𝐫𝐮𝐛𝐲 & 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐩𝐞𝐫 ✩ 𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐝𝗼𝐧

🅴🅻🅴🆅🅴🅽

𝐬𝗼𝐧𝐠: 𝐬𝗺𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐭, 𝐧𝐢𝐫𝐯𝐚𝐧𝐚

✩✩✩

Ruby awoke to the sound of her door being roughly shoved open, and she immediately sprang up.

"You took the car out last night- didn't you!? You little prick!!" Her dad shouted, grabbing her hair and yanking her out of bed.

"Dad! Ow! Stop!" Ruby protested, trying to push him away.

He hit her in the face violently, her hair pulling taught as she reeled away.

"YOU'VE GOTTA BE PUNISHED!" he snarled, shoving her against a wall.

He took out the car keys. "Show me your palms- now." He demanded.

"Wh-?" Ruby began.

"NOW."

Ruby lifted up her palms, already gritting her teeth in preparation.

He struck across her hands with the serrated edge of the keys.

They slashed her palms right in the crease, blood pooling from them.

Ruby shrunk down, cradling them.

"You're a brat. You're grounded for a month." He sneered, before thundering away.

Ruby held back sobs as blood covered her pyjamas, and she silently got ready for school.

She took a detour to the pharmacists, hiding her bleeding hands in her sleeves as she purchased bandages.

Ruby ducked into an alleyway, quickly wrapping the wound in the material.

Then, already late for school, she jogged the rest of the way.

✩✩✩

"You're late, Donovan." Ms Becker, the maths teacher spat.

Ruby took a seat at the back, her hands aching.

She could barely hold a pen without her hands convulsing in pain.

"That'll be after school detention at the principal's office." The teacher said to her at the end, after Ruby hadn't done any work.

She could've told her about her hands, saved herself from detention- but she figured it meant time away from home.

To her surprise, Tate was waiting at her locker.

"I thought we could go to the graveyard again tonight?" He smiled at her.

Ruby tried and failed to open her locker, her sleeves falling away to reveal her bandaged hands, blood seeping through the cloth.

"What happened-?"

"My dad found out I took his car. Didn't take it lightly." Ruby whispered.

"Is it sore?" Tate said, staring at her bloodied hands.

Ruby gave a small laugh. "Oh no, not at all- all he did was slit my palms with rusty keys- no pain at all!" she said sarcastically.

Ella, Rachel and the rest of Ruby's friend group appeared around them.

It took her a while to see the face she was dreading. Kaleb.

Ella only glanced at Ruby, as if ashamed.

Tate was pushed away from her locker quite forcibly, so Ruby was surrounded.

"See you've already found a new guy, you slut." Kaleb spat, moving through the crowd toward her.

"Kaleb told us what you did- Ruby. You were cheating on him with Gabe and now you've moved onto some new loser." Rachel snapped, her arm around Kaleb's waist.

"I've not dated anyone in my life, you prick. So stop talking bullshit about me and get your facts right. I'd never go out with a snake like you," Ruby retorted, hugging her bag closer to her.

"Well, just so you know, you're not welcome to be one of us- anymore." Rachel said.

Ruby rolled her eyes. "One of you? A group of self-absorbed druggies with nothing better to do than have sex and talk shit about each other? It's basically incest." She laughed.

The girl looked taken aback, Kaleb wrinkling his nose in disdain.

"Yeah, I'm done here." Ruby smiled, shoving past them.

She felt someone kick at her feet, trying to make her trip up.

"Freak," they hissed.

Ruby stuck her middle fingers up over her back, striding away down the hallway and ignoring Tate as she went.

She just needed some space.

✩✩✩

"The library's closing now, the bells about to go,"

Ruby lay, her limbs splayed out over a very uncomfortable green sofa in a corner of the library.

She had her headphones on and had been drifting in and out of sleep.

She'd missed all afternoon lessons.

Ruby sat up reluctantly, massaging her temples.

"Right..." she mumbled.

She made her way slowly to the principal's office for detention.

Her heart was in the pit of her stomach as she walked in, sitting down in front of the principal's desk.

"What happened to you?" They said.

"Sorry? I'm here for detention." Ruby shifted in her seat, looking at her bloodied hands.

"You've been slacking off recently, turning up less. Teachers say you've not been very engaged in work," the principal replied. "Why?"

Ruby sighed, furrowing her brow and not making eye contact. "Nothing. Just some little problems, I think I'm figuring it out now though,"

"Good. And you know that the staff are here to help you if you ever need to talk, we know about your home circumstances."

"No, you don't. So what's my detention?" Ruby snapped, changing the subject.

The principal sighed. "You're to join the others in cleaning the bleachers in the gym hall."

Ruby rolled her eyes and nodded, standing up to leave.

"Do talk if you need to, Ms Donovan?"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," she mumbled.

✩✩✩