Archive of Our Own

day one without jules.

For ten blissful seconds after consciousness snatches her from the rare comfort of sleep, Rue has no memory of the night before.

No formal, no Nate, no Anna, no train station, no drugs…

That last thing, that’s the first to come back.

Rue can still feel the remnants in her system, the residual opiates her last line of defense against the full crushing weight of her current existence.

She just barely finds the presence of mind to roll over before she throws up.

Rue uses approximately seventy-eight percent of her energy to shower, and when she gets back to her room, Lexi is there.

And, like, yeah, she might still be a little high, but she’s pretty sure Lexi wasn’t there when she left.

Good thing she had the paranoia of mind to tuck her stash back in the bottom drawer of her dresser before she left her room to shower, she guesses.

“Hey, Rue,” the other girl greets her from her spot on the edge of her bed, giving her a little wave and literally flinching at the sight of her. “You look about as good as I feel.”

Which is saying something, considering she did just shower. “My condolences,” Rue mumbles as she shuffles over to her closet to pull out the closest baggy shirt and long shorts combo she can find.

“Sorry to just show up so early,” Lexi apologizes from behind her, voice sounding a bit higher than normal, but again, it could be the drugs. “I texted. Did you get my text? Any of them?”

Rue did, probably, she’s got a lot of missed messages, but she’s been avoiding looking at her phone since she got up because she knows who they’re probably all from, so she shrugs and says, “Don’t think so.”

“Good,” Lexi replies quickly, maybe sounding relieved. “Good, I mean, that’s…” She doesn’t finish the thought, but Rue’s gonna guess it’s good. “Do you wanna go get breakfast or something?”

It takes her a second to catch up to the change in subject and Rue actually had plans to lay in bed all day and binge a couple seasons of Drag Race in an attempt to turn her brain off, but as much as she enjoys the hospital, two visits within a week isn’t gonna go unchecked, so.

Maybe a distraction - a healthy one, even - is a better course of action than wallowing.

“I could eat,” she eventually answers over her shoulder, and then drops her towel.

Rue orders pancakes, but immediately regrets her choice after the first bite; Lexi makes the right choice by opting for waffles from jump, and offers to share with her.

She means to thank her, but then Lexi starts filling her in on everything she missed at the dance - Kat and Ethan finally got their shit together, and an even longer time coming, Maddy and Nate finally broke up for real - and she forgets.

“So, uh, can I tell you the real reason I came by so early?” Lexi eventually works up the courage to ask, voice and face sheepish as she grimaces before even saying anything.

As if Rue is in any place, ever, to judge her for anything.

“Sure,” she shrugs, because what does she care? Can’t possibly be anything bad enough to actually register with her much after the shit show that was last night.

But Lexi is Lexi, all sweet and maybe not as innocent as she seems, but enough so that something that feels like the end of the world to her, would probably be a good day for Rue.

“I sent you a few texts last night when I was drunk,” she explains, cheeks tinting pink as she plays with an earlobe nervously. “They’re, like, super embarrassing, and I was hoping I could get you to delete them before you actually read them.”

Rue fights her first smile of the day, endeared by the tame drama of her friend’s life; ah, the simple joys of not being a co-dependant, mentally ill drug addict.

“I mean, how embarrassing are you we talking here?” she wonders with a smirk, finding some kind of entertainment in the way the color of Lexi’s cheeks darkens the more flustered she gets.

“Rue, come on,” the other girl whines, nudging her shin with the toe of her shoes underneath the table until she relents.

“Yeah, alright.” She pulls out her phone and slides it across the cluttered surface of the table, easily avoiding Lexi’s eyes from behind her sunglasses as she fiddles with her straw. “You can delete them,” Rue agrees with a slight nod, chewing at her bottom lip as she thinks of the other unread messages on her phone, the ones that have been taunting her like they’re a bottle of pills. “But only if you delete all the ones from Jules for me, too. The ones since last night.”

Lexi visibly relaxes as she reaches for the phone, and even though her confusion is obvious, she knows she’s in no position to push it by asking any questions.

Rue tries not to watch her as the screen lights up her face, but her gaze keeps getting pulled over, like she hopes she’ll be able to read Lexi’s reactions, if not the messages themselves.

But the other girl has a surprisingly good poker face - either that or she’s minding her own business and not actually reading whatever Jules wrote - and Rue can’t gauge anything by the time she’s handing her phone back with a relieved but strained smile.

They go to Lexi’s house after they finish breakfast, and watch a couple movies with Cassie until Rue leaves around dinner time, before their mom can rope her into staying for takeout.

She counts her steps back home and tries not to think about Jules in the city or the baggie of pills she has hidden in the bottom right corner of her dresser drawer.

She only barely succeeds at one.

Jules texts twice more after dinner, but Gia needs help with a project on a subject that actually holds Rue’s attention most of the time, so she at least has something else to do other than stare at her phone until she finally goes to bed.

But as she lays there in the dark, trying to count sheep instead of tiles, Rue doesn’t have anything to distract her from her thoughts anymore.

Or, worse than that, the pills calling her name from her bottom drawer.

She swears she can hear them, and she wants them, and she’s not sure why she’s not answering.

What’s stopping Rue now that Jules is gone?

She only stopped for Jules, so she wouldn’t lose her, and now that she has anyway, what’s the point?

Why fight this exhausting and endless battle, every day, without reason?

Hell if Rue knows.

And yet, when she throws her covers off and crawls out of bed, it’s to grab a pen and a barely used notebook off her messy desk, not to grab a baggie of pills to crush and snort.

Her hand trembles a little as she starts writing on the blank first page, but once she’s done, she somehow finds it a bit easier to sleep.

day two without jules.

Rue doesn’t expect to see Lexi again so soon - she hasn’t been to her house two days in a row since her dad died and Lexi came over every day for three weeks, just to keep her company - but the other girl is knocking on her door around noon, and her mom beams at the sight of her.

“Lexi Howard,” she greets her warmly, pulling the girl she’s known for years into an equally warm hug as she closes the door behind her and gives her a little shake. “It feels like I haven’t seen you in ages.”

It’s because she hasn’t, but water under the bridge and everything.

“It’s good to see you, Mrs. Bennett,” Lexi replies with the same amount of sweetness as she pulls back, ever the polite girl that can’t bring herself to use the woman’s first name, no matter how many times she’d told her to. “Is Rue around?”

“Hey,” the girl in question interrupts before her mom can give some snarky answer about how she’s only come out of her room today to get some cereal. “What’s up? Did I miss another text?”

She’s still getting messages from Jules, so she’s still avoiding her phone.

Lexi shakes her head. “Cass and I were just driving by on our way to the skating rink, and I thought I’d see if you wanna come with,” she explains, shoving her hands into the pockets of her jacket, cheeks a little rosy from the cold. “I know you’re more into rollerskating than ice skating like me, but Cassie’s kinda been in a funk since, you know, everything with McKay, and I thought this might cheer her up.”

The fact that she thought it might cheer Rue up too is obvious, and with both Lexi and her mom looking expectantly at her, Rue feels like she has no choice but to agree.

“Yeah, sure,” she concedes, completely unenthusiastically.

She’s already gotten her heart stomped on, why not embarrass herself by falling on her ass, too?

They end up meeting Maddy, Kat and B.B. there, but when none of them ask Rue where Jules is, she decides she doesn’t mind the group setting.

It even kinda feels a little like old times, before Rue lost herself and drifted away.

The other girls were never really who Rue considered her friends - she was Lexi’s best friend and they were Cassie’s, and so they all just kind of ended up hanging out together sometimes - but it still fills her with the same bit of nostalgia she got at Winter Formal, until everything went to shit.

“She looks good out there,” Rue comments from the sidelines, where she’s sitting next to Lexi as they get their skates on.

There’s noisy kids running around in front of them, and the other four girls are already on the ice and on the move, but naturally, Cassie is skating circles around them, and everyone else on the rink. Show off.

“I know, right?” Lexi laughs, watching her sister’s seamless movements with a fond, but kinda somber look in her eyes. “Crazy to think she could be, like, some elite ice skater right now if my parents could have afforded to keep getting her lessons.” Now her tone has turned a little more wistful. “She almost had her whole future mapped out. Now I don’t think she even knows where she wants to go to college.”

There’s obviously something heavy underlying Lexi’s words, but it feels like it’s none of Rue’s business, so instead of asking what’s up, she waits until the other girl is looking down at her skates instead of at her sister to ask her something else.

“What about you?” she wonders, sitting back and kicking the back of the blade against the padded ground to test the fit. “You got your future all planned out yet?”

“I wish,” Lexi scoffs, copying Rue when she finishes tying her skates. She leans back against the cold wall and lolls her head to look at her friend for a moment before she continues. “You know, it’s, uh, it’s stupid, but I used to imagine us being roommates, like in some sitcom.”

Rue breathes out a small laugh as she pictures little Lexi watching some show like Friends and dreaming of the two of them living it out; she thinks of Jules, not too long ago, doing the same, and the way she cried like a little bitch when she told her.

