AUTHOR'S NOTE: I decided to add this epilogue based on the events in the episode "A Cry for Help".
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EPILOGUE
Ruthie Camden had been the first girl ever to steal my heart. She was the first girl I danced with, the first one I talked to on the phone, and the first one I ever kissed. And when we agreed to see each other exclusively that afternoon, I thought maybe she would be the last. I realize now how silly that idea was.
Fortunately, she didn't have to break my heart in order for me to figure that out. Oh sure, when I left her house that afternoon, that's what I thought it would have taken. At that point in time, Ruthie would have had to tear my heart out, stomp on it, and then laugh in my face about it in order for me to ever want to spend time with another girl. But in the end, my motivation to move on turned out to be much simpler than that. All I had to do was spend a little more time around her to realize that she wasn't the girl for me.
And that's exactly what I did over the next two weeks. Her parents put her "on restriction" – which I guess is something like being grounded – for dancing with me while she was supposed to be watching the twins. I felt terrible, since it was kind of my fault that her parents were punishing her. After all, if I hadn't gone over to see her, she never would have gotten in trouble.
So I decided I would make it up to her. I figured that she would get bored being stuck at home all that time, unable to go out and have fun, so I called her every day to talk to her and lift her spirits. But after a while the phone calls started to drag, and Ruthie became ruder every time I called. She never even said goodbye when she hung up. And by the end of the first week, instead of her usual, "Hey, Jake!" she answered the phone with an, "Oh, it's you again," like she was disappointed to hear from me.
"What's wrong, Ruthie? Do you not want to talk to me or something?"
"No, it's fine," she said in a mopey voice. "We'll talk."
But for the first time, I found myself not really wanting to talk to her anymore.
***
It wasn't just Ruthie's phone attitude that made me stop liking her. I thought it would be nice to switch my gym class with my lunch period so that she and I could sit together at lunch, but she acted like I was invading her privacy or something. And then, whenever we went through the lunch line, she was rude to the lunch servers, acting like they were beneath her.
One day she was like, "Ewww, what are those?"
"They're green beans," the lunch lady answered politely.
"They look like slimy worms with boogers on them. How long did you overcook them?" Ruthie snapped at her.
"If you don't want any, you don't have to get any," the lunch lady told her.
"Are you kidding?" Ruthie smart-mouthed. "I would never eat any of the garbage you people serve. My mom packs my lunch every day." Then she turned to me and sniffed, "Honestly, Jake. I don't know how you can stand to eat this stuff."
I held my tongue and didn't say what I really wanted to say to her then.
***
Even though I was starting to realize that Ruthie was not the nicest person in the world, I still tried to be nice to her because, like I said before, I felt guilty about getting her in trouble. So I kept offering to do favors for her: carry her backpack, her books, even her gum.
Yeah, I know it's gross. But she was chewing a piece of gum that Petey had given her in the hall one day, and we were about to pass Mr. Callahan's room. Everyone knows that if Mr. Callahan catches you chewing gum in school, he automatically gives you detention. So I held out my hand and told her to spit her gum into it. I would have held it for her and then given it back to her when we had passed his room.
"Ew, Jake, that is so gross! You are a gross, gross boy!" she said disgustedly before she spat her gum into a hallway trash can.
It's not like I couldn't have washed my hands before the next class. I was only trying to be nice.
***
By the end of her two-week restriction, Ruthie had become so continually rude to me that I could barely stand to be around her anymore. But I still gave her the benefit of the doubt and tried to convince myself that she was just in a bad mood because of the restriction. I tried to talk myself into believing that once the restriction was over, things would go back to the way they had been before. We would be romantic again, we would come up with fun little plots and schemes the way we used to do, and she would open up to me and talk about important stuff again like she had done with her father's heart surgery.
So I managed to work up at least a little bit of false enthusiasm the day she came off restriction. It was a Friday, and after school I asked my Mom if I could visit Ruthie and stay late. She said I could stay as late as I wanted, and she gave me a ride over to the Camden house.
Just like when I had danced with Ruthie that day two weeks ago, I felt butterflies as I walked up to the front door. They weren't fluttering nearly as much as they had back then, though.
"What are you doing here?" Ruthie asked as soon as she opened the door. Not the greeting I was hoping for.
"Today's the day!" I shouted happily.
She looked at me like she didn't know what I was talking about. I reminded her that she came off restriction today, and then I told her I wished I could have done the time for her. That was a pretty romantic thing to say, right? But she just looked at me like she was disgusted. Then I told her I thought it was great that we could hang out all the time now, and that I could stay for dinner.
"Ha ha, that is great," she responded with no enthusiasm whatsoever.
And that was the exact moment when I knew that we were going to break up, because for the first time I finally wanted to break up. I wanted to leave right then and run as far away as I possibly could and never speak to her again. But I had never broken up with anyone before, and I didn't know what to say to her to end everything.
Obviously she didn't want to talk to me either, because she told me she had to go get the twins, and that we were going to play Candyland. I think I stopped playing that game when I, like, graduated kindergarten, but I just said, "Um, OK." Whatever.
I sat down in her kitchen trying to think of how to break up with her, but nothing came to me. A few moments later she walked back into the kitchen with the twins. I still couldn't come up with a thing to say, so I repeated that my Mom had said I could stay as late as I wanted. She ignored that comment and told me to take her little brothers into the living room and set up the Candyland board, so I did.
When I went back to the kitchen to let her know the game was ready, I saw that she had been talking to her Mom. And then came the moment when all the distance that had grown between us over the past two weeks finally caused us to lose each other. Ruthie just came right out and, blunt as ever, told me she didn't like me, didn't want to have lunch with me, or for me to carry her books, or to spend any time with me ever.
I would be lying if I said it didn't hurt. Nobody wants to hear that about himself, even from a person he doesn't like. Still, it was exactly what I had wanted to say to her but hadn't had the guts. So I just said, "That's cool!" Then I set myself up a ride home with her hot older sister. After all, I wanted to move on fast, unlike stupid Maria who was still whining about Simon never calling her back.
As she walked me down the hall to leave, Ruthie thanked me for not crying when she dumped me. Yeah, right! As if I would cry over her! What a bonehead thing to say. I was nice about it though. All I said was: "We're twelve. It's not like we're getting married." But I decided it would be better not to say the other thing I was thinking at the time: "Thank God!"
THE END