Chapter Text
Junior year is supposed to matter.
That's what everyone says. Junior year is the one that counts. The grades matter, the tests matter, the college tours matter. Everything matters, and Rue Bennett is supposed to care, and she doesn't. She can't. Because caring requires energy she doesn't have and brain chemistry that's been trying to kill her since she was thirteen.
She's high before first period. Not a little high. Not functional high. She's the kind of high that makes her limbs feel like they're filled with sand and her thoughts move slow and syrupy and she doesn't have to think about her.
Jules.
Don't think about Jules.
She takes a long drag from her vape in the bathroom stall but not nicotine, something Fez got from a guy who got it from a guy.. and holds it until her lungs burn. Then she exhales, watches the smoke curl toward the fluorescent lights, and walks out.
The hallway is loud. It's always loud. Girls screaming about summer, boys shoving each other into lockers, someone's phone blasting a song Rue doesn't recognize. She pulls her hood up and keeps her head down.
AP Government. Room 217.
She's been in this class for two weeks now. She sits in the back by the window. She doesn't talk. She doesn't take notes. She just exists in the shape of a student and prays no one looks at her too long.
The problem is someone keeps looking at her.
---
Maddy Perez sits two seats over. Back row, same as Rue. They've been in the same classes since middle school. They've never spoken. Not really. A few "excuse me"s in the hallway. One time in freshman year Maddy asked to borrow a pencil and Rue handed it over without making eye contact.
But lately, Maddy has been looking at her.
Not staring. Not in a weird way. Just... looking. Like Rue is a crossword puzzle she can't quite solve. Rue catches her sometimes. during lectures, during the quiet moments between bells crazier part is Maddy never looks away. She just holds Rue's gaze for a second too long, then goes back to whatever she was doing.
It makes Rue's stomach feel weird.
She ignores it.
---
Maddy Perez is untouchable. That's the thing. She's the girl in the tiny tops and the perfect makeup and the hoops so big they should be illegal. She's been dating Nate Jacobs since freshman year, and Nate Jacobs is the king of this school in the way that all terrifying football players are kings. He walks down the hallway and people move. He looks at someone and they flinch.
Maddy is his girlfriend. His property, if you ask anyone who's paying attention. He keeps his hand on her lower back at parties. He stands too close. He texts her constantly, and she always answers immediately, and Rue has watched her face go blank when she reads his messages and then smooth back into a smile before she types back.
Rue doesn't know why she notices these things. She doesn't care about Maddy Perez. She doesn't care about anyone.
---
Jules Vaughn is in this class too.
Front row. Perfect posture. Hair in two braids like she's in a fucking indie movie. She laughs at something the girl next to her says, and the sound carries across the room, and Rue's hands clench under her desk.
They used to be friends. Best friends. Rue thought they were going to be something more, something that might actually save her, and then Jules looked at her one day like Rue was a burden she was tired of carrying. Like Rue's addiction was an inconvenience. Like the late night phone calls and the times Jules held her hair back while she threw up and the "I love you"s whispered in the dark were all just... obligations.
Jules dumped her. Not officially. There was no conversation. Just distance. Coldness. A slow fade that felt like dying.
And now Jules acts like Rue doesn't exist. Like they were never anything.
Rue hates her. She hates her so much it makes her chest burn. She hates the way Jules still smiles at everyone else. She hates the way Jules got a girlfriend over the summer. some artsy bitch from out of town, and posts about her constantly. She hates that she still checks Jules's Instagram even though it makes her want to crawl out of her skin.
So yeah. Rue is high. She's always high. Because being sober means feeling all of it, and feeling all of it means she might actually die.
---
Friday. Third week of school.
Mr. Harrison announces the semester project. Partners assigned randomly. He pulls names out of a bucket like it's a fucking lottery.
"Bennett and Perez."
Rue's blood goes cold.
From across the room, she hears Maddy sigh. Not an annoyed sigh—more like a well, this is happening sigh. Rue doesn't turn around. She stares at her desk and tries to remember how to breathe.
After class, Maddy appears at her elbow.
"My place," Maddy says. "Sunday. 3 PM."
Rue looks up. Maddy is close. Close enough that Rue can smell her perfume. something like girly vanilla and warm, the opposite of Rue's stale-vape-and-cigarette-smoke aesthetic.
"I don't have a car," Rue says.
"Then take the bus. Figure it out."
Maddy walks away before Rue can respond. Her hips sway. Her heels click. Rue watches her go and tells herself she's not watching her go.
She's lying.
---
Sunday.