“In New York?” she guesses, another girl and the future they’d dreamed up lingering in her mind.

“Maybe,” her friend hums, lost in her own memories. “I never really had any place in mind, just that you’d be there. And so our apartment would always be a mess,” she teases, kicking their skates together, and a smile tugs at Rue’s lips, despite everything. “You got any big plans?”

She asks it casually, or at least tries to, and Rue knows she’s probably thinking of what she said at the dance.

Honestly, I never thought I’d make it this far.

It might have sounded a little morbid, but it had been true.

Maybe not in the sense that Rue always actually saw herself dying before she finished high school, but the future has just never really been something she allowed herself to think much about, let alone plan.

First because it gave her too much anxiety, and then because it didn’t seem like there was a point.

The system is fucked up, and the world is doomed; people either leave or they die.

Rue learned that from a young age, and it was kinda hard to look too far into the future knowing that.

What’s the point?

Then she’d met Jules, and she could suddenly see a future, or she at least wanted one; the one Jules said she wanted, one where they were together like they were now - happy and just them.

She still hadn’t made any plans for herself beyond Jules - following her to New York or wherever she wanted to go; just being with her - but it had been more than she allowed herself to think about in a long time.

And now Jules is gone, and she didn’t go with her.

Suddenly, that future was right in front of her, and she couldn’t do it, or maybe she just didn’t want to.

“Nah,” she eventually answers, shaking her head like it’s all no big deal and nothing means anything. “Who the fuck knows where I’ll be in a year, let alone five.”

There’s no point in making plans for someone like her; what’s the point when she just fucks it all up, anyway?

day four without jules.

It takes a few days for someone to ask Rue about Jules.

They notice her absence, of course they do - Jules is a bright fucking light and the most exciting thing to ever happen to this shitty little town, how can they not feel her loss?

But nobody else knows she’s gone, not until they find it out like they find everything else out: when she posts about it on Instagram.

“Jules is in the city?!” Gia’s loud ass voice squeaks as she bursts into Rue’s room, not knocking or caring if she’s awake or not.

Which, no, she wasn’t, by the way.

“What are you talking about?” she grumbles, rolling onto her stomach and burying her face in her pillow, since her sister won’t disappear any other way.

“Jules just posted something from the city,” Gia reiterates, unfortunately sounding closer and louder. “Caption says she’s finally ready to start this new adventure. Did she move?”

Rue finally rolls over as she considers the question, keeping her eyes shut tight so she doesn’t accidentally see the picture her sister is no doubt trying to wave in her face.

Move seems like the wrong word, somehow.

She left, yes - ditched her and didn’t look back - but moved?

That sounds so… permanent.

Rue’s stomach aches at the thought, and she yearns for something that’s either in her bottom drawer or a hundred miles away.

Or maybe she’s just hungry.

“I don’t know,” she eventually admits, cracking one eye open to see Gia looking down at her like she’s the most pathetic person in the world.

She’d be offended if she didn’t already feel like she was.

But instead of calling her out on it or rubbing salt in the wound, her awesome-when-she-wants-to-be little sister just sends her a sympathetic smile and offers to make her french toast.

It’s a good thing it’s winter break, because Rue feels exhausted after eating breakfast, like just the act of being alive and seen by other people is tiring.

Gia’s visibly bummed when she immediately retreats back to her room instead of agreeing to go bowling with her, and Rue feels that familiar twist of guilt for letting her down once again, but she just can’t bring herself to do anything about it.

Lexi calls half way through Rue’s sixth episode of Broad City - she’s not feeling great today, but she’s not reality show binge depressed, so the third season of Love Island will have to wait for another day - and the only reason she actually answers it is because her phone happens to already be in her hand.

(She knows what you’re thinking, and no, she wasn’t scrolling through Jules’ Instagram - she’s not depressed enough to hurt herself like that, either.)

“Hey,” is her friend’s greeting, and it’s obvious from just that one word that Lexi has been.

“I don’t wanna talk about it, Howard,” Rue warns her, legit ready to hang up if she hears a certain name that’s been running through her mind all day already.

“Wasn’t gonna make you,” Lexi promises, and she half believes her. “Whatcha doing?”

Rue shrugs like the other girl can see her. “Nothing,” she answers, painfully honestly, the voices from her laptop sounding far away.

“I could do nothing,” Lexi offers, trying to sound nonchalant. “If you’re up for company.”

She’s not sure if she is, but she’s not up for arguing, either, so.

Rue ends up spending the rest of the day doing nothing with Lexi.

day seven without jules.

“I almost went with her,” Rue blurts out one afternoon, a week into life PJ (Post Jules); it’s the closest she’s come to talking about it, and she doesn’t know why she picks this moment instead of all the others they’ve spent together, other than she can’t seem to wait a second longer to say it.

She and Lexi are sitting on the Howards’ front porch, waiting for Cassie to finish getting ready before they leave for an afternoon at the mall.

Lexi has no idea what she’s talking about, since the topic of conversation had been the girl they’re waiting on and all the other Christmas gifts Lexi still needs to buy before Rue’s random outburst.

It doesn’t take her long to catch on, though, considering there’s really only one person Rue could be talking about, and not just because she’s that pathetic or predictable. “Jules?”

“Yeah,” she breathes, feeling a little lighter after finally saying it, even though her throat feels a bit tighter as she remembers. “We were supposed to run away together. I got all the way to the train station, but pussied out right before getting on.”

She says it all self deprecatingly, digging her fingernails into her palms so hard that they might have left marks if she hadn’t bitten them all down ages ago, but the way Lexi’s looking at her makes that twisty feeling in her belly feel out of place.

“I bet that wasn’t easy,” she responds softly, and maybe even proudly.

She shrugs. “Yeah, it was just too hard to-”

“I meant saying no to Jules,” Lexi cuts her off gently, corrects her, in this all-knowing and wise way.

Rue blinks her surprise at the words, considering them - she hadn’t thought about it like that.

It had been too hard to leave, but has staying really been any easier?

“I guess not,” she eventually agrees, wheels still turning in her head.

“Do you regret it?” Lexi asks a moment later, sounding reluctant to hear the answer, but probably too curious not to ask.

She’s just determined to make Rue think about all kinds of hard stuff today.

“I don’t know,” she answers, because she may have some regrets, but she doesn’t think she’d choose any differently if faced with the same choice again.

Lexi accepts her answer with a nod and a smile that looks more like a grimace.

day nine without jules.

Despite everything, for the first time since her dad died, Christmas Day isn’t a total bummer.

(It’s the first time she’s been clean for the holiday since then, too.)

It still doesn’t really feel like Christmas used to, but at least it doesn’t feel like just another shitty day, either.

There’s just some kind of energy in the air, one that’s not coming from something she’s inhaled or swallowed, and it’s... nice.

Rue wakes up to another text from Jules - the first in a couple days - and this time she actually reads it, just because.

Merry Christmas, Rue, it says, with a couple of classic Jules style emojis for flare and sparkle; she fights a smile, however sad. Wish you were here.

Rue’s heart does a thing - flips, drops, cracks, it’s hard to tell the difference these days - and she falls back onto her bed with a groan, still not sure what she wishes herself.

The Bennetts aren’t exactly rolling in dough, so the actual present opening portion of Christmas morning has always been pretty mellow, and this year isn’t any different.

They set a price limit and all got each other something, though, and when Rue opens her gift from her mom and finds a pair of roller skates, she gets weirdly emotional from the nostalgia of it all.

She feels like a loser for her reaction, but her mom is clearly happy about it, so whatever - it’s worth it.

It’s been a long time since she’s made her smile that widely.

Rue decides on a whim to resurrect an old Christmas tradition, and rides her bike over to Lexi’s place after lunch to give her the present she managed to get her at the mall the other day, while she was distracted by Cassie.

They’d originally made plans to meet tomorrow to exchange gifts, but her childhood best friend had been on her mind since she saw those roller skates, so her mom sent her off with another smile and a request to wish the Howards a Merry Christmas for her.

Lexi answers the door, a bright but confused smile on her face, the Lexi necklace Rue got her for Christmas years ago around her neck, and a Santa hat on her head. “Hey, Rue,” she beams at her, still decked out in her plaid pajamas bottoms and fluffy slippers. “Merry Christmas!” she’s sure to add as she pulls Rue into a warm hug

“Yeah, Merry Christmas,” she replies with a smile of her own when she pulls back, the shape feeling weird on her lips after so long; it’s not forced or sad or drug induced - it’s real and it’s genuine and it’s weird. But ‘tis the season or whatever. “From my mom, too.”

“Did you wanna come in?” Lexi wonders, stepping aside as she opens the door wider.

But Rue shakes her head. “No, no, I, uh, I just came over to give you your present,” she explains, pulling the gift out from inside her coat and holding it out. “You know, like we used to.”

