Rue V.O
I don't know what Jordan does most of the time. That's not me being dramatic, that's just the truth. He moves through the world like he already knows how it ends and he's just filling in the time between. But every once in a while he does something that reminds me there's a whole version of him running underneath the surface that I can't see.
I ran on four hours of sleep and got to school looking presentable enough not to get asked about it.
Walked into bio and stopped.
Kat was sitting in the second row in fishnet stockings and a skirt and platform boots with red lips, and she looked like she'd decided overnight to stop giving anyone a reason to come for her. The new outfit wasn't a costume. It was more like she found herself or something that made her feel better than anything before
I slid into the seat next to her. Not my assigned seat. Didn't matter.
"Hey, pretty."
She looked around the room fast, then back at me.
"Shh."
I laughed. Quiet.
Five minutes before class started. The room was still filling in. I put my hand on her thigh, just resting it there, and watched her face. Her jaw didn't move but her breathing did, just slightly, and I could feel her body react before she made any decision about it.
I moved my hand up slow.
She was wet through the fabric.
She put her hand over mine. Didn't move it. Didn't say anything. Just held it there for a second she was deciding something, and then she shifted just enough.
Three minutes. She got close to cumming. Didn't get there. The bell was going to ring and I wasn't trying to make her finish in the middle of a classroom, so I moved my hand, stood up easy, and went to the back of the room.
She looked straight ahead. Chest still up a little. Not looking at me.
I sat in the back and paid just enough attention to keep my C.
Then Ethan walked in and took the seat I'd left. Kat looked back at me once. I just smiled. She turned around and started talking to him.
Good for both of them.
* * *
Rue V.O
I don't know what Fezco told Jordan. I don't know what Jordan did with that information. What I know is that somewhere between Fezco's door and Ali's diner I wasn't alone, even though I thought I was.
I was home after school when Fezco called.
He didn't say much. Just that Rue had been at his door and he hadn't let her in and she'd left. He didn't know where she went.
I was outside and in the Z before he finished the sentence.
The thing about Rue is she doesn't make great decisions when everything is fine. When she's going through it, the math gets worse. She could be anywhere. She could be doing anything. East Highland at night isn't the kind of place where that ends well if nobody knows where you are.
I drove slow. Windows down. Looking.
An hour of nothing. Side streets, the alley behind Fezco's, the block near Jules's place. I came back around and widened the loop and that's when I saw the diner light.
I slowed down and looked through the window.
Rue's curly hair. A booth near the back. A stack of pancakes in front of her and some older dude sitting across, talking to her. Not a creep situation from what I could read. He looked like somebody who had seen some things and wasn't trying to make her feel bad about anything. She was actually talking back, not just waiting for it to stop.
I parked across the street and cut the engine.
I sat there the whole time. Didn't go in. She didn't need me in there, she needed to be in there without me. But I wasn't leaving either.
About forty minutes later she walked out.
I hit the horn once. Soft.
She looked up, found the Z. Stood there for a second. Then she walked over, looked at the passenger seat, looked at me, and got in.
We didn't say anything the whole ride. Not one word. The radio was off. Just the engine and the road and whatever both of us were carrying.
When I pulled into the driveway I put it in park and left it running.
I turned and looked at her. She was looking straight ahead.
"I love you," I said. "Please be better."
She didn't say anything for a second. Then she nodded once, got out, and went inside.
I sat in the car for another few minutes. Then I went in too.
* * *
Rue V.O
I want to say something about that night and about Jordan specifically. Most people, when they find out someone they love is struggling, they either panic or they disappear. Jordan did neither. He just showed up and stayed close enough to matter without making it about himself. I don't know if he knows how rare that is. I don't think he thinks about it like that. I think he just does it.
A week later was the carnival.
I got dressed. Red hoodie, black jeans, Bred 11s. Looked in the mirror once and went downstairs.
Empty house.
Those motherfuckers left without me.
I got in the Z and drove.
* * *
The carnival was the kind of loud before you could see it. The carnival was filled with music, generators, children screaming from rides, a distinct smell of fried food and freshly cut grass, and an electric atmosphere permeating the air.
I found parking, walked in, and spotted Rue and Jules almost immediately. Jules had her arms around Rue, spinning her a little. Rue was laughing for real. The awkward thing between them from a few weeks back had healed over somehow. Whatever they'd figured out, it was working.
I kept moving.
Lexi was standing by herself near the Gravitron entrance, looking at her phone with the energy of someone who had realized too late that they weren't really needed where they were. I walked up behind her and put my arm around her shoulders.
"Hey, baby."
She turned and looked up at me.
"When I get a boyfriend, you're going to have to stop doing that."
"Yeah," I said. "Maybe."
She shook her head but she was almost smiling. I kept walking.
Found Kat a little while later near the slushie stand. Ethan was next to her, close, the two of them laughing about something. She had a white cherry slushie and she looked relaxed in a way she usually wasn't at school. I didn't interrupt. I just clocked it and moved on.
Good for her. For real.
* * *
Rue found me near the back of the carnival, moving fast.
"Gia's not answering her phone."
"How long?"
"Like an hour."
I looked at her. She was trying not to show how scared she was and doing a bad job of it.
"Split up," I said. "Text me if you find her."
She went left. I went right.
Twenty minutes of nothing. I looped back toward the Gravitron and kept going past it, out to where the carnival lights started to thin and it got darker. There was a section of fence that had been caved in. A field beyond it.
I heard them before I saw them. Loud laughter. Then a firework went off and lit up the silhouettes of a group of kids out in the grass, smoke sitting above them like a low cloud.
Then I heard Rue's voice.
I stopped at the fence line and watched. She'd found Gia. Gia was clearly stoned, sitting between two boys I recognized, twins, Roy and Troy, from around the neighborhood. Rue was trying to get her up and Gia was being dramatic about it she felt fine and Rue was acting like it wasn't fine.
The twins were egging it on. Finding it funny.
Then one of them said it.
I heard it clear across the field. Was it after you ODed.
I watched Rue go still. The way she does when something lands somewhere deep and she's deciding whether to let it show. Gia's face changed too. She said stop, quiet, and took Rue's hand, and the two of them started walking away.
I was already through the fence.
The twin who'd said it was leaning back against the hood of somebody's car, still grinning a little as his brother said something to him. I walked up fast and he registered me about half a second too late.
I hit him clean. He came off the hood and went down hard.
I hit him five more times on the ground.
"I'm sorry, bro. I'm sorry."
I got up. Looked at him. His brother was already moving to help him and not moving toward me, which told me everything I needed to know about how this was going to get handled.
It wasn't going to get handled. Not publicly. You don't go around telling people you got dropped at the carnival for talking shit about a girl's OD. That's not a story anyone tells.
I straightened my hoodie and walked back into the lights.
* * *
Jordan V.O
I found out later what happened at the lake that night. With Jules and Tyler and what Tyler turned out to be. She climbed through Rue's window and Rue held her and that was the night everything shifted between them. I didn't know any of that when it was happening. I just knew that when everybody came home, something in the house felt different. Like the air pressure had changed.
I got home after Rue and Gia.
My right hand was swollen across the knuckles, not bad, but enough. I stood over the sink and ran cold water over it for a while. The pain was the dull kind.
I didn't have any lean. Checked twice.
I rolled a blunt instead, sat on the edge of the bed, smoked half of it, and let the carnival noise drain out of my head. The music from outside had stopped. The house was quiet.
I put what was left in the ashtray and laid back.
Was asleep before the room stopped moving.
END OF CHAPTER EIGHT