#Wally sent me a postcard with the book | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

luluwquidprocrow · 4 years

Text

you’ll find it again

originally posted: september 3rd, 2020

word count: 2,390 words

rated: teen

wally brando & becky burnett & ruby

friendship, emotional hurt/comfort, mental health, loneliness, season 3, ruby at the whims of the supernatural vs. ruby’s own mental state, dissociation and uncomfortable sensations that occur after a breakdown, growing up is hard and life is hard and friendships are hard!, one instance of language because have you met me

summary: and ruby had been screaming, but that was not important.

opening notes:

for @cerealninjakat for @countdowntotwinpeaks wonderfulxstrange 2020, who asked for "wally and becky try to help out ruby after her breakdown". i hope i delivered!

title from don’t see the sorrow by au revoir simone

becky and wally had argued again; ruby could tell, because she focused on becky so she wouldn’t think about herself. becky drove ten miles over the speed limit through the darkness, her knuckles clenched on the steering wheel, her tongue pushed into her cheek. from the backseat, ruby couldn’t see wally, but she knew he was looking right ahead at the road. an argument meant wally had just said something true that becky didn’t like and she’d done a lot of yelling. they’d still come and got her, though. together. like ghosts out of the night, bursting into the roadhouse, when the crowd had throbbed around ruby like a heartbeat that wouldn’t ever slow down. and ruby had been screaming, and

don’t think about that, she reminded herself. she curled her hands into the cuffs of her sweater, searching for the loose thread she knew was there but couldn’t see. think about becky and wally.

becky had parted the crowd, snapping at anyone who got in her way, while wally kept close behind her. ruby was screaming but that was not important. becky got down beside her and put her hands on either side of ruby’s face, blocking out the roadhouse, asking ruby to look at her. wally knelt next to them and took one of her hands and he’d been wearing his motorcycle gloves, and that had made a line in ruby’s head that split her panic into the uncontrollable previous second and the too-conscious next, because he didn’t have to wear them inside. ruby clutched his hand and she was crying now and she could deal with that. then they were at the bar, and wally was trying to put an ice cold glass of water into her hand but she couldn’t hold it, and then time pulled forward and ruby was in the back seat of becky’s mom’s car, becky’s sweater draped over her own and her cheek against the window.

“how,” ruby had tried, meaning to ask something like, how were you there, how did you know where i was, because becky and wally weren’t who she was meeting at the roadhouse.

wally said something about just knowing all of a sudden—ruby couldn’t catch all the words—until becky had punched him in the shoulder and almost drove over the yellow line in the middle of the road and swore something awful, and then no one talked.

becky drove like she was in a hurry, she always had. it was probably better than wally driving, because while ruby was sure wally was a good driver, he would’ve had them both on his motorcycle, and just all of them crammed onto one seat would’ve been terrible. when they were little, becky had convinced wally to let ruby sit behind him on his tricycle and to let becky ride on the handlebars, and they’d made it halfway down the street like that, wally slowly peddling along while becky shouted to go faster and ruby held on to wally for dear life anyway, before becky’s dad saw them and caught up in an instant. ruby turned her head and watched the streetlights hit the cracked curb, weathered street signs, the graying asphalt road, in stark white bursts every few minutes that blurred as becky sped on by. a red light lingered somewhere ahead and becky screeched to a halt at a traffic light.

the only sound in the car was becky’s harsh breathing as she waited for the light to turn—no, it was ruby. it was ruby’s own breathing, so loud in her own ears in the quiet, waiting for becky to race forward and fill everything up again. ruby pulled hard at the thread on her sweater and the cuff puckered, the soft knit pushing into her wrist. it didn’t make sense. the roadhouse was too loud, the car was too quiet, her sweater was unwinding and so was ruby again.

wally reached for the radio and turned the dial. he skipped over static, a guitar cord that made ruby’s shoulders seize, dr. amp shouting into the night, until he found some soft keyboard song, keeping the volume low. green filled up the car, and becky took off.