Lexi’s dad, being a huge fan of Christmas, always went crazy with baking around the holidays, and invited the Bennetts over every Christmas afternoon to exchange cheap presents and eat enough cookies and broken gingerbread houses to spoil dinner.

It’s a bit depressing to look back on now, she suddenly realizes, thinking of dead and M.I.A. dads, but Lexi’s grin doesn’t falter at her words, so Rue just focuses on the good, too.

“That’s so sweet!” Lexi gushes, taking the haphazardly wrapped gift from Rue’s hand before glancing into her house for a second. “Wait here, let me go get yours, it’s in my room.”

She disappears without another word, leaving Rue standing in the doorway as she bounds up the stairs.

“Hey, Cass,” she nods to Lexi’s older sister when she spots her sitting on the couch in the living room, also still in her PJs and a mug of something in her hands.

“‘Sup, Rue Rue,” she nods back with her familiar warm smile.

But before Rue can respond, Lexi’s back and bearing a gift bag that she presents to her friend with a grin that easily outshines her sister’s. “Here you go.”

“Well, look at you two,” Mrs. Howard comments with a slight slur as she walks past the front door, pausing to raise the hand holding a half empty wine glass upwards. Rue follows the motion and finds the mistletoe the woman always hangs in the doorway right where it is every year. “I was always rooting for you two kids to get together.”

“Mom,” Lexi groans, her cheeks immediately pinkening.

Her mom just clicks her tongue. “You know the rules, honey,” she insists, close to teasingly. “Come on, Rue. Give my baby her first kiss.”

“Mom!” Lexi protests again, this time twice as loudly and at least three times as mortified.

Rue would have laughed, if she didn’t know about the complex Mrs. Howard’s teasing gives her friend; she’s always been her mother’s second favorite, and with little comments like that - snide digs disguised as jokes - it’s always been obvious.

Even to someone who spent most of her formative years lost in a haze of medication.

So instead of making it worse for Lexi, Rue just tugs her forward by her plaid shirt and mutters, “Relax, Howard, it’s nothing we haven’t done already,” before she’s pressing a kiss against the corner of her mouth with a smile.

Lexi’s eyes are still closed when she pulls back, and when Rue licks her lips after, she tastes candy canes. Mrs. Howard lets out a tipsy cheer, Cassie laughs from the other room, and Lexi turns as red as her hat.

Rue doesn’t open her gift from Lexi until dinner is finished, Christmas Vacation and Elf have been watched, and she’s back in the privacy of her own bedroom as the holiday ends for another year.

She finally responds to Jules’ text first, working up to hit send on a simple, Merry Christmas to you too, before she tosses her phone in the direction of her notebook at the foot of the bed and peers into the gift bag.

It’s a cute little alien plushie, one that looks like it could be related to the one she slept with as a kid after one of the many therapists she saw recommended it as a way to help ease some of her stress.

It’s perfect - she names it Bob - and it’s just what she needs to sleep tonight.

day eleven without jules.

Rue doesn’t find out until Jules has left again, that she was even back at all.

Kat casually mentions that she came home to spend Christmas with her dad before disappearing on a train again, and Rue can’t decide if it’s better or worse that she only knows this now.

Part of her can’t believe that Jules was here, so close, and she couldn’t just, like, feel her.

She knows that’s dumb and this isn’t some romantic comedy - it’d be the shittiest, most depressing one ever, if it were - but even after everything, it’s hard for her to completely shake the idealized version of Jules and the bond she had with her.

Jules was here, in town, just a bike ride away, for days, and Rue had no idea.

Wish you were here, she’d told Rue, but she was here, or she could have been, if Jules had told her.

Why didn’t Jules tell her she was back?

The logical part of Rue’s brain can think of a few objectively sound and good reasons - like how seeing her, only to leave her again, would have just hurt them both all the more - but that other, bigger part of her brain, the one that makes her feel too much and sometimes forgets how to breathe, can only focus on one reason.

Jules didn’t really want to see her.

Rue goes to her first NA meeting since Jules left that night.

“Hey, everyone,” she greets the small, scattered crowd hesitantly, already regretting raising her hand, but not enough to sit back down. “I’m, I’m Rue and I’m an addict.”

“Hi, Rue,” the group replies mechanically, which does nothing to quell her nerves, but she still finds it within herself to power through.

She takes a deep breath, and says what she came to say.

“I guess I just, I don’t know, felt like I owed it to all of you to tell you what’s been going on lately,” she starts, not having much planned other than that. “I-I told you about a girl last time I said something at one of these things. She was, you know, she was helping me, to stay clean - to want to stay clean. Because I couldn’t, I couldn’t do it for myself yet. And uh, Ali, he told me it was a bad idea, but I, of course I didn’t listen to him. And now she’s gone.” Rue purses her lips and rolls her eyes up to the ceiling as she shoves her shaking hands into the pockets of her father’s hoodie and gathers the strength to continue. “It’s been eleven days. Uh, since she left, and since I’ve been clean again. I don’t know why I still am. I thought, shit, maybe I thought that if I stayed clean, she’d come back. But, um… I found out today that she did come back. Just not to see me. And so, yeah. That sucked. But I still didn’t take anything, even though I really wanted to.” She’d come close, she did, but in the end, she came here instead. “I’ve, uh, I’ve started writing, in this notebook. Like, a journal, I guess. It’s kinda lame, but I don’t know, it helps a little. Especially at night, ‘cause that’s, like… Fuck, you know the nights are the worst. It’s nothing special, it wouldn’t be worth shit if I ever got famous or anything, but… I mostly just write down what I did that day - like, everything I did. So, I don’t know, I guess it’s a way to hold myself accountable without her. For whatever reason I want to now; I haven’t figured that out yet. I guess I just wanted, I wanted to tell you guys that, because I just wanted to tell someone. So, yeah. Thank you, for listening.”

Rue’s watery eyes find Ali sitting in front of her as the rest of the attendees clap, and even though she can’t read his face, she feels a little lighter.

Like always, Rue doesn’t stick around after the meeting’s done, but like always, she finds Ali waiting outside for her.

“Hang around to say I told you so?” she asks as she passes him and heads for her bike, knowing he’ll follow.

Ali tuts as he pushes himself off the brick wall and flicks his cigarette. “I don’t tell you shit so I can say I told you so later; I tell you shit so I don’t have to.”

“Yeah, well,” is all Rue can say to that, letting out a short, self deprecating laugh. She grips the handle bars of her bike but doesn’t mount it yet, looking up at the man imploringly. “So, I mean, like, what am I supposed to do now?”

His eyes flash with something as he takes a drag, the fingers of his other hand tapping against the styrofoam cup of shitty instant coffee.

He wants to say something, she can tell by the way he squints at her, but Ali can never make it that easy; he can’t just spell things out for her and send her on her way, he’s always gotta make sure he makes her feel like shit to get his point across.

Which, Rue can admit, she needs a lot of the time, but still.

It’d be nice if he just held her hand and walked her through it for once.

“You keep going,” he tells her simply, like it’s not the hardest thing in the world.

Rue texts her mom that she’s spending the night at Lexi’s house before even asking her friend, but of course the other girl doesn’t have a problem with it when she does.

Lexi answers the door in the Bob Ross graphic tee Rue got her for Christmas, and holds a finger to her lips as she leads her up the stairs, as if the entire East Highland football team raiding the house could wake her passed out mother on the couch.

“I think I have something you can wear,” she whispers to her once they’re in her bedroom, Cassie already asleep in her own bed.

She eventually hands her a t-shirt that’s smaller than one Rue would wear out in public regularly, but she doesn’t feel uncomfortable as she slips it on.

“Thanks, Lex,” Rue mumbles as she settles into bed, shuffling closer when Lexi joins her under the covers.

She keeps her arms and hands to herself, but having the company is enough - she just didn’t want to sleep alone again tonight.

“Anytime, Bennett,” she hears Lexi promise just before she drifts off to sleep.

day twelve without jules.

Rue wakes up before Lexi, filled with an unexplainable anxiety and the immediate urge to leave.

It’s nothing personal, it’s not like she feels uncomfortable in bed with her - Rue’s not sure it’s possible for her to feel uncomfortable around Lexi in any kind of situation, really, she’s Lexi - but she just feels the need to not be here or talk to anyone right now.

The dream she had about Jules and her dad probably has something to do with it - it wasn’t a bad one, really, just one of those ones that have her waking up feeling sad - but she needs to get home and take her meds anyway, so like, she thinks Lexi would understand.

So she’s got abandonment issues, just like millions of other teenage girls - sue her.

“Don’t forget to turn off the alarm before you go,” Cassie’s soft voice drifts over from the other end of the room, making Rue jump out of her skin as she’s pulling her jeans on.

“Shit, Cass,” she mumbles, trying not to trip over her long limbs as she hops up the three steps before both of her legs are in her pants.

“You remember the code?” Cassie asks, sitting up in her bed and watching Rue make her ungraceful getaway.

