Rue

14. À La Mer

Two weeks later...

***
The sharp ping of the notification tone pierces her ears and Rue wakes up to check her phone.

It's 6 am in the morning and she wonders who it is.

There are around a dozen notifications, all piled up, some from her Facebook, some from her YouTube subscriptions and some from her number. She clears them all and presses the messages which amounts up to 7 messages, from James, Kate, Chaol and Izzy.

Rue somehow bumps into Izzy all the time nowadays and they share their love for books and so, friendship struck, even if she is not as close to Izzy as to Kate.

JAMES: You okay?

CHAOL: What are you doing now?

IZZY: Yo you have to watch this.

JAMES: Asleep already?

JAMES: Goodnight then.

KATE: Don't sleep dudett, I have news!!

IZZY: Rue? You really gotta wake up and watch this!

She replies Izzy first as her message is the one that came at 6 am.

RUE: What?

Her phone rings again to show that a new message has came in. She quickly puts it in silent mode as she is getting annoyed with the sound.

IZZY: Go to Facebook. I tagged you in a video. He's hot damn.

RUE: Who? What? Why? Why are you awake so early and what's so important?

She opens the Facebook application and presses the notification as she waits for Izzy's reply. Her eyes widen as she reads the title of the post and clicks open the video and waits for it to load.

The headline was "CHAOL VS LAURENT : CLASSROOM FIGHT, WHO WINS?"

The video shows a girl falling down Laurent's lap as he pushes her, then fast forwards to Chaol and Laurent fighting and Laurent getting the last move by hitting Chaol with a bottle when James comes in, raising a phone.

Her phone buzzes. It's Izzy.

IZZY: Chaol of course! Even if people say he loses... Meh, Laurent the playboy sucks.

RUE: OK.

Rue checks the comments under the post and not surprisingly, there are more than hundreds of comments, some insulting Laurent so much that she feels a little pity for him.

The question is, when did this ever happen and where? Why had no one told her about this? And what are they fighting-

"What the hell! I thought you were a ghost!" Kate's voice pervades through the room, startling Rue causing her to drop her phone on the floor.

"Hi there, Kate you need to stop scaring me. Why are you here so early in the morning?" Rue picks up her phone and checks for scratches on the screen.

Kate envelopes her in a sudden hug and giggles. "Might I ask you what are you doing with the phone so early in the morning and yet not replying my message?"

"It's Izzy. She woke up at 6am and asked me to watch something." Rue replies after recovering from the shock of having arms around her so suddenly. "And you?"

"We have special plans for today! But first, what something?" Kate's curiosity is aroused.

Rue shows it to her and recognition flips through Kate's eyes. Rue suddenly feels a little down.

"Why had you never told me about this? And why did they fight?" She asks.

"I didn't think that it was important to you. Well, not really... I just can't bear to see you sad. I know you kind of like Chaol and Laurent so..." Kate runs out of words to say.

"What were they fighting over?" Rue demands.

"Rhianna." Kate tells her, a little reluctantly.

"Fine. Promise me you'll never ever hide this kind of thing from me, ever again, okay?" Rue decides to let it be. Kate isn't hiding it from her for a bad reason anyway.

"Promise. Anyway, we're going to skip school today!!" Kate changes the topic, glad that Rue forgives her.

"What?" Rue exclaims. "You know I never ever skip school. Except for that day when I passed out."

Rue's pet peeve is skipping school and she is really getting frustrated at how her friends skip school without bothering. They just don't care and she has no idea why.

"Chaol." Kate winks.

That one word stops it all.

"Chaol?" Rue asks back, uncertainty reflecting in her eyes.

"Chaol." Kate repeats in reasurrance.

"What's with Chaol? What happened? He's o-" Rue starts her non-ending stream of questions.

"Look at you!" Kate laughs, cutting her inquiries. "And you say you don't like him, huh?"

Rue blushes. "No I... Just tell me what it is!"

"It's his birthday!" Kate says bluntly.

"Ohh... I never knew..." Rue reprimands herself, asking herself why had she never cared enough to ask him his birthday.

'Proves that you don't like him. Happy?' Another voice speaks in her mind. Well, she has no idea what to do now. Maybe, just maybe, she likes him. But maybe, just maybe, she doesn't. She laughs at that and attempts to cover it up with a cough while Kate looks at her quizzically.

"So, James and me, we planned for this big day ahead of us, so say no to attending classes today, okay?" Kate finally sits down, tired of standing.

"Okay. But you guys never let me into the plan..." Rue pouts.

"You're in our plan now, no worries. Just show up at his house, and take him where he should be at." Kate hands Rue a GPS. "The location is set. Don't open it until you have Chaol safe in your car."

"You're still not letting me into the plan!" Rue feigns an angry look.

"I'll give you a clue. James said it's à la mer!" Kate smiles.

"Huh?" Rue doesn't quite get the word.

"Only once! No repetition!" Kate laughs at Rue's antics. "Now go and prepare yourself, silly. It's as much a surprise for you as it is for him!"