they were almost there, wherever becky was going. ruby could tell. dread started to shudder to life inside her. she’d have to move. she’d have to talk. she closed her eyes and let the car jostle her against the seat belt.

gravel crunched under the tires, and ruby knew exactly where they were. she opened her eyes to see wally’s parent’s house on the other side of town, with the big yard and long driveway, the dark wood siding and the old brick chimney, little white flowers by the front steps that turned yellow in the porch light. becky got out, and then wally, and then ruby, opening the door slowly, holding becky’s sweater around her. the night air was hot and sticky on her face, and it fogged her glasses.

the brennan house reminded her of her mom’s house, and that was why ruby liked it. they both had shelves crammed with books, and oversized chairs draped with handmade blankets, and when you walked in it didn’t just feel like someone else’s home and you were a visitor, it felt like your own home too. when was the last time she’d been here with wally and becky? it couldn’t have been that long. new years, when wally was back and becky smiled so easily and ruby was still in college. but that couldn’t have been this year. maybe it was forever ago. when was the last time she’d seen becky and wally at all? wally sent her postcards from the road and ruby hung them all up around the kitchen. becky was so sparse nowadays, with steven. ruby was just trying to figure out what she was supposed to do with herself, in a place as small as twin peaks, as big as the whole wide world.

ruby felt that prickling stab of staring at something without really seeing it, like she should be somewhere or someone else. she swayed on her feet, looking up at the house over her glasses, tears in her eyes again.

they all went inside together.

the lights were off inside, and wally turned on some of the lamps in the living room, bathing the furniture in patches of warm gold. ruby and becky took off their shoes, but wally kept his on, but he had his gloves tucked into a pocket now.

“where are you parents?” ruby asked. her voice sounded raw, and she cleared her throat a few times.

“it is thursday,” wally said, “which means it is the night my parents spend together, away from worldly concerns.”

“it’s date night,” becky muttered.

“ruby,” wally said, “would you like some hot chocolate?”

she didn’t think about the glass of water at the roadhouse. she thought about a ceramic mug hot on her fingertips. “sure.” she watched wally drift into the kitchen and take mugs down from the cabinet. ruby’s mom was always leaving cups of tea places, on wooden coasters on the coffee table in the living room, on the little desk by her easel at the big window, by the old chair in ruby’s room, all of them half full. she told ruby that sometimes it was more about the company and the feeling than the tea itself. ruby liked that a lot.

“becky?”

becky sighed. “yeah, okay.”

she and ruby sat down on the couch by the wall, like they’d always done, ruby cross-legged and becky’s left leg bent with her arms wrapped around it. wally’s mom liked to knit, and there were large, uneven blankets all around their house, because her tension was always too lose. ruby’s mom had tried to teach her, but mostly they baked together instead, and wally’s mom’s blankets stayed holey but comfortable. ruby tugged a soft blue one from the back of the couch on top of the two of them. and then she waited.

who had she meant to meet at the roadhouse? ruby couldn’t remember. she had just been there. there was supposed to be someone there and she was supposed to meet them. like wally said, she’d just known too. so she’d gone. and she’d been waiting and waiting, and no one had come. she’d stared off towards the stage and tuned it all out and thought she saw something, once or twice, a flicker of blue light out of place on the stage, the edge of a black jacket sleeve off to the side, thought she heard a voice by her ear, but no one had come. ruby was alone, until someone was lifting her out of her seat, and then—everything was breaking apart.

but becky didn’t ask about the roadhouse. she looked at ruby, her eyes flicking back and forth between ruby’s.

“is there anything i can do?” she asked.

ruby blinked a few times. “no,” she said, shaking her head. “no, no—no.”

“anything you need me to do?”