Rue nods, zipping up her fly and then her hoodie - Lexi’s shirt still on underneath it. She glances back at her still sleeping friend, feeling a pang of guilt before she looks back at her older sister.

“Tell her I’ll text her later?” she requests hopefully, her shoulders relaxing when Cassie nods and says nothing else as she lets her go.

Rue does text later, just as she promised.

And Lexi doesn’t mention the night before or her disappearing act this morning, and Rue doesn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed.

day fifteen without jules.

Unlike Christmas, New Year’s Eve has never lost its appeal for Rue.

Not until this year, anyway.

Being clean and sober on New Year’s Eve sounds like as much of a bore as it does a challenge, but Rue’s gonna give it a shot.

Of course, that sounded a lot easier when she thought her night was gonna to be spent with a zombie movie marathon with Gia and Lexi, not at another party at McKay’s house.

This one is courtesy of Roy and Troy - not Chris - so Gia, who is now officially dating one of those losers, insists on going.

And Rue can’t let Gia go to a party like that alone, especially not with her recent antics, and Lexi apparently can’t let Rue go solo either, so it looks like they’re going to a party.

Because that ended so well last time; it’s not like it changed everything for everyone or anything like that.

The party is in full swing when they arrive, and Gia disappears with a wave and a promise not to let Troy talk her into doing any drugs - which Rue only half buys.

“I can’t believe Gia has a boyfriend,” Lexi marvels as she watches the young couple from across the room; her own sister at home, having a mellow night in with their mom. Rue still doesn’t know what Cassie’s deal is and she’s still not asking. “She’s thirteen and already had more relationships than me.”

Not one to be outdone in a pity party, Rue echoes her thoughts. “More than me, too.”

“Maybe, but at least you’ve done stuff,” Lexi argues. “And had, like, an almost relationship.”

Rue snorts, wondering if she could even call it that. “Barely,” she replies, dropping her head against the back of the couch and waiting for the ache that doesn’t come.

“Cassie says it’s because I’m shy.”

Lolling her head to the side, Rue regards her friend curiously and decides, “You’re not that shy.”

“Thank you!” Lexi exclaims indignantly, nodding her head in satisfaction before she slowly grows pensive. She turns in her seat and faces Rue, but looks down at her half empty solo cup instead of up at her, as she asks her question. “But if it’s not that, what do you think it is? Am I missing something?”

Rue looks at Lexi as she genuinely contemplates her question.

She really looks at her, and thinks about her - everything about her, maybe for the first time - and she can’t imagine why, either.

Lexi is pretty and sweet, smart and funny; kind and generous and loyal; doesn’t have a million suitcases of emotional baggage weighing her down like most everyone else in this town...

Why wouldn’t someone wanna date Lexi?

“I don’t know,” she eventually concludes, genuinely stumped by a question she’s never really considered before.

Huh.

Lexi doesn’t seem to know what to do with that answer, either.

They find Maddy, B.B., Kat and Ethan in the kitchen by the time midnight rolls around, and as the countdown begins and the other four pair off, Rue looks at Lexi and finds her thinking the same thing.

“Nothing we haven’t done already,” Lexi reasons, using Rue’s words from Christmas afternoon, but with a tone that feels more like it’s trying to be casual than it actually is.

But Rue doesn’t have time to question it, or even think about it at all, before ten quickly becomes one, and everyone around them is cheering obnoxiously while she lets Lexi pull her in by the back of her neck.

It’s not some grand, romantic kiss that makes the room spin or sets off fireworks in her head, and it barely lasts longer than the one Maddy and B.B. share beside them, but when Rue pulls back from it, she feels more like she did after their first kiss years ago, than she did their second one just last week.

She looks at Lexi as her eyes flutter open, lips still pursed and tingling, a no doubt stupid as hell thought on the tip of them, like maybe something about Kylie Jenner and realizing things, but-

“Happy New Year, bitches!” Maddy drunkenly yells out of nowhere, ruining the moment as she bumps Rue out of the way and practically throws herself at Lexi to hug her.

Lexi stumbles backwards against the counter with a surprised laugh and awkwardly pats the other girl on the back when she won’t let go, and Rue seizes the opportunity to run away from everything under the guise of getting some fresh air.

day sixteen without jules.

Rue ventures into the backyard, no destination in her jumbled mind, and gets hit with a wave of déjà vu when she finds Fez chilling on the couch by the pool.

“Hey, dude,” she greets him from behind, clapping him on the shoulder before she hops over the back of the couch and plops down beside him.

His face lights up in a genuine smile when he sees her. “Yo, Rue, I haven’t seen you in a minute,” Fez grins, holding out his hand for Rue to loosely slap and shake. “How you been livin’?”

“Day to day,” she answers honestly, settling in and finally feeling like she can relax for the first time since arriving at the party.

Fezco just has that vibe about him, that makes you feel like everything is cool, and even if it’s not, he doesn’t give a shit, because he doesn’t judge.

“I heard about your girl,” he says after a minute of comfortable silence, taking a sip of his beer while trying to gauge her reaction before he continues. “That sucks, bruh.” Fez always has had a way with words. “You still good?”

It’s obvious what he’s asking and she could lie, but again; Fez doesn’t judge. “I wasn’t,” Rue admits without actually saying it. “But, uh, I’m trying.”

That’s good enough for Fezco, who nods approvingly.

“That drug shit, that ain’t no joke, man,” he says sagely, his usual tone of voice making everything he says sound more like a wise, hard-earned lesson than a lecture. “Just gotta catch you slippin’ once and ain’t no coming back. Don’t let Jules, or any kinda shit, trip you up. You just keep doin’ that for you, you know what I’m sayin’?”

Between Fez and Ali, how can she not?

“Yeah,” Rue promises slowly, eyeing the flickering Christmas lights strung up behind her friend and former drug dealer. “I hear you.”

They both let the heavy moment hang between them for a few beats before Fez kicks Rue’s shoe with his own. “Kinda miss yo annoyin’ ass, though,” he laughs. “Shit’s been real quiet ‘round the crib.”

“Appreciate that, Fezco,” she smiles lazily, smacking his thigh lightly.

“Who you roll through with, anyways?” he wonders as he pulls a cigarette from behind his ear.

She shakes her head when he offers it to her. “My sister,” she answers. “And Lexi.”

“Don’t think I know that one,” Fez muses as he pulls his lighter from his pocket and flicks it on.

Rue’s lips pull wider as her smile gets fond, and she cranes her neck back to watch her best friend laughing with Maddy and B.B. in the kitchen, clutching the red cup of orange juice she’s drinking in solidarity, while the other two girls look like they’re racing to finish their cups of booze first.

“No,” she agrees, distractedly. “You wouldn’t.”

She doesn’t have to look back at Fez to hear the smile in his voice. “Good for you, kid,” he mumbles around the butt, taking a drag. “Good for you.”

Even though they leave the party by two in the morning to get home for Gia’s curfew, Rue’s body is exhausted by the time she crawls into bed, even if her mind isn’t.

And for the first time in almost sixteen days, Rue doesn’t feel a pull to her bottom drawer.

Instead, she grabs her phone and rolls over onto her bed, letting the bright screen illuminate her still makeup covered face as she clicks through to her text thread with Jules and finally reads every message she’s sent since she left - the ones Lexi didn’t already delete, anyway.

Rue doesn’t know what she expected to find or get out of them, but when she reaches the end, and her eyes settle on the texts from Christmas, she feels something that might be closure.

She’s not sure, since she’s never really had closure on anything in her life before, but she thinks that’s what the stillness she feels could be.

It would almost seem sudden, if it didn’t feel like she’s been trying to get over Jules since before she disappeared the first time.

There are no explanations or promises to be found, just pleading and apologies, and then acceptance, from both of them.

Rue’s fingers start moving over the keyboard before she can stop them, and she doesn’t even read over her message until after she hits send.

Happy New Years, Jules. I hope it’s better for you. You deserve it.

Jules is out partying somewhere, no doubt, so Rue doesn’t wait for a reply.

She wants to sleep instead, but she can’t, not before writing down every cluttered thought in her head, so she can try to make better sense of it in the morning, or whenever she’s actually ready to deal with it.

Her phone wakes her up hours later, when the sunlight is streaming through her open curtains, and Rue knows it’s Jules without even having to look.

Bob clutched against her chest, she reads the blurry words in the notifications with sleepy eyes, but it doesn’t take away from the gravity of the two simple messages in front of her.

You deserve to be happy too, Rue.

❤.

(Closure.)

*

day seventeen without jules.

After taking all of New Year’s Day to chill and ignore any possible burgeoning feelings or, like, whatever that was, Rue wakes up the next day ready to figure this shit out.

She puts on her Detective Bennett cap and gets to work looking over all the evidence, but without her partner and the mania that usually comes along with this particular fantasy, it doesn’t all piece together as easily as she wants it to.

It feels like it’s right there in front of her face - certainly less complicated and convoluted than the Jules-Tyler-Nate conspiracy she almost worked out last time - but it just doesn’t make sense.

