Half a World Away

Summer in Auburn is ten times more vicious than anywhere else in the state; by the time Ruben and I bike our way down to the riverbank and stop to splash our faces, my tee shirt is damp with sweat and hard work and Ruben’s hair is a wet, sticky mess. Every time I get to this point — complete exhaustion, dehydration, and maxed-out frustration — I wonder how I ever allow him to convince me that these are the best ways to spend our summer vacation off from work. At this point, I am, for lack of better words, pissed.

“Why didn’t we have lunch with Cara and Harrison again?” I ask while dabbing at some slithering sweat from the side of my face. “Please tell me there was a point to this stupid trip besides the river and the view.”

“Yeah,” Ruben says. He shoves his wavy mess of hair from out of his face and crouches down to splash more water in his face. When he’s done, he turns around, still in crouching position, to smile tiredly at me. “for exercise.”

I know I’m giving him a look full of utmost rage then, because he stammers to explain himself, telling me, “We can’t just sit around and eat all day, dude. The heat is no excuse to be gettin’ lazy.” He continues splashing at his face, oblivious (or, at least pretending to be oblivious) to my rising annoyance.

I’m still dabbing at my now somewhat-dry face to busy my hands. “Be gettin’ lazy,” I repeat slowly. “Ruben.”

“Yo.”

“I really fuckin’ hate you right now, y’know that?”

He turns to look at me again, giving me his usual smile with all teeth and crooked canines. Sometimes he looks — and acts — five years old, and it makes me wonder, for the millionth time, why I hang out with this douche so much. “Well, you’re not supposed t’love me; it’s working out.” He gets up, stretches his arms high above his head with his shirt riding up after them. “The real working out, not Cara’s yoga bullshit.”

I slide down a tree and land on the dirt, resisting the urge to completely flail to the forest floor and have Ruben carry me back up to civilization, like he often did when we were kids. These trips have always been nostalgic to me; when we’d pass by the big oak tree with the black plastic tied around it, I’d remember that one birthday party Ruben’s parents held for his older brother, Patrick, and when we played tag so roughly that he smashed his forehead against the tough trunk. He still has that scar right between his eyebrows to this day.

So maybe that’s it — the reason I let Ruben take me on these stupid, painful adventures is because of that tight, nostalgic warmth I get in my chest. We’ve come down to this riverside too many times to count, and only recently have I been able to make it back to our house without Ruben assisting me one way or another. He’s always been really fit and too strong for his own good, though his lanky body’s never shown much of his abilities.

Ruben’s father was a football star back when he was in college, and his mother was the women’s track star. Then, when they came together from a series of oddly coincidental events and had a family of their own, right here in their hometown of sleepy, uneventful Auburn, they continued working out and planning hiking and mile runs like the exercise-craved people they are. It’s only natural that Ruben easily picked it up; the mystery is how — and why — Patrick didn’t.

Which makes things ironic, really, that Ruben has been working in our town’s bakery since he was fourteen years old. He doesn’t dare buy or consume any of the products that he sells, but being there from ten a.m. to five p.m. during the summer makes temptation nearly impossible to avoid. At least, it would’ve for me. But Ruben is as hardcore and determined as his parents are, and the only time he ever makes purchases from Sweet! Baked & Goods is when he’s been asked to by lazy Patrick or one of us: Cara, Harrison, and I.

My own family has never, in our entire lives, been active or particularly health-conscious, unless my father complains about his “growing belly” and starts purchasing fruits and vegetables along with my mother’s usual chips and honey buns selection. So when Ruben started getting really into bike riding up the biggest hills in our neighborhood and making frequent trips through the forest in our backyards, my parents were ecstatic.

“He’s a great friend,” my father had told me after Ruben dropped me off a sweaty, panting mess one day. “He’ll keep you fit!”

I’m wondering why I ever let that encourage me to cement myself even further into Ruben’s life. Now we’re like inseparable entities, atoms that cannot split into two no matter how many times I try — and I’ve tried. From begging him to take Harrison instead to actually doing more town-chores for my mother, I was desperate to get away from this world of working out until I threw up, passed out, or both.

Obviously, no such luck.

Ruben goes to stand over me, protecting me from those extra slithers of sun that pour in through the cracks in the trees. “Not this again, Scout,” I hear him saying like a disappointed parent, much like his own father does when he catches me mid-bite into something over five-hundred calories and thirty grams of sugar. “Carrying you is a fun challenge, yeah, but it’s in no way preferred.”

“God, Ben,” I groan, slapping the palm of my hand to my forehead and wiping away the sweat I find there. “I wanna go home. I think I’m getting sunburned.” I loll my head off to the side to avoid his judging stare and steady my gaze on a thick gathering of weeds near the tree across from us. From the forest floor, everything looks so large and peaceful and pleasant.

“It’s not what you want,” he explains. “It’s what you need. And what you need is to cross this river and finish with that last hill. Then we’ll go home.”

I slide my hand down to my chest, feeling my heartbeat. Its definitely slowed down, but I can still feel it rushed and hard beneath my ribcage, begging me to just go home, eat some goddamn food, and take a long, much needed nap. None of which, obviously, is going to happen anytime soon. Ruben gets what Ruben wants, and the stubborn bastard is trying to kill me and my sore thigh muscles.

“I’m gonna pass out,” I finally protest. Ruben has felt my hesitance by now and will use all means to use it to his advantage.

“Scout,” scolds Ruben. “then pass out. But pass out once you make it to the top of that hill.” He blindly points behind him for effect, then he’s turning around and picking back up his bike, a birthday present from me last year that I’m currently hating myself for. Two hundred dollars of pain and misery, that bike is.

One, two, I count, watching as Ruben tosses one leg over the bike and settles on the hard, triangular seat, his head high and facing the hill confidently. A wind blows through just then, frazzling the trees’ leaves, and a halo of light glides through, blinding, and hits Ruben immediately. Three, four …

He’s standing there, at just the perfect angle, blocking the sun from hitting me. I sit in that dark spot with my hand still to my chest and feel my heartbeat pulse through my fingers. Five, six. Ruben, then, suddenly takes off, pedaling as quick and hard as he usually does, determination pulsing much like my heart, across that shallow river and straight up the dirt hill. Seven, eight.

His calves tighten, thighs working double-time, as he leans forward and takes it like a champ. Nine, ten. He’s made it by second eleven, tossing his bike carelessly to the side and instantly placing his hands on his hips, breath heavy and face red.

“Your turn,” he gasps after one trip around the circumference of his bike. “C’mon now.”

“My turn,” I say. I push myself up to my feet and smile up at him, blocking the sun from hitting my narrowed eyes with a hand. “but it looks like half a world away.”

“Then get your ass up here,” Ruben calls out to me. “and it won’t seem that far away anymore.”

Says the guy already there, I think, but I go and grab the hot handles of my bike anyway.