The Ineffable Ruth Rhodes

31 sunflowers facing the sun

ruth

Ruth ambled up to her locker, ignoring the stares she'd adapted to and stopping right in front of Sumaiya, who was leaned against her locker with an expectant look on her face. Ruth tried not to ask if she was okay on a reflex.

Walking on eggshells around someone, Ruth decided and knew from experience, only reminded them of what they lost.

She narrowed her eyes at Sumaiya.

"Hello, Miss. Locker Bodyguard. Your shift is over. You're free to leave."

"Yeah yeah okay comedian." Sumaiya watched her and moved out of the way, an excited look in her eyes despite the bags and sunken cheeks. "Morning to you too. So?"

Ruth hung her backpack up, removing her pencil case and faced her friend.

"So..."

"Just tell me!"

"You're going to have to give me a few hints as to what you're talking about."

"Alright." Sumaiya smirked a wicked smirk. "You and Vincent. High school musical 3, Can I Have this Dance."

"Oh my God."

"Oh my God!"

Ruth's hand flew to her mouth. "You saw that? You know about that?"

"The whole school does."

"The whole school saw?"

Ruth felt sick.

"No no, don't worry," she shook her hands rapidly, "A couple people from Wilson's saw after leaving practice. Word spreads like a mole."

"... right."

"Hey..." Sumaiya watched her. "Is everything okay?"

Ruth nodded and her brows creased. "I just don't want to talk about him right now."

It was the right thing to do, Ruth believed. Cutting him off. So why did she feel like if she saw him she'd start crying? Whenever she saw him she wanted to run up to him and hug him— but not if it was fake. Not if he thought it was fake. These feelings, whatever they were, she knew, were real.

"You can talk to me," she murmured.

"I know."

"... Alright..." Sumaiya frowned, realizing she wasn't going to confide in her. "I'll see you during lunch, then, bubba."

She smiled slightly and waved goodbye, hoping her smile was believable.

—-

Ruth sat at her desk gingerly, taking out her pencil case as quietly as possible as her teacher hustled to the front of the class.

Just a few months ago she was infamous— laughed at for something that happened a year before. No one even paid her any negative mind to her knowledge.

She didn't know if she preferred it then or now. Maybe then, the feeling of hollowness mellowing out her heart wouldn't have hurt so much.

"Alright, this is today's topic—" her teacher started, pointing a scrawny finger at the board. "Can you all read it out for me?"

"'Words you never said'," the class chorused.

Ruth accidentally flicked her eyes to Vincent's seat, and found him staring at her.

He looked away first, then right before she could too, he met her eyes once more. She looked away.

"Right." She began handing out small rectangular pieces of paper. "So if you have something you want to tell someone, or any last words you wish you could've said to someone, you can write that down too."

There was that face smiling at her as it popped up into her head.

Ruth drummed her fingers on her desk, looking around and feeling relieved that she wasn't the only one who was stumped.

You could write about Vincent.

Ruth's eyes drifted to the seat Vincent was in, and he was maybe the only person who was scribbling furiously on his sheet of paper. Everything he did was so adorable for no reason at all.

And she knew Liora would've loved him. She would've said they were perfect together, that she was happy Ruth found someone who made her feel as though she deserved to exist. Happy Ruth found someone who reminded her that she deserves to be loved.

T... Ruth wrote, narrowing her eyes internally at herself. She finished writing it and handed it in. Thank you for existing.

She waited until everyone else put theirs on the pile at the head of the classroom, and Vincent for some reason did as well.

She walked up after he did awkwardly, and right before dropping hers onto the pile her eyes caught the words he wrote in small, scrawled letters:

t'avoir c'est avoir les étoiles.

To have you is to have the stars.

Someone who must've gone after Ruth and peeked over her shoulder, presumably Vincent's friend, nudged him.

"'To have you is to have the stars'?" the guy whispered incredulously. "Wow. My guy's in love again."

"I'm not," Vincent said with a shy smile, and Ruth watched silently as he itched his nose.

And that, was when Ruth realized it.

She was in love with him.

She was in love with Vincent Alderage.

When they started all this, she'd told him, "I want to be loved."

No, no she didn't. She wanted to learn to love, so maybe she'd learn to love herself. She wanted to meet someone to fill her gap of Remy she thought she was missing, someone she'd love so much, and so wholly, she wanted every inhale of air to be their scent so maybe, she'd be breathing them in, their soul, so they'd live with her forever, from inside her. Maybe their souls would mingle and become one.

She thought Remy was that person. Maybe that he was the one she let get away but no— he wasn't.

She thought she was still hung up on him and unable to love anyone because she didn't think it was right.

But she was wrong. And she was in love. But not with Remy.

With someone else.

Vincent Alderage.

The jock whose father left him.

She loved him.

Ruth loved Vincent Alderage. With all of her being.

It might've happened that day in the rain, she thought, when they watched the pellets of water hit the ground, and she had him with her for her birthday— or maybe it was as soon as she talked to him about his dad, and she got to know him for him. It might've been the party, when she told him her name, or when she heard him say her name and she felt like after years of drowning she could breathe again.

She loved him. With every part of her soul and body.

If Ruth was a sunflower, then Vincent was the sun.

And she realized something else.

He loved her, too.

---

hint: reference ch.19 :~)