She can’t be into Lexi.

Right?

Wouldn’t she have, like, noticed that before? That shit doesn’t just pop up out of nowhere.

Rue’s history of romantic feelings is even briefer than her sexual history; it starts and ends with Jules.

And this, what she feels for Lexi, it doesn’t feel anything like what she felt for Jules.

Rue felt everything so intensely with her, right from the start; there was no question what she was feeling for her, she knew from the very beginning.

That was love.

This, what Rue found herself feeling the other night, what she’s trying to put a name to now, she’s not sure what it is, but it’s not that.

So logic tells her that no, she doesn’t have feelings for Lexi.

Right?

Rue decides to go straight to the source.

“You ever been in love, Howard?”

The source being Lexi herself.

“W-What?” the girl sputters, eyes all big and scared, like Rue just caught her red handed.

“You ever been in love?” she repeats evenly, clicking the pen in her hand incessantly as she stares the other girl down from across the table.

Lexi gapes for a second, before she gains some sense of composure and shrugs. “I don’t know,” she answers, but the blush spreading across her cheeks tells a different story. “N-No, I don’t think so.”

“Mhmm,” Rue hums, narrowing her eyes and studying her friend’s face; she doesn’t believe her.

But what reason would she have to lie?

“Why?” Lexi eventually questions, or maybe deflects - pulling the sleeves of her shirt over her hands in a sure sign of discomfort.

(Damn, Rue is getting good at this shit; B.A.U., here she comes.)

She pauses as she considers letting her partner in on her current investigation, but she ultimately decides against it; Lexi’s too close.

Rue’s gonna have to solve this case on her own.

“Don’t worry about it.”

Except that Rue quickly realizes that she doesn’t do so great on her own.

At least not when it comes to dealing with her own, very confusing, feelings.

Give her a bunch of puzzle pieces or a trail to follow and she’s a fucking genius; she gets it, like, at least eighty percent right, seventy percent of the time.

But trying to make sense of the thoughts in her brain or the feelings in her chest? Rue tends to need a little help there.

And since her usual partner and sounding board is of no help, she goes to her second most trusted partner in crime.

“How do you feel about Lexi?” she asks her sister as she drops down beside her on the couch, kicking her legs up onto the coffee table with a bowl of cereal for a late dinner in one of her hands.

Gia doesn’t look up from her phone. “What?”

“Lexi,” she repeats, drumming her fingers against the length of the spoon to play it casual. “You like her, right?”

“The girl you’ve been hanging around with since literally as long as I can remember?” the younger girl questions, tapping away for a few more seconds before finally sparing her sister a glance. “Yeah, she’s cool.”

“Right.” Rue nods, purses her lips, and tries to do something with that. “Right, she is cool, isn’t she?” It’s not the adjective she’d use to describe her best friend, but it doesn’t feel egregious, either. Just... not quite enough. “And, like, really sweet and supportive and pretty and shit. Right?”

“Yep, sounds like Lexi,” Gia agrees easily, probably only half listening. “What’s up with you?”

“Nothing,” she answers too quickly, shifting in her seat. “Nothing.” A beat passes, Gia’s still looking at her phone and Rue’s suddenly bursting at the seams. “Do you think I’m in love with Lexi?”

That finally got Gia’s attention.

“What?” Her laugh sounds disbelieving, but Rue can’t tell if it’s from the suddenness of the question itself or the idea of it. “Isn’t that something you would know better than me?”

Rue pulls a face as she considers that, still trying to play it cool after her bluntness. “I don’t know, is it?”

“It is,” Gia confirms, making a face of her own as she gets up from the couch to walk away from her sister and this conversation. “You’re a weirdo, and Lexi could do better anyways.”

Rue scoffs and grabs a pillow to throw at Gia’s retreating form, shouting after her for good measure, “You’re a terrible detective!”

Maybe this mystery will just have to remain unsolved for now, or at least until she gathers more evidence.

But like with almost everything, as soon as Rue stops obsessing over it, it gets a little clearer.

day eighteen without jules.

With winter break rapidly coming to a close, Lexi decides it’s finally time to start doing that homework she’s put off for the last two weeks, and invites Rue over to work on it with her.

They spend hours - on and off - doing work that should already be done, only leaving the bedroom for dinner when Mrs. Howard tells them she ordered pizza.

Rue does a good job spending all that time with Lexi - cute, adorable, sweet, Lexi - and not thinking about that thing she’s not thinking about, but then Lexi - funny, smart, kind, Lexi - has to ruin her flow by bringing it up herself.

“Why did you ask me if I’d ever been in love the other day?”

She says it suddenly and almost in a rush, like it’s maybe something she’s been silently working up to all day and just finally got the nerve to say, and she says it without looking up at Rue.

Lexi’s sprawled out on her bed, Bio homework laid out in front of her, while Rue has claimed the couch, her own work a mess all around her.

They’ve mostly been silent for the past hour, so the question throws Rue for its content as much as its abruptness, but she impresses herself with her ability to play it cool.

“Nah, no reason,” she insists with a shrug, keeping her own eyes averted, too. “Just curious, y’know, after what you said on New Year’s.”

Fuck, good save, Rue.

“Oh,” Lexi replies, sounding almost disappointed by the logical answer. “Okay, yeah, I guess that makes sense.”

Rue could just leave it at that - she should leave it at that - but there’s a nagging feeling in her head, or maybe her heart, forcing her big mouth open.

“Why?” she wonders, finally looking up at her friend, and the way she’s nervously chewing on the end of her pen. “Did you think it was about something else?”

“No,” Lexi answers too quickly, pausing whatever denial was going to follow when she realizes how transparent she’s being. Instead, she sighs, big and long, and rolls her eyes up. “It’s stupid. And embarrassing. And will make everything awkward.”

Well, now Rue has to know, doesn’t she?

“Look who you’re talking to, Lex,” she encourages gently, hoping a little self deprecation will ease the other girl’s nerves. “Queen of doing stupid, embarrassing and awkward shit. Tell me.”

A million emotions flicker across Lexi’s face as she obviously fights some kind of inner battle, but whatever it was that gave her the courage to ask the question that started this whole conversation must win out, because eventually she groans and pushes herself onto her knees.

“Ugh, okay, I’m blaming Cassie if this blows up in my face,” she grumbles, waiting until Rue has abandoned the couch in favor of crawling onto the bed to sit opposite her. “You remember those drunk texts I sent you? The night of Winter Formal?”

As if Rue could forget anything about that night, no matter how much she’s wanted to. “Yeah?”

“Well, after you guys all ditched us, I asked Cassie about how you decide who to hook up with,” she recaps, lasting until the end of the sentence before she has to drop her eyes. Then, a deep breath and; “She said that if they don’t come to me, then I should go after whoever the fuck I want.”

It takes Rue an embarrassingly long time to connect the dots, especially when Lexi finally looks up at her again with eyes that look like they’re pleading with her to understand, and to not make her say it.

She narrows her eyes and furrows her brow and thinks and then-

“Me?” It finally clicks. Lexi nods sheepishly. “When you thought I was with Jules?”

Somehow, that’s the first thing she thinks of, but in her defense, how can she think of anything else when they’re talking about that night?

“I was drunk!” is Lexi immediate defense, her cheeks getting pinker by the second and making Rue’s heart ache a little. “I obviously wouldn’t have otherwise, at all. I was mortified when I realized what I’d done the next morning, hence me showing up in your room so early.”

“I can’t believe Lexi Howard tried to booty call me and I missed it,” Rue laughs, because she doesn’t know what else to do.

Doing anything else would require too much thinking, and her brain can only do so much in one day.

“It wasn’t just that, you know,” Lexi eventually continues, chewing nervously on her lip as she looks at her through her eyelashes; it’s obvious this is taking a lot of strength, and Rue knows the feeling well. “The first one was, but I sent a few follow up ones that were actually even more embarrassing.”

“Well, you can’t leave me hanging,” Rue nudges her along, because she knows from experience that sometimes you just need a push. She reaches forward to shake Lexi’s knee. “Come on, Lex, you can tell me anythi-”

“I like you,” Lexi blurts out in a rush, the words tumbling out before she can stop them. She looks a little surprised that she actually said it - eyes widening a bit as she stares at Rue’s equally surprised face - but instead of backtracking, she pushes forward. “I’ve liked you for awhile. I think I might even love you, which would make me pathetic and a liar.”

Rue doesn’t know why she’s surprised, considering it feels obvious this is where this conversation has been leading, but she is.

For all of the detective fantasies she had yesterday, trying to decipher her own confusing emotions, she somehow hadn’t taken a second to consider how Lexi felt.

Which, she knows, is par for the course when it comes to her and Lexi’s friendship, which brings her to, “Why?”

“Why?” Lexi repeats, thrown by the reaction.

“Why would you ever like me?” Rue asks, not fishing for anything but food for her genuine curiosity. “I’m a fucking mess.”

