All Over Again

| Chapter Thirteen |

Flint's Café was buzzing with life by the time Ruth made her daily trip over to it on Monday morning. The line extended from Abigail's flustered hands jotting down orders to the front door, filled with antsy students and rushing professors. Alluring smells of flavored tea, sugary, caramel coffees, and heated pastries waft through the air to entice people to order more than what they came there for. Even the soft music easing morning anxieties was calming. It was all an easy distraction against their common enemy: early rush hour.

A sigh of frustration came groaning from behind Ruth. She mentally agreed with whoever it was, and even turned around to voice it aloud, but ended up blinking a few times instead.

Ruth and the person behind her in line stare at one another for a brief moment, shocked that they had both ended up in the same place once again, before smiling at the rarity of it. Ruth's lighthearted laugh drifted between the two, momentarily stumped.

"Fancy seeing you here again," Mirana teased, a friendly gleam in her eye.

"You caught me," Ruth chuckled, shrugging guiltily.

"Hey, I got no one to tell. You're secret's safe with me."

Ruth shook her head with a wide, kind smile. "How've you been? I haven't seen you since the court."

"You know how it goes. Syllabus week turns into lecture week, lecture week turns into review week, and pretty soon it's time for exams." Mirana made a face.

"Yikes."

"Yikes is right," she agreed, then paused. She tilted her head curiously, genuinely interested in what Ruth was up to lately. "What about you? How've you been?"

For no reason at all, the question stumped Ruth.

Her mind was quick to drift away from their conversation for a second, pondering her own answer to the question. She hadn't necessarily been too bad, aside from the weird run in with Raffo, and couldn't seem to let that incident go. Ruth's common question had somehow backfired on her, and led him to avoid her for the rest of that last week. She hadn't seen him before that morning's café trip yet, so she didn't even know if he was still going to avoid her or not.

What do I care? Ruth thought to herself with a grimace.

She didn't know why she cared. Just that she did.

And the toxic part of her wanted to admit all of that to Raffo's best friend just to gain some incite on who he was as a person. What sets him, what makes him tick, what makes him want to smoke, and why did he always wear that beaded necklace around his neck? So many questions . . . and yet, she just wanted to know if she actually frightened him the week before.

"I've been okay . . . I actually have something to ask you, if you don't mind answering it," Ruth smiled guiltily, her bottom lip seeking refuge between her teeth. Mirana curiously told her she's welcome to ask anything and go ahead and shoot.

"You and Raffo are best friends right?" Ruth questioned slowly, trying her best not to wince at the nosy bluntness of her question.

To Ruth's surprise, Mirana flushed scarlet. A strained smile graced her features and she tried her best to appear more cool than she did.

"I don't know about best friends," she laughed, the sound a pitch higher than it should be. "But we're good friends. Close friends."

Okkaaaay.

"I just wanted to ask . . . it's going to sound weird . . . but does Raffo sort of—hate me?" It was Ruth's turn to sound pitchy and embarrassing. Her heart was beating much too fast in her chest at the mention of Raffo and she tried her best to control it. But how much can you really control a giddy heart over a beautiful boy with silk hair?

Mirana's eyes widened, bewildered. "Hate you? Why would you think that?"

Ruth swallowed thickly and raked her fingers through her curls out of habit. The nonchalant thing wasn't really her style, but she couldn't afford to drop it now. She could only hope that it wasn't obvious how bothered she was at the idea of Raffo still being upset with her.

"I think I caught him off guard last week," she admitted, her cheeks hot. "I came up too fast behind him and I—"

Miranda's hazel eyes filled with understanding then, and Ruth stopped talking instantly, taking that as her cue to do so. "Ahh."

"Did I-" Ruth hesitated now. "Did I . . . bring something up for him?"

The harmful question made Mirana shift on her feet uneasily. She glanced away briefly, her smile from before wiped away. "I'm really sorry, Ruth, but I don't feel comfortable speaking for Raffo and assuming I know how he probably felt—if he felt anything about it."

"Right. Of course," Ruth shook her head guiltily, a forced laugh pushing past her lips. "I didn't mean for it to seem like I'm gossiping or anything-"

"Not at all, Ruth! I guess that came out a little funny. What I meant was that if he did get upset with you for you catching him off guard, it's not really your fault. That's just how Raffo is, sometimes," Mirana reassured her, smiling at her. "If it helps at all, he hasn't told me he's upset with you."

Oddly enough, Ruth did feel a little better by this. At least he wasn't mad at her enough to speak ill of her behind her back, so maybe it was all just in Ruth's head. It's not like she had actually seen him around campus last week. She just associated that with him avoiding her, but maybe he really didn't care about it.

"Thanks, Mirana. I just hate thinking that I did something wrong to someone," she admitted, moving closer to Abigail and further away from the door with Mirana hot on her heels.

"Anytime, girl," she grinned, her smile brilliant and beautiful.

Ruth turned back around to face Abigail, who was about to call her up next for her order, when her eye caught onto that same flyer she saw before. It was hard not to miss, with its confetti art streamed around the outside border of the paper and bold, crimson letters still coaxing her to join their writing contest. She paused on one particular corner with a set of numbers outlined in blue that hadn't been there before.

Her heart stuttered at the amount, her eyes widening in surprise. Her school could afford a contest like that? Just for writing 20,000 words? A $10,000 scholarship or reward money depending on how you want to spend it? Just for writing a novella?

But did Ruth really have time to write out 20,000 words by the end of the month? She never was good at setting boundaries, word counts, or even time limits for herself when it came to writing. She liked to let everything flow naturally from her fingertips without forcing the words to be written. And on top of that, Ruth had papers, presentations, exams, and studying to do. As much as she loved to write . . . it wasn't practical. She couldn't commit to 20,000 words on top of keeping up with her school work.

No matter how good that scholarship looked . . .

She shook her head and walked up to a patient, but frazzled Abigail and ordered her usual. Her chai tea latte and a sugary little cupcake pastry, hoping the sweetness could drown out her desire for joining the school contest.

It did no such thing.

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