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

Chapter 42: Miserable

Spring had sprung all around them, and her Pop's rosebushes had exploded in gorgeous, riotous color, though Ruthie couldn't enjoy them. The next few days were torture for Ruthie, pure and simple. She was sure no one had ever suffered this way.

"It was like him loving me, and me loving him, wove together into a warm blanket, you know?" she said to Amal Clooney as they snuggled on the couch after school one blustery April evening. "And I had the blanket around me, and it made me warm and happy, but I didn't know I was wearing it.

"And then he took it away."

Amal licked her mistress' face to show her sympathy, and thumped her tail a couple of times to show she understood, if not the actual words, at least the flood of emotions behind them.

For the first time in her life, Ruthie felt she had no humans she could talk to about her feelings and life. Linda was nice, but she wasn't always sympathetic about matters of the heart. "Suck it up and get on with it," would be her advice. Pepsi was full of sympathy, but was so scatterbrained that sometimes it felt like Ruthie was talking to a toddler. And for obvious reasons, Gordon was completely out of the question.

Before, it would've been Amelia that she poured her heart out to, but she'd seen Amelia and Elliott the next day, the day after her disastrous texting exchange with Elliott. They'd been standing quite close as they talked, and then Amelia had hugged him, hard and long, before finally releasing him so they could continue walking.

Ruthie didn't know if he was telling her how unhappy he was, or if he was asking her out on a date, and she didn't really care. The fact was that, at the very least, there was a burgeoning friendship between them, and for that reason alone she wasn't comfortable telling Amelia anything.

"You want to talk?" her pop had asked when she came home from school that first day, but for the first time in her life, Ruthie wasn't comfortable talking to either parent.

She'd just shaken her head and headed for the refrigerator.

News of their break up had spread like wildfire through school, and everyone seemed to know before first break, though Ruthie couldn't believe Elliott had told anyone.

She could somehow pretend Elliott didn't exist during the rest of her classes, acting like she didn't see the other girls hanging all over him as they talked, but it was impossible during drama class, which had become the unofficial start time for rehearsals for Les Mis.

The bell signaling the end of school became meaningless as everyone in the class was either onstage or backstage, working to get the show together.

Ruthie and Elliott had so many scenes together that she spent most of her afternoons looking at him yearningly, or dying in his arms, looking up into his beautiful eyes.

Life sucked, as she told Amal Clooney.

"Hey, Rosebud?" Even though she hadn't chosen to confide in them, her dads had been wonderful, making her favorite foods for dinner and cuddling with her every evening.

"Yeah?" Ruthie looked from Amal's kind brown eyes to her Pop's. He was holding a paper in his hand.

"Am I looking at this right? Your trip to New York is the week before your show?" He looked down at the paper, then back up at his daughter. "This can't be right, right? The week before the show is tech week, isn't it? Full costumes and run throughs?"

Ruthie nodded, displacing her dog and going to her father. The paper was a reminder about the trip, what to bring (jackets, gloves, photo ID) and what not to bring (alcohol, excess cash).

Ruthie looked at the dates.

No way.

"I don't think anyone noticed, you know? This trip's been planned since last year. Oh god, Pop, Ms. Piper's going to have an absolute cow."