The Notorious R(uth) B(arakat) G(rimaldi)

Chapter 7: Self-Evaluation

Ruthie whirled on Elliott as soon as her door was closed.

"What in the holy fuck do you think you're doing?" she hissed. She advanced on him in what could only be described as a feline stalk as he stood in the middle of her room, holding the plate of fruit, crackers, and cheese.

"I accepted your father's very cordial invitation to stay for dinner," Elliott answered with his signature smirk as he looked around for a place to put the plate.

"You invited yourself, you mean," Ruthie accused. "And you invited yourself to swim, too," she added. "My dad didn't say anything about that, and neither did I," she reminded him.

"I know, but the pool looked so inviting," Elliott explained, finally deciding to set the plate down on the bed. "Not many people in England have a private pool right on their property, you know? Especially in London."

"I--want--you--out--of--here!" Ruthie said, just barely able to control her temper and her voice. "I invited you into my home, and you insulted me to my face."

"Better than doing it behind your back, wouldn't you agree?" Elliott said, quite reasonably, he thought. "And I don't think what I said was necessarily an insult. I just told you a hard truth about yourself, that probably no one's had the nerve to tell you, because they were too busy kissing your arse, you know? It's good to be honest from the go, don't you think? Keeps things out in the open?

"Tell you what," he continued, sitting on her bed, next to the plate, "why don't we tell each other something we don't like about each other physically this time? Like you can tell me that I'm so skinny I look like I wandered out of Auschwitz or something, though that might be offensive to actual holocaust survivors or their descendants or to Jewish people or whatever, I don't know. And I could tell you that your bum is too big?"

"What?"

"Oh fuck, have I gone and put my foot in it again? Shit, I'm--"

Get out. Get out. GET OUT! Getoutgetoutgetout!"

🔥💥⚡️💥⚡️💥⚡️💥🔥

"Whoa, hello, Elliott, is it?" Todd looked up with a smile from his laptop.

"Yes, Mr. Barakat, sorry to disturb you," Elliott said as he descended the last few stairs and headed to the front door.

"First, please just call me Todd, and second, it's not a disruption, I haven't even started yet, just surfing social media before I get down to it," he admitted with a laugh.

"Thank you, Todd," Elliott said as he reached the door.

"Leaving so soon?"

"Yeah, I remembered a couple of things I have to get done for my grandparents this afternoon."

"I see. Well, nice to meet you, and I hope we'll see more of you throughout the school year. Ruthie's been a little out of sorts over this whole Brett and Amelia thing, so it's nice that she has her friends around her, you know?" Todd smiled at Elliott before looking back at his laptop.

"Right," Elliott said. "She's a nice girl, and what they did was really awful. See you later, sir."

Upstairs, Ruthie moodily finished up the food on the plate as she thought about the horrible boy who'd just left.

How dare he come into her house and start analyzing her, calling her names?

She moved the plate to the floor, grabbed her school books, and started on her homework, but put it aside after less than an hour.