“Quit knocking, I’ll be there in a second” Impatient jerk, Ruthie flung the door open a scowl fixed on her face, standing there was Martin Brewer, she quickly slammed the door back shut returning to the lounge room where she increased the volume on the music, hoping he would get the message to leave.

“Ruthie I’m sorry!”

“I heard you the first time, doesn’t make it true” She screamed at the window pulling the curtains closed so he couldn’t look at her, or her at him. She waited a few minutes but couldn’t hear anything else; she shut the stereo off and walked up the well worn stairs to her bedroom.

“You have to talk to me sooner or later” He had climbed the trellis

“I knew I should have closed that window”, he stood awkwardly in her room unsure as to what to do or say

“Ruthie I’m sorry, I was an idiot”

“Like that’s anything new”

“I shouldn’t have done it, I’m sorry”

“Yeah I think Meredith was really impressed”

“I don’t know what she thought we broke up”

“I’ll have to send her my congratulations” She was smirking

“Ruthie do you even know why I did what I did?”

“Because you’re an overprotective older brother type with delusions of your own importance in my life?”

“No because Mac and I saw him with another girl after school Monday, unless you’ve dyed your hair blonde and cut it to chin length it wasn’t your throat his tongue was tickling”

“Why didn’t you just tell me that instead of you know BREAKING HIS NOSE?” a smile was threatening to spill onto her lips, he could tell from the way her mouth twitched slightly to the right. He shrugged

“I don’t know, it was kind of my first thought”

“Yeah and his was to call the cops, I had to hear about this from Kevin, not my supposed best friend!”

“I’m sorry, just please tell me you and Jack are not together anymore”

“That’s none of your business”

“I was just looking out for you, I didn’t want you to get hurt”

“Well you failed, now will you please go, I don’t want to deal with this right now”

“Just tell me what I can do to make it up to you?”

“Build a time machine and fix my life so that I never met you, everything was so much simpler then” She replied only half meaning it, she dragged her eyes to his face seeing the hurt lying there. He walked to her door, brushing her shoulder, she blinked back tears.

“Ruthie, please?” She refused to look at him. Sighing he left. She sat in a heap on her floor, the tears running down her face, she laughed. How could she love and hate someone so much at the same time?

Martin kicked at the ground making a dirt hole where there once was green grass.

“Hey what did that lawn ever do to you?” Martin turned and smiled at his dad

“Sorry bad day”

“I know I could hear you guys yelling from down here” He let out a whistle shaking his head, Martin rolled his eyes

“She always did have a loud set of lungs on her”

“Are you ever going to tell her the real reason you broke the boys nose?”

“He was cheating on Ruthie”

“And why did that make you so angry?”

“Because she’s my best friend”

“Then why didn’t you just tell her so she could deal with it, Ruthie always liked to fight her own battles”

“I don’t know, I just wanted to protect her, I always want to protect her”

“Why?” Martin was growing more and more agitated with each question

“I don’t know, maybe because she’s an important part of my life and I don’t want to see her sad” His dad pulled off the dirty gardening gloves and placed his hand on Martin’s shoulder

“Think Martin, why don’t you want to see her sad?”

“What is this twenty questions?” His dad just stared at him and Martin sighed “Because when she’s sad it makes me sad” he paused “and angry” he took a deep breath “And like causing physical pain to whoever made her sad”

“Martin you’re not an idiot I think you know where all this is leading, just make sure you tell the girl before she writes you off for good”, his dad smiled all knowingly before disappearing off into the gardening shed muttering to himself.

Hey guys, hope you enjoyed this introduction to Wouldn’t It Be Nice. Please R & R!