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There is something so bittersweet, so fascinating, about being rejected.
Rejection, it is so pure, but only when done right.
Like Rue did with Lexi.
Rue rejected her softly, without words, just a smile. And it is what Lexi expects. It is not like Rue had given her any hope, no, Lexi realized – perhaps after, or a bit before, – that most of her life, she was stuck in her head, watching, wandering, getting lost. Lexi wasn’t built for the crowd (Rue wasn’t as well, but in another way). Lexi was built for home. Lexi was a good girl. She always was the good girl, always pleasing mother, always listening to her older sister, always smiling to father and brushing his hair, always a good friend to Rue – even after she hadn't called her for weeks.
Lexi was lost in all of the characters she was, for all the people around her: the nerd, the one that always will let you copy your homework – only ask, best friend, best friend’s little sister, the innocent one, the one who never talks, the one who would never ever raise her voice.
But hey! There she was, at the night of Halloween, dressed as Bob Ross, raising her voice, confessing.
She never stood a chance, she knew – not ever, and especially not when (shiny, beautiful, gorgeous, gorgeous) Jules was around, – but she needed to take it off her chest.
The next morning she and Rue pretended it had never happened, like there were no tears on Lexi’s face, like Rue didn’t hug her tightly-tightly, like Lexi hadn’t stole one, precious sweet kiss, – the thing she isn’t sure whether she wants to forget or to remember and cherish, like the stars cherish the moon (or the moon cherish the sun).
But, oh well, Rue-Rue is no sun, Rue-Rue is broken herself, Lexi knows, Lexi saw Rue’s fall, saw it coming before Rue herself realized she was an addict. So she decides to forget, to wrap this memory in paper, and put it in the back of her brain, to not see the clear picture even when she will try to recall the taste of Rue’s lips, or how was it, having her hands on Rue's waist. Because she knows: she knows she will try, as hard as she can, she knows she’ll break to the desire to fantasize about all the what if’s (what if Rue wouldn’t have pushed her away? What if she’d smile into her lips? What if Rue loved her back? No, Lexi, shut up). So she wraps it, carefully, it is still the only thing she ever truly did in her life – even if she failed, even though, how can you call something so undefined as a love confession a failure? – in paper and puts it on the top shelf of her brain, the one she never touches.
She buries that moment alongst with the memory of her father, his addiction, the way he forgot her – oh, sorry, forgot them, they’re two, and Lexi cannot forget of her older (but actually younger) sister – about her drinking mother and all the fights, somewhere between the moment in fourth grade when she cried in front of the whole class (everybody else probably forgot but she’ll walk with this embarrassment till the end of her life), and the memory of Maddy entering their room while she was half naked and so, so ugly (just like now), she and Maddy laughed it off, of course, but still, something about it always made her uncomfortable, always made her start regretting ever being born.
Lexi loves Maddy. Not that it is a big secret, but no one seems to notice. Actually, Maddy was Lexi’s sexual awakening, it was when she looked at Maddy dancing and thought “yeah, I love women” – well, not exatcly, and it took a lot of time and a lot of double-checking with herself “am I reallu…?” – until she realized it, but Maddy was the first girl(well, girl, if you will) for Lexi to think of in a sexual way, Lexi was sure of it.
Realizing her feelings for Rue then, at the age of fourteen, was a lot, a lot, harder. Look, it’s not that she didn’t accept herself – her sexual attraction towards women was okay with her, she didn’ talk about it with anybody, but she was sure it was fine. It’s that- it is a lot easier to think to yourself: “Okay, I am attracted to women, but I’ll still fall in love with a man, right?” because prince charming is waiting for her, somewhere, anywhere in the world, there is a boy who dreams of her and love just as much as she does… but when you realize that you fall in love only with women, and even if there is prince charming you don’t want him – you want his princess, it blows you.
Well, maybe not you personally but it certainly blew Lexi’s mind.
So she was, a confused fourteen year old girl, without a father, with an almost-alcoholic mother (yeah, she supposes that is the right way to describe Suze Howard), fucked up sister and a very fucked uo best friend – on whom she had a crush. And that was Lex – how Rue used to call her.
But now Rue never will: Rue will never let her hug her again, will never let her call her Rue-Rue, or bread her hair, or read poetry to her. All their friendship — gone, and probably, forever. Well, maybe not forever, maybe just until Jules and Rue break up (but who said it will ever happen?).
So Lexi tries to move on, she spends the next new year’s talking with Fezco — Rue’s drug dealer, Lexi hated him when she was younger, since she was the first to sell drugs to Rue, but she doesn’t, not anymore. She knew he didn’t have a choice: he has to make money from something, even if this something is drugs, everybody needs a shelter.
So she forgives him, mostly because it doesn’t matter at this point, and also… because he’s nice.
He’s probably the first person after Rue at her age, who has shown some kind of interest in her. Even if he only wants to fuck her (she’s kinda hot tonight, isn’t she? She tried her hardest with that look, even though, of course she’ll never beat Cassie in that — not that she has any interest, or hope, for the protocol), it is still, some kind of interest. It works, it makes him pay attention to her and ask her name. And Lexi’s happy- really, truly, happy, for the first time… well, maybe for the first time after Rue stopped talking to her (Bob Ross’s definition in her brain is now somewhere between comfort human, safe space, Halloween and rejection).
So she lets him, she lets him kiss her, and kisses him back, closing her eyes — she tries to drown herself in him.
But it doesn’t work: the next morning she’s just as always, maybe even more, in love with Rue. She feels bad. She feels wrong. She tells herself that she was confused and drunk and tired — no, she still is (perhaps not drunk anymore but still as confused and tired – of herself – as ever). But that is not an excuse.
And that’s why she disappears. Well, almost obviously, but still. Someone has got to notice, because to be loved is to be seen, and if nobody sees you (read as: loves you) how can you disappear from them? Exactly, there’s no way.
After a week she hasn’t gone to school, and nobody notices she realizes, – she could be fucking kidnapped, and nobody would care. Not even her blood: her sister, her mother. She didn't even realized that she didn't have any friends since Rue-Rue, but here she was, the lonliest girl on fucking earth – and Rue’a father perhaps died of cancer, Cassie was a lot closer tp their father, but the fact is: when Cassie disappeared on New Year’s party Lexi called her hundred of time, when Lexi disappeared from home for a fucking week Cassie didn’t give a damn.
And every day, waking up at Fez’s house (they talked it out; the kiss they shared, she and him, he was very sweet about it, he wasn’t hurt – at least not too much, – she hoped) she checked her phone and every morning, there are zero unanswered calls, zero messages, zero anything. (Lexi didn’t even expect her mother to call, she was too focused on alcohol and herself.)
And then – and only then, – the understanding hits her: Rue doesn’t love her, Rue doesn't see her, the only thing Rue has ever seen in her is a friend, and you don't worry when you don't see your friend for a week, so what’s the matter? Maybe she just isn’t feeling well.
So she unpacks everything, the kiss, the sweet nights of summer when she and Rue were oh, so, so young.
Lexi breaks her heart herself, without any help, without any support, she breathes in the bittersweet ending of whatever she had Rue had (if they had anything) and smiles.
She can go through this, alone, like she always did. (Probably, like she always will.)