All Over Again

| Chapter Forty-Seven |

It took Ruth a long time to leave the basketball courts.

She stayed until the sun was almost finished setting in the sky as she numbly sat at their usual bench, her glassy gaze never straying from the rusting metal of the blue top. Her thoughts were jumbled and incoherent and she didn't know how to put them back together again. Something in her had broken off permanently and she had no desire to retrieve it. Part of her broken soul belonged with Raffo, and it always will be.

Ruth was shaking when she finally forced herself to leave the courts and drive back home. She was numb by the time she made her way into the apartment, but as soon as she walked through the door and saw her cousins waiting on the couch in anticipation, she crumbled in on herself. Her tears wasted no time in soaking Terry's shirt as sobs wracked from deep within her broken body. Her chest squeezed with unimaginable pain at the pity filled look in Jana's gaze.

"It's over," Ruth choked, her nose clogging as salty tears trickled into her mouth. "W-we're over."

"I'm so sorry, Ruthie," Jana whispered, brushing the curl sticking to Ruth's cheek over her shoulder. She looked at her like her entire soul ached just seeing one of her favorite cousins cry.

Ruth didn't know how long she sat there and cried her heart out for, but it was long enough to grip her bearings again. She was held and cooed by the ones who'd never leave her, and when they offered to get Taco Bell for dinner, she knew she belonged with them. Her smile was hesitant and watery, but they took it all the same as they stood her up and brought her to the couch. She couldn't hold her head up long enough to focus through the dizzy way her world tilt behind the fog of her eyes, so she leaned on Jana's shoulder and allowed them to be her support.

She couldn't bring herself to explain how badly she messed up and the girls didn't ask. They just tended to her for as long as she needed them, which easily stretched on to all night. They let her cry and sob on them whenever the reminders flooded her mind and though being with them didn't stop the ache of her heart being ripped from her chest, she still appreciated it. She wasn't physically alone, and for right then, that was enough.

Even if she thought the guilt was going to consume her in the night.

*****

For the rest of that week long November vacation, Ruth spent most of her time in silence. She ignored her parents' phone call, ignored Emily's text messages, and stayed stuck inside her room when she wasn't around her cousins. Though their lives consisted of work and tending to their weekly responsibilities, Ruth's life stood still.

Her fingers ached with the urge to text or call Raffo, and her feet demanded to run all the way back down to the courts to search for him. She didn't want to do anything, not even go to her uncle's house the following weekend for the party he was throwing to celebrate her accomplishment. It was exactly a week from then, but the thought of going made her want to curl up and cry.

She had school in a day's time, and the thought of possibly running into Raffo made her sick. There was no going around it though, and she knew she'd have to face him again soon. How strange it was to want to see someone on your own terms, but not at the same time.

Life was a cruel game of chance and she was pretty sure she just lost her winning hand.

*****