Lexi shrugs bashfully. “Not to me.” It’s sweet, but unbelievable, and even though it doesn’t feel like a line, Rue still levels her with a stare until she breaks. “I mean, okay, you are, but so is everyone else.”

“Some of us more than others,” she points out ruefully.

“Maybe, but that doesn’t define you,” her best friend argues, and she says it so simply that Rue almost believes it. “It’s not what I see when I look at you; you’re just Rue to me.” She shrugs again, voice still a little shaky from nerves, but getting steadier. “You’re the girl who held my hand while we learned to skate and who watched the Princess Diaries with me five times in one weekend even though you hated it; the girl who gave me her favorite hoodie to wear when I got my first period at school, and who taught me how to kiss when Tucker Blake asked me to Homecoming.”

Rue hates that she doesn’t remember all of these things - the memories lost somewhere in a haze of medication and anxiety - but that doesn’t stop her heart from getting fluttery at the pure adoration she hears in Lexi’s voice as she speaks of them.

It’s not often Rue hears anyone talk about her childhood fondly, and she understands why, but here Lexi is…

She really doesn’t see her as a burden, and maybe never has.

And more than that, Rue doesn’t remember ever feeling like a burden to Lexi, either.

She doesn’t know what that means, but it can’t mean nothing.

“Lex...” she breathes out, almost in awe, eyes shining with something that might mirror the look Lexi is sending her way.

“I know you don’t feel the same,” the other girl starts trying to play off. “I know Jules-”

But Rue doesn’t let her finish before she kisses her.

Lexi lets out a squeak of surprise, frozen still for just a second before she starts kisses Rue back, tangling her fingers in her hair and holding her close before she can even think about pulling away.

It’s hard to believe they’ve already kissed twice in recent memory, and then once more on top of that, because it feels like the first time to Rue, the way their mouths move together and her heart thumps in her chest.

It’s not well practiced or perfect, and neither girl really knows what to do with their hands, but it feels good; maybe even right.

And when Rue eventually pulls back and looks at Lexi - her dark eyes, flushed cheeks and parted lips - she can’t resist going back in for more.

And, for the first time, she doesn’t have to.

Two kisses turns into three, and then three kisses turns into a full blown make out session on Lexi’s bed.

Rue doesn’t remember which one of them pushed the textbooks out of the way and which one pulled the other down onto the mattress, she just knows they haven’t stopped kissed since they started.

Time has gotten away from them too, minutes blending into hours, for all she knows.

Everything has stayed below a PG-13 rating, and no hands have wandered too far to come back, but Rue can’t deny the way it all makes her feel.

Kissing Lexi - kissing her like this, anyway - isn’t like anything she’s ever felt; not the last three times she’s kissed her, or with anyone else, either.

It’s warm and familiar, like they’ve done this before, or maybe should have.

She doesn’t feel like she’s flying or like she’s been set on fire; it’s relaxing and comforting, in a way not many things are able to make Rue feel.

She’s not thinking of anything else but kissing Lexi and how it feels to do so - not Jules, the emotions it stirs up, what this means going forward or if she should stop.

Somewhere, deep down, in the part of her brain she’s not currently using, Rue knows she probably should, but she doesn’t think she could, even if she tried.

day nineteen without jules.

Rue wakes up with no memory of having gone to sleep.

She wakes up wrapped around Lexi, her body curled into her side with her lanky limbs stretched across her smaller frame, and it takes her a good minute to remember how they ended up this way.

Homework, Lexi’s texts the night of Winter Formal, her confession and sweet words, the kissing…

“Fuck,” Rue groans as it all comes back to her, along with a million other thoughts all rushing her at once.

Why the fuck did she do that?

I want you to wanna kiss me so bad that you don’t even ask.

And Rue had - she wanted to kiss Lexi in that moment, so she did, without asking, but more importantly, without thinking.

If she had, maybe she would have thought to wait, to figure out her own feelings first, instead of acting on Lexi’s and a whim; instead of doing what it feels like Jules did to her.

The last thing Rue wants to do is hurt Lexi or lead her on, and as she lays there, tangled up in bed with her best friend, lips still swollen from hours of kissing, it kind of feels like that’s exactly what she’s done.

Because she doesn’t feel any more sure of her feelings now than she did before.

Well, okay, maybe after making out with her for hours, she’s leaning a little more towards the idea of being into her than not, but that nagging feeling - that one comparing how things felt with Jules to how they feel with Lexi - is still there and as loud as ever.

So when Rue feels the body underneath stir and she worries Lexi might be waking up, she makes the decision to bounce before she does.

She’s nowhere near ready to have this - or any - conversation right now; for both her sake and Lexi’s, it’s best she leaves.

But as she carefully slips out of Lexi’s bed and gathers the school work that she’d left forgotten on the couch, she hears Cassie sitting up in her bed across the room.

Caught again.

Fuck.

“You can’t keep doing this to her,” Cassie tells her as Rue heads towards the door, her usually soft and sweet voice sounding more stern than she’s ever heard it.

Rue stops in her tracks, books in hand and defenses immediately going up. “‘Cause one day I’ll look around and she won’t be there anymore, I know.”

She's heard this lecture before.

“No,” Cassie responds with a sad sigh, letting out a bitter laugh as she runs her fingers through her sleep messed hair. “That’s the thing about Lexi, she’ll always be there.” Her eyes drift down to her sister’s bed, where she’s still sleeping soundly under the covers. “No matter how badly you treat her, she’ll always be there for you when you need her. Because she loves you. Don’t you get that by now?”

The truth of Cassie’s words all but knock the wind out of Rue, and as the gravity of them settle on her chest, she feels herself forgetting how to breathe.

“I-I don’t...” Rue tries to defend herself, but the words catch in her slowly narrowing throat, and all she can do is shake her head as she curls her fingers around her books tighter.

“She deserves better than that,” is Cassie’s final blow, before Rue finally manages to get her legs to work and she runs out of the room, and the house, as fast as she can.

It’s just Rue’s luck that her mom chooses this Saturday to be up this early.

“You could have called, you know?” she says as soon as the front door closes, not even waiting for or offering a greeting.

“You knew I was at Lexi’s,” Rue mumbles as she shuffles past her, hiding her face and trying to keep her voice steady as she disappears down the hallway and into her room.

She just barely stops herself from slamming her door shut behind her, before she’s throwing her books and her bag onto her bed and sinking down to the floor.

Rue’s hands find her face and then her hair, as everything from the past twelve hours bombards her at once and she doesn’t know what to do with any of it.

She knows what she could do - what she wants to do, if she’s honest - but as her eyes drift towards her bottom drawer, she finds herself wanting to fight the urge as much as she wants to give into it, so she moves her gaze to her desk instead, where her journal is.

But as she contemplates reaching for it, to try to use it as some sort of distraction like she’s done so many times before, she realizes the last thing she wants to do right now is to write down everything she just did to Lexi and face it all.

“Stupid fucking idiot,” Rue mutters under her breath, dropping her head back against her bed as she tries to come up with some magical way to quell the anxiety and guilt building inside of her.

And as her phone notifies her of a new text message, she’s momentarily dumb enough to think maybe it’s her answer.

But when she pulls it out and sees who it’s from, her stomach only sinks further.

It’s Lexi.

You left again, it says. Why’d you run off this time?

She’s mad, Rue knows it, and of course she understands it, but fuck.

Her fingers hover over the keyboard, a nonsensical word vomit just itching to be typed out, but instead of replying to her best friend, Rue taps out and scrolls to a different text thread in her phone and sends a desperate message of her own.

You had breakfast yet?

Rue doesn’t actually order anything when Ali does, just sits and waits until he asks why she wanted to meet, so that she can unload everything she’s feeling onto him - the only person she feels like she can.

It isn’t until he’s actually got his pancakes and coffee in front of him that he gives the okay for her to start, and the floodgates open immediately.

She tells him everything he’s missed, from all of the Nate stuff, to Jules’ first trip to the city, to the night of Winter Formal, to everything that’s happened with Lexi during the break and how she can’t stop questioning her feelings or comparing them to what she had with Jules.

“You ever considered the possibility that what you felt for Jules is the one that wasn’t actually love?” is the only thing Ali asks once she’s finished her twenty minute recap, and he’s only got a few pieces of too burnt bacon left to eat.

It throws Rue for a loop, like most things Ali says does.

“Nah,” she mumbles, dropping her chin on her knee and really allowing herself to think about how Jules used to make her feel. “I mean, being with Jules made me feel like I was flying, or floating; she’d smile and my heart would race, but time would slow down. When I was with her, man, all the bad shit just disappeared, you know? I didn’t have to feel anything. And it fucking sucked anytime I was away from her.” Even saying it out loud like that, it doesn’t feel like she’s doing it justice, but she doesn’t know how else to describe it. “If that wasn’t love, what the fuck was it?”

The silence is heavy and deafening, and Rue can already feel the entire vibe, and her world, tilting before Ali even delivers his blow.