“mm-mm.”

becky fell silent. she looked down at her hands, twisting her rings on and off, and as ruby watched she felt thick shame and embarrassment start to sink inside her. it hadn’t been the first time, not really, not if she was honest, that everything felt like it was falling out from under her. sometimes she felt so impossibly sad and so helpless, and her whole life was quiet but it wasn’t unbearable, it wasn’t terrible, it wasn’t like that at all. but in the roadhouse the loneliness had clawed at her as the world moved on and no one cared, more than ever, and the emptiness of it had scared her so much. not just ruby’s emptiness. everyone’s. the only thing she could do was scream. why had it happened like that? why had becky and wally had to see her like that?

“i don’t know what happened, i don’t,” ruby whispered. she had to fix it. they had to still like her. they had to like the ruby who double majored, the ruby who smiled at cats, the ruby who made cucumber sandwiches for picnics, the ruby who shared clothes with becky, the ruby who played the bongos while wally could not play the guitar and didn’t care. they had to keep that ruby. they had to like that ruby who did all those things and forget about the ruby screaming in the roadhouse, forget they saw the ruby who could fall apart. both of them couldn’t exist. “i’m—i’m okay, though.” she scrubbed at her eyes with the sleeve of becky’s sweater, bumping her glasses.

“hey.” becky took her hand. she pushed a lock of hair behind ruby’s ear, then hesitated. “you know i love you, right? because i do, ruby.”

ruby knew, or she had known, and forgotten. it was good to hear it. it was good to know. it was good to know. she smiled a little, because she knew if she smiled the whole way she’d cry again. she held onto becky’s hand.

wally walked back in, carrying three mugs on a big wooden tray. he gave becky the mug with a cat stretching against the side for the handle, and he gave ruby the one with roses bursting all along it, and he took the one that had instructions for cooking eggs next to little drawings. he put the tray on the floor and sat down on ruby’s other side, a few inches between them but close enough, and ruby draped the other end of the blanket over him too. then she wrapped both hands around the mug, her skin tingling with the warmth. she didn’t trust herself to swallow properly yet, so she kept it there. her mom was always right. she could hold the mug in her hands and have becky and wally beside her and feel a little more like okay. she thought about the roadhouse, for a moment. she thought about whoever was supposed to have been there. maybe she’d tell becky and wally about them, but later. maybe she’d tell them a couple things. not now. but she hoped, whoever they were, that they felt close to okay too, if they needed to. she thought they might.

there was a vase of little pink flowers across the room, in a halo of light from a nearby lamp. wally’s dad bought them, but sometimes he picked them instead, at the little spot by the lake where the picnic tables were. they’d all gone on lots of picnics when they were younger, and even into high school, when just ruby and becky and wally would go, without their parents, and spend hours in the afternoon breeze off the lake, the three of them naming ducks and throwing food at each other and skipping stones on the water. that was good, too.

“do you remember,” ruby said softly, “when we used to have those picnics? by the lake?”

“we should go again,” wally said.

“we can go tomorrow,” becky said. “my mom still has all the baskets.”

“i can drive,” wally offered.

“nope,” ruby said. “becky will drive, and we’ll all die.” she patted becky’s knee.

becky giggled; then she bit her lip, her face scrunching up. “fuck,” she said. “fuck—no, i’m gonna drive the speed limit. i’m gonna be the best driver.”

“then that makes you the best,” wally said, simply.

becky looked across ruby at him, and then tapped her mug against his. “thanks.”

wally smiled. it was a quiet smile that pulled up the corners of his mouth only slightly, but it was his best smile. in unison, the three of them took sips of their hot chocolate. it went down smoothly, comfortably warm in ruby’s chest.

“you know what this needs?” ruby said.

“potato chips,” becky said.

“potato chips,” ruby agreed.

wally looked thoughtful. “i think that can be done. but we’ll have to adjourn to the kitchen.”

he and becky were up in an instant, racing towards the kitchen like they were kids again, becky shouting when her hot chocolate tipped, wally’s steady voice assuring her that his parents had napkins. ruby got up, took becky’s sweater off from around her shoulders, and then ran into the kitchen after them.

ending notes:

ruby is now an immovable piece of this friendship and i will THROW DOWN for her

#twin peaks

2 notes · View notes