I tried to steady her. I was concerned she’d get hurt even though it was my neck feeling like it might break as it twisted with her body. I worried about how mad Coach would be if I injured myself and couldn’t play the next day, so after Mila won, I swam away and stood in the shallow end with Iris, letting the warmth of the underwater lights heat my legs. Why are we here? I’d asked Iris. There’s nothing in this for us except getting in trouble. She’d shrugged. We were there because someone had to look out for Mila.
“Rebels. Did you get caught for sneaking out?” Charlie says.
“Not all of us. Only Mila. I thought she’d gone to bed but I guess she’d snuck out again. Security called our room at two a.m., told us to come get our friend.” I’d shoved my feet into flip-flops and run down in my pajamas to get her. She’d thrown up and broken the glass tequila bottle on the pool deck. I was so afraid Coach would find out and she’d get sent home. The next day she had a hangover so we told Coach it was food poisoning. He didn’t buy it. But he didn’t have proof we were lying. “Karma was that she lost her championship ring in the pool. Probably down the drain. She was more upset about that than anything.”
“Seems like Mila’s got bigger problems than lost jewelry.”
She does. But I can’t go there. “The ring was special. We all got one for winning our division in water polo last year. I’m wearing mine now.” I spin it around my finger. “I don’t always wear it.”
“So why today?”
“Because I’m thinking about quitting water polo.”
“Um, Ruby? Have you met you? You’re basically in love with water polo. You’d marry it if you could. And have little Speedo babies.”
“Yeah. But my mom started dating my coach.”
“That’s awkward.”
“Right? And the team thinks I’m getting special treatment.”
“Are you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then I’m not really seeing a reason for quitting something you love.”
“Didn’t you love school?”
“Yeah.”
“But you still quit.”
“Right.”
“Why? What’s your big reason that’s so much better than mine?”
“Something happened.”
“Something’s pretty vague.”
He sighs. “I know.”
“Tell me what happened, Charlie.”
“I saw something. And when I saw it, I didn’t do anything about it.”
“What kind of something?”
“A death kind of something.”
“Are you messing with me?”
“No. I wouldn’t do that.”
“Tell me.”
“The thing is, if I tell you, then I have to hear it again. And you won’t be able to unhear it. And I’m not sure that’s good for either of us.”
“I can handle it.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“Who died, Charlie?”
“Jason Cooper.”
“Please tell me what happened.”
“Why?”
“Because I think, deep down, you want to. I think Jason Cooper is the reason you’re sleeping on your brother’s couch and working out at the gym like you’re training for the Olympics. I’d do the same thing if I were trying to forget bad memories.”
“You seem to understand a lot about a lot, Ruby in the Rubble.”
“I know about not doing something when maybe I should do something.” I think of Mila. And her drinking. And the way I always wonder if I should speak up. Or out.
He’s silent for a moment. “What do you know about fraternities?”
“Just TV and movie stuff.”
“You know you have to rush, right? To join?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I thought I’d try it. Like maybe it’d be a way to meet some people. New place. New me. But, Ruby? That fraternity thing? It wasn’t great. Too much alcohol. Too many dares. A lot of bad choices. And this guy, Jason, was embracing all three. Shot after shot after shot. It was like getting into that frat was the only thing that mattered. I should’ve noticed how bad off he was sooner. I should’ve said something. But freshmen don’t get to speak up.”
I think of all the times I wanted to say something. To talk to Mila about her drinking. And then every cautionary tale kids have ever been told encourages us to seek out a trusted adult—a counselor or a parent. Or a coach. But there’s that word. Trusted. On what planet are teenagers instantly supposed to trust adults? I trusted my mom and Coach and they fell in love behind my back. Why should I trust anyone? I never said anything about Mila to any adult I knew because if none of the adults were noticing she had a problem, then maybe I was making too much of it anyway. Maybe she was fine.
“Death should be more complicated,” Charlie says. “All Jason got was blackout drunk and a defibrillator that came too late. But if I’d done something sooner, maybe he’d only have a story about a too-drunk night at a fraternity party. It still would’ve been scary. He still would’ve had an ambulance ride and his stomach pumped, but he’d be alive.”
“Jason dying isn’t your fault, Charlie.”
“It feels like it’s my fault.”
“Did you stay with him? When he was like that?”
“I put him on his side. Some other guys propped him up with his backpack. That’s the big college trick. All the kids are doing it, don’t you know?” He rustles in his rubble. “Guess what? It doesn’t work.”
I’ve seen Mila passed out so many times. It’s scary. And I’m always afraid she might not wake up. “But you didn’t leave him, Charlie.”
“I stayed with him until the ambulance came. But he was already gone when they got there.”
“That’s what matters. That you were with him until the end.”
“It didn’t matter. He died.”
“It mattered, Charlie. Being with someone in their last minutes matters.”
He’s quiet. Thinking.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“I keep trying to make sense of it. I thought if I took a semester off, I’d figure it out. That I’d want to go back. But I don’t. I hate Stanford. And I used to love it. It was my water polo, Ruby. Not that it matters now. I mean, definitely not now. Look at us—trapped here.” He groans. “The best part is my parents think I quit because I couldn’t handle Stanford. And I couldn’t. But not for the reasons they thought. I couldn’t handle life. There’s going to be a court case. Jason’s parents want answers. Our fraternity was suspended. There were news crews around all the time. I just had to . . . leave.”