“A high,” he answers simply a moment later, like it’s a fact Rue should already know.

And as she lets the answer settle into her bones, and really thinks about it, she realizes maybe she does.

Well, fuck.

Rue leaves breakfast feeling better than she did before it - or, more clear headed, at least - which isn’t usually the case after talking to Ali.

She knows the man is always right, but he rarely tells her what she wants - or is even ready - to hear.

But today, Rue was both ready and willing.

It isn’t an easy truth to face or swallow, but it’s not one he hadn’t already prepared her for.

She’s been in denial, of a lot of things, but it’s a new year, and maybe it’s time she try some new things - like being honest with herself, if not those around her.

She gets home, goes straight to her bedroom, and she thinks.

Rue thinks long and hard, about everything - her addiction, her recovery, her family, Jules, Lexi, all of it - and things start to get a little clearer around hour three.

But it isn’t until she thinks to read her journal, the one she’s been using to recap her days and be completely honest with herself, that Rue truly gets it.

Every single entry mentions Lexi.

Because Rue has spent every single day of her break with Lexi, one way or another.

Whether Lexi reached out or she went to her, the other girl has been with her every step of the way.

Each day is marked by how long Rue has gone without Jules - without drugs - but as she reads through everything she’s written since that first night, she realizes she’s been doing this all wrong.

Rue hasn’t spent her winter break without Jules - she’s spent it with Lexi.

If that wasn’t love, what the fuck was it?, she hears her earlier question echo in her mind, except this time, Rue’s only asking herself.

And this time, she has the answer already, too.

It’s this - this book, everything inside of it and all that it means.

This is love.

With more evidence collected - or, falling into her lap, whatever - Rue doesn’t feel the need to slip back into detective mode to figure this out now.

She doesn’t know if she really loved Jules or not, but it feels wrong to say she didn’t.

Rue thinks she loved Jules, in some way, but it wasn’t the good kind; it wasn’t the kind built to last.

Nothing in high school lasts forever, Ali had told her, back before she was ready to hear it.

Yet she still reached out to Lexi on her way home that night, to repair what she’d broken; because one of the many, many, things she learned from watching Jennifer’s Body more times than she can count is that sandbox love never dies.

Jules came into her life at an important time and turned her world upside down - she was good for her and bad for her and everything in between - and now she’s gone.

(Forever? Rue doesn’t know, but she thinks it’s okay if she is.)

Lexi’s always been there; Lexi is still there; Lexi will always be there, she knows it like she knows her name.

That’s not some new piece of evidence she’s just uncovered, it’s just that Rue is finally starting to realize what that means to her, and how that’s shaped how she’s treated Lexi all these years.

She thinks she’s always seen Lexi like she’s seen her mom and Gia - not as a sister or necessarily a family member, but as a given.

Rue’s taken Lexi for granted and treated her badly because she knew she could; she knew that no matter what she gave her, Lexi would take it and still come back, just like her mom and sister always have.

Because she knew Lexi loved her unconditionally.

And maybe that’s why Rue was actually able to stay clean for Jules when she wasn’t able to for her family - or wouldn’t be able to for Lexi, either, if she asked; because Rue always knew she could lose her.

Rue loves her mom and her sister more than anything, and as much as she wanted to be better for them, she knew she never had to, because they’d still love her all the same.

And what she’s understanding now, and has maybe always known deep down, is that Lexi will, too.

So it’s no wonder that Lexi - loving her and being loved by her - feels different than Jules.

It’s because they are different; Rue’s relationships with them are different.

Jules was a thrill ride; a new addiction to curb an old one; a high that was always going to crash, at least if they kept going at the speed they were.

(You know this isn’t gonna to end well.)

Lexi is a constant; an anchor to keep her from floating away; a love that’s always been there and always will be, in one form or another.

Maybe there was a time when Rue thought love needed to be more like Jules to be worth having, because even if the lows were really low, at least the highs were really high.

But that’s not the only way to love, and it’s certainly no way to live, not if you want to.

And Rue does; she wants to live, and maybe, for the first time, she even wants to live healthily, even if it’s hard.

Because Lexi’s kind of love isn’t any easier.

It’s not stronger, either, it’s just… Better, for her.

For who she is and the baggage that comes with her; for who she wants to be.

(At some point, you make a choice; about who you are and what you want.)

Rue needs someone that knows her - everything about her - and loves her all the same; she needs someone that’s patient with her fuck ups and understanding of her short comings; she needs someone she can count on and isn’t constantly scared of losing.

She needs someone like Lexi.

And more importantly, Rue’s realizing, that’s who she wants, too.

Maybe she doesn’t know when she started to - only when she noticed she did - but it’s true, all the same.

So that leaves only one question left to answer; is she ready for her?

day twenty without jules.
day twenty with lexi.

It doesn’t really take much thinking for Rue to get that last answer, but she still gives herself the night to read over her journal a couple more times and empty the bottom drawer of her dresser like she should have done weeks ago.

Call her dramatic, but she finds something fitting about waiting until the last day of winter break to have this conversation with Lexi.

She’s ending something with, hopefully, the beginning of something else.

And twenty is a nice, solid, round number, too.

Rue’s always liked the number twenty, so she waits until Sunday, until she’s actually thought about what she wants to say first, and then bites the bullet.

It takes Rue approximately two seconds after knocking to realize she probably should have texted or called first, but oh well, the door is opening before she can do anything about it.

She’s not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed that it’s Mrs. Howard and not Lexi answering, but she guesses it’s just a good thing it’s not Cassie, considering their last conversation.

“Hey, Rue,” the woman greets her with a slight slur that’s probably just part of her voice by now. She makes a show of draping herself against the door frame, sloshing her half empty glass of wine in her other hand as she looks her up and down. Thank God the mistletoe is gone. “Long time no see.”

Considering she just saw Rue two days ago, she can only assume she knows something’s gone down and she’s being snarky, but she’s not about to bring it up first.

“Is Lexi home?”

Mrs. Howard scoffs. “Of course she is,” she snorts, lifting her glass to her slowly curling lips. “You’re the only person she ever hangs out with.”

“Mom!” Cassie scolds her, beating Rue to the punch as she appears suddenly from behind her. “Go start the next episode.”

Though the woman continues to stare her down and looks like she has more to say, she eventually listens to her favorite daughter and wanders away with a grumble to leave the teens alone.

“Hey, Cass,” Rue greets her quietly, awkwardly waving at her.

And even though Cassie doesn’t chew her out or lecture her again, she also doesn’t give her, her usual affectionate Rue Rue greeting, either.

It stings a little, but she gets it, and she deserves it.

“She’s upstairs in our room,” is what Cassie says instead, stepping back and inviting her into the house instead of continuing to block her path, and Rue takes that as a good sign. “Don’t be a dick.”

“I won’t,” Rue promises her with the utmost sincerity, and she doesn’t crack a smile until Cassie does.

The bedroom door is already open when Rue get there, but she still takes a couple of moments to gather her bearings.

Lexi’s laying on the couch, her laptop balanced on her knees, and Rue can hear the faint voices of what sounds like Love Island contestants from where she’s standing.

A tiny part of her is tempted to leave her be and run away like she always does - if you don’t count that one time recently - but she ignores it.

This is Lexi, and there’s no doubt in her mind anymore, and she knocks on the frame of the door before her anxiety can get the better of her.

The speed in which Lexi’s mouth drops from a smile to a frown at the sight of her is a little discouraging, she’ll admit, and it makes her nerves double, but Rue still finds the strength to make her feet move.

“Look who finally showed up,” Lexi derides in way of greeting, pausing her show and shutting her laptop as she shifts on the couch to glare at her better. “Did you forget something in your rush to ditch me yesterday morning?”

Rue winces as she steps further forward, but stays on Cassie’s side of the room. “Okay, I deserve that.”

“Yeah, and a lot more.”

But they both know Lexi is too kind a person to say much worse.

The thought has Rue fighting an endeared smile, and while the pout forming on Lexi’s lips isn’t helping, she manages to keep her own in a line.

She doesn’t need to annoy Lexi any more than she already has - she hates when people think she’s cute when she’s mad - so instead of wasting more time, Rue just starts talking, and hopes that, for once, things come out right.

“I’m really, really, sorry about yesterday,” she begins after taking a breath, knowing she needs to start there. “You know me, I just got lost in my head and was overthinking everything and I bailed because it was easier.” It’s not a good excuse but it’s the truth, and that’s all Rue can give her. “It was really fucked up, but I’m here to try to make it up to you.”

“Here to turn me down in person, you mean,” Lexi mumbles dejectedly, mostly to herself, and it makes Rue’s heart hurt; that she assumes that, and that Rue knows she’s given her no reason to think anything else.

But this is her chance to change all that, if she doesn’t fuck it up.

“No, Lex,” she replies softly. “I’m not.” Taking another deep breath, Rue shuffles closer and waits until the other girl is finally looking at her again before she starts the hard part; “I’m here to tell you that I feel the same.”

