Hood Rats | Sandy Milkovich

The Last Supper

The passage of time was a fickle thing and nothing made that clearer than the remainder of that week. Day after day of tense silence and long shifts at work, stretched on unbearably long. Rory spent her Saturday morning perched on the edge of her bedroom window, smoking a joint in the hope that it would calm her down and by the time she was done, Diego would finally be out of the house.

Needless to say, they weren't talking. Anytime they passed each other in a hall or got caught doing laundry at the same time, they both had silently agreed to not make eye contact or even acknowledge the other. In fact, Rory wasn't really talking to anybody but Micah. Holly's countless messages went untouched, the nasty voicemail Sandy left her was unrequited, and Diego was promptly ignored. The only people she talked to were her co-workers, Micah, and Rosie and Joaquin.

That is- if you didn't count the scruffy stray cat that had taken to roaming the house like it belonged to him. Alfie plopped his butt on the other side of the window still and sniffed the air. Rory laughed, blowing more smoke out the window, to which the cat watched in amazement. 

"Y'know," she said to him with a pinched voice due to the smoke swimming in her lungs. "You still smell like Oscar the Grouch and that dirty kid from Peanuts had a love child."

Alfie didn't respond. Maybe he was deaf. It wasn't inconceivable with all the other problems the stray probably had. Despite having been fed regularly, his stomach still swelled as if he was emaciated. She probably should pick up some worm meds for him.

That rumbling purr started deep in his throat when she ran a hand over his fur. Her only friend was a cat and it was all her fault.

Okay, sure, she should've said something to Diego sooner, but his bombshell was a lot bigger than hers. Holly and Rory met in sixth grade and had been inseparable ever since. They worked together, studied together, partied together, hell, Holly was the first girl Rory ever kissed. She was the only one who liked it, of course, but you didn't come back from that kind of friendship. All of that and Holly went behind her back and broke the one unspoken rule of their friendship.

It was probably hypocritical to say that when Sandy was mad at her for the same reason she was mad at her best friend. No matter what she did, Rory couldn't shake the image of Sandy realizing what was going on in that room. It didn't matter if Rory was upset about her trying to bring feelings into what they had, because sleeping with Iggy stepped over a line.

Throughout the relationship her and Sandy shared, they both made it clear that they'd be with other people, but Iggy was crossing a boundary that they hadn't needed to set.

It was all so fucked and she didn't even have someone to talk about it outside of a cat. All that didn't even include the drama that was sure to ensue at the dinner that night. Having a big family dinner with everything going on was laughable. The Torres's didn't even have dinner together when they weren't at each other's throats, and bringing someone else into all of this was going to be a disaster.

She rubbed her palms into her eyes in an effort to wake herself up more. The joint was shrinking closer to her fingers, so she took one last drag and coughed. It was going to be a long day. She shut the window and Alfie shot her a disappointed look.

The remains of the joint were thrown back in the little metal jewelry box where she normally kept her weed and she started looking through her clothes.

"Rory?"

She glanced up from the pile that had formed on her bed. Rosie was standing in the hall outside her room, watching her. "What's up?

The girl's eyes trailed on the floor. "Are we still having dinner tonight?"

"Of course." Rory joined her in the hall and crouched down to her height. "Micah really wants to meet you."