Rue almost doesn't go. She spends the morning in bed, staring at her ceiling, trying to convince herself that failing the project is fine. She can fail. She's failed at everything else.
But then her mom knocks on her door and says "Rue, baby, please just try" with that look in her eyes/the tired one, the one that says *I love you but I'm running out of ways to save you/and Rue gets up.
She takes the bus. She's the only person on it who looks under forty. The windows are streaked with dirt and she watches the town go by, the strip malls and the fast food places and the houses that all look the same.
Maddy's house is in the nicer part of town. Not rich rich, but comfortable. A two-story with a porch and a swing and flowers in the yard that someone actually waters. Rue stands at the front door for a full minute before she knocks.
Maddy opens it.
No makeup. Hair in a messy bun. An old sweatshirt that says "EAST HIGHLAND" in faded letters. Her feet are bare and her toenails are painted dark red.
"You came," Maddy says. Like she's surprised.
"You said 3 PM."
"It's 3:45."
"I got lost."
Maddy's mouth twitches. "You got lost coming to my house?"
"I don't get out much."
Maddy stares at her for a second. Then she steps aside.
"Get in, weirdo."
---
Maddy's kitchen is clean. Not showroom clean, but lived in clean. There's a fruit bowl on the counter and magnets on the fridge and a calendar with appointments written in someone's handwriting probably her mom's. Maddy has already set up at the table: printed articles, highlighters in three colors, a notebook with her neat, tiny writing.
"You really prepared for this," Rue says, sitting down.
"I'm not failing junior year because my partner is a burnout."
Rue flinches. She doesn't mean to. But the word hits her like a slap.
Maddy notices. Of course she notices. She notices everything.
"That came out worse than I meant," Maddy says. "I'm not—I don't think youre—"
"It's fine," Rue says. "I am a burnout. It's not an insult if it's true."
Maddy looks at her for a long moment. Then she pushes an article across the table.
"Just read," she says. "We're doing the First Amendment. Free speech in schools."
They work. Sort of. Rue reads the same paragraph four times because the words keep sliding off her brain. The high from this morning has faded into a headache and a dull ache behind her eyes, and she's starting to feel shaky in that way she hates the way that means she needs something soon or she's going to fall apart.
"You okay?" Maddy asks.
"Fine."
"You're shaking."
Rue looks down at her hands. She is. Just a little. She shoves them under the table.
"I'm fine," she says again.
Maddy doesn't push. But she also doesn't go back to work. She just watches Rue with those dark eyes, and Rue feels like she's being x rayed.
"You can talk to me," Maddy says quietly. "If you want. I know we don't know each other. But I'm not gonna—I'm not gonna judge you."
"Why not?"
Maddy shrugs. "Because everyone's got something."
The silence stretches. Rue should say something. Should make a joke, change the subject, do literally anything other than sit here and let Maddy Perez see her.
Instead, she says, "I'm an addict."
The words come out flat. Like she's reading a grocery list.
Maddy doesn't react. Doesn't gasp or lean back or look away.
"I know," Maddy says.
"How?"
"Because I pay attention."
Rue doesn't know what to do with that. Nobody pays attention to her. Not really. They see the hoodie and the dark circles and the way she never eats lunch, but they don't *see* her. They don't want to.
Maddy sees her.
"That's not gonna be a problem, is it?" Maddy asks. "For the project, I mean. If you need to reschedule sometimes, that's fine. I just need to know."
"You don't have to walk on eggshells around me."
"I'm not. I'm asking a question."
Rue meets her eyes. Maddy's face is open. Not pitying. Not scared. Just... open.
"No," Rue says. "It won't be a problem."
"Good."
They go back to work. But something shifted. Rue can feel it a crack in the wall she's built, a tiny sliver of light. She doesn't know if that's good or bad. She just knows that when Maddy steals her highlighter and Rue tries to grab it back and their fingers brush, neither of them pulls away for a full three seconds.
---
Maddy walks her to the door at 6 PM. The sun is starting to set, orange and pink bleeding across the sky.
"Same time next week?" Maddy asks.
"Yeah."
"And Rue?"
Rue turns around.
"Don't come high next time," Maddy says. "I want to actually talk to you."
Rue's heart does something stupid.
"I'll try," she says.
Maddy nods. Closes the door.
Rue walks to the bus stop and waits. The air is cool. Her hands are still shaking a little. But for the first time in a long time, she thinks maybe. just maybe. she wants to show up sober.
Not for herself. For Maddy.
That's probably a problem. She'll deal with it later.
---
**End of Chapter 1**