And the way Lexi’s eyes widen and her jaw drops would be comical, if Rue’s heart didn’t feel like it might beat out of her chest.

“What?” she squeaks, sitting up straighter in her seat.

Well, here it goes; hopefully it goes better than the last time she had to make one of these speeches.

Another deep breath, and...

“I thought about it a lot yesterday,” Rue begins, stepping further into the room and waiting at the top of the steps - closer to Lexi, but still giving her space she might want. “And I mean a lot. That’s why I left, I was just really fucking confused and I wanted to think about it and be sure. I didn’t wanna lead you on, more than I maybe already did, because I know how shitty that feels and I’ve already hurt you enough.”

The last thing Rue ever wants to do again is hurt Lexi.

“What are you saying, Rue?” she questions, restrained hope as clear in her voice as it is on her face.

Lexi stands up from the couch and Rue descends the stairs - neither taking their eyes off each other as they finally get on the same level.

“I like you,” Rue admits, quietly but steadily, looking down at Lexi with a shaky smile. “A lot, actually, as it turns out.”

Lexi’s breath seems to catch in her throat as she asks, “Seriously?” All Rue can do is chew her bottom lip and nod. “Since, since when?”

Rue has to laugh a little at the question, because it’s the one thing she hasn’t truly been able to work out, no matter how long or hard she’s thought about it.

She shakes her head and shrugs, but still tries to give Lexi the best answer she can.

“It kinda smacked me in the face on New Year’s Eve and I haven’t been able to get the idea out of my head since,” Rue explains, her lips twitching up as her gaze drifts down to the couch for a moment as she considers it all. “I don’t know if it’s new or something I buried, ‘cause like, you were kinda my gay awakening that first time we kissed, but I don’t think it matters.” Her eyes find Lexi’s again and she shrugs. “I think it just matters that I know it now and I’m sure of it. And I, I want you to know it, too.”

“What about Jules?” Lexi has to ask after taking it all in, eyes shining, even as she shifts nervously from one foot to the other.

Rue’s breath hitches a little at the name, though she knew it was coming.

The other girl is the elephant in the room, after all, standing smack dab between them; the only way to get rid of her - or shrink her, at least - is to talk about her.

Even if it’s hard; maybe especially if it’s hard.

“I thought a lot about that too, and I’m starting to see that she wasn’t good for me,” Rue starts, taking another step forward. “And that’s, that’s not her fault at all. That’s me.” Accountability is important, she’s learning. “I was, I don’t know, I think I was using her. I think I really might’ve loved her in some fucked up way, but it was never going to work out for us.”

A truth she wishes she could say she knew all along, but then she’d be lying.

She figured it out along the way, slowly and painfully, and too late. But there’s nothing she could have done to change the outcome, so Rue doesn’t see the point in dwelling on it.

What’s done is done, and what’s done has led her here, with Lexi, so; maybe they were meant to be after all, just not to last.

“But you think we will?” Lexi wonders skeptically, and Rue just knows she’s questioning her belief in that more than the truth of it.

“Don’t you?” she challenges her softly. “You’re better for me, Lex.”

“Why, because I’m, what, the Raisin Bran of love interests?” Lexi scoffs, and Rue clearly hit a nerve. “While Jules is, like, Froot Loops or something?”

“No!” Rue is quick to deny, shaking her head vehemently and curling her hands into the sleeves of her hoodie to stop herself from reaching out to touch her best friend. “You’re different from Jules, yeah, but you’re not some safe option for me, okay?” There’s nothing safe about the way her heart is beating right now. “Jules wasn’t good for me, not just ‘cause of all our shit, but because we were different, too. Too different.” It doesn’t hurt to admit as much as she thought it would, considering how long she refused to see it. “We were going at different speeds and wanted different things, but I was so infatuated with her that I was willing to do and change anything to make it work. And I don’t know much about relationships, but I don’t think they’re supposed to be like that. Not the good ones.”

Somehow, judging by the way Lexi’s face relaxes and her eyes soften, Rue thinks she finally said something right.

“And you think we’re more compatible?” the shorter girl still asks, but this question is a lot less challenging than her previous ones.

This is progress, and Rue needs to tread carefully.

“You’re more compatible with the person I wanna be.” They were best friends for a reason, back before she ruined it all and put them on different paths by inhaling any kind of drug she could get her hands on, and it feels like they’re finally walking the same one - in the same direction - again; Lexi might be a little bit ahead of her, but for the first time in a long time, she doesn’t feel like she’s so far behind that she can’t catch up, as long as Lexi waits for her. “All this shit happens around us everyday, but eventually, it’s on us to choose how we deal with it; who we are and what we want.”

No more excuses, no more blaming.

Lexi looks like she’s about to cry as she asks, “And you want me?”

Rue’s heart aches again and she can’t resist reaching out to touch her best friend, curling their fingers together as she closes the distance between them.

“I wanna be the person you see me as,” Rue explains gently. “That girl you described the other night? That’s who I want to be.”

She swears she can feel Lexi’s heart thumping in her chest as she looks up at her with watery eyes. “For me?”

“For me.” Rue’s already done that thing where she tries to do something for someone else, and she knows that’s no way to make real strides, and it’s not fair to the other person, either. She wasn't fair to Jules, and she's not making that same mistake again. “I don’t need you to be that girl, but I don’t wanna be her without you.” One last deep breath. “Because I love you.”

Because she’s in love with her.

Lexi’s face almost crumbles as she leans forward, her forehead pressing against the taller girl’s chin. “Rue,” she whines, or maybe cries, and Rue doesn’t hesitate to wrap her arms around her shoulders in a comforting hug.

“I know I’m a fuck up and I’ve treated you badly, but I want to make it up to you,” she promises her best friend, squeezing her tight and savoring the feeling of being pressed against her before; “And that’s why we can’t be together yet.”

A record scratch sounds as Lexi stiffens in her arms, before she's pulling back from, though not completely out of, them.

“What?” she all but gasps, eyes searching hers for some kind of sign. “But you just said...”

“I’m not ready, Lex,” Rue admits, and she hopes her best friend knows how big those few words really are for her to realize and admit out loud. “I’m still a mess. I’m getting better, really fucking slowly, but it’s a long process and I don’t want to fuck it up.” She rubs the backs her thumbs against the column of Lexi’s neck absentmindedly, as she remembers everything she thought so painstakingly hard about last night. “In NA, um, they say that you shouldn’t really be with anyone until you’ve been clean for at least a year, and after what happened with Jules, I get it. I don’t want that to happen again. If we do this, I want us to have a real shot, so I, I think it’s better if we wait.” Rue swallows thickly and tries not to let her voice shake as she brings it to a finish. “If that’s, I mean, if that’s something you’d be cool with.”

She knows Lexi well enough to know that it will be, but anxiety’s a bitch.

“Are you kidding?” Lexi laughs disbelievingly, a smile finally finding its way onto her lips for the first time. She reaches up to hold Rue’s face in her hands and give her head a little shake for even questioning that. “Rue, I’d wait as long as you asked me to.”

Her answer isn’t surprising at all, that’s just who Lexi is, but the sincerity of it still somehow almost knocks her off her feet. “Really?”

Lexi nods, her smile growing bigger as she pulls Rue’s face down so she can press a kiss to her forehead, both her cheeks and then her chin; a perfect balance.

“I’d never wanna do this before you’re ready,” she tells her lightly, like the promise is nothing for her. “I want you to be healthy and to take care of yourself more than anything, and that needs to be your first priority. Everything else can wait.”

Rue lets out a disbelieving laugh of her own; that Lexi exists, and that she’s somehow lucky enough to not only still have her in her life after everything, but to be loved by her, too.

“You’re, like, perfect, you know that?”

Lexi ducks her head self consciously as her hands fall from Rue’s face. “Believe me, I’m not.”

“I’ll never be,” Rue admits, wanting to be honest and put the other girl at ease at the same time. She tangles her fingers in Lexi’s again as she says the very last thing she came here to say. “I’m still gonna fuck up, probably a lot, but I, I wanna try. Like, for real this time. So badly, you have no fucking idea.”

She drops her forehead against Lexi’s when she’s done, eyes closed and a smile forcing its way onto her lips because she got through it all without crying, and because her best friend is so damn tiny.

“And I wanna help you,” Lexi whispers, squeezing the fingers threaded through her own. They just stand there together for a long moment, silently taking it all in; wrapped in their own little bubble of this brand new and wonderful thing they’ve just created, until; “Was I really the one that made you realize you were gay?”

Rue answers her with a kiss; soft and steady, leaving no room for doubt.

They spend the rest of the day in Lexi’s room, talking and cuddling and just enjoying their last day of winter break pretty much the same way they spent all the others - together.

Rue has no idea what’s waiting for them at school tomorrow, and she knows even less about the weeks and months and years after that, but she knows they’ll get through them the same way.

Lexi, her best friend - and hopefully, someday, even more - at her side.

And Rue, standing tall, on her own two feet.