Out 3

Ruby sat alone in the lunchroom, and stared down at her food. Her Walkman and headphones were an insufficient distraction from the void within her, nor did they keep her from noticing all the people around the room, at tables here and there, glancing at her over their shoulders. No doubt licking their chops and planning their move. Ruby was alone now, and that made her vulnerable.

Let 'em come,

she thought, her hand closing tight around the spoon, of all things.

Her delusions of pitched battle, of a righteous bloodletting, were just that in the end. The most she got was a sneer, and perhaps a few chuckles. She could never be sure when people around her were laughing and when they were laughing

at her

, and so her default assumption was that it was probably about her. It was rare for this assumption to be proved right after the fact, but not so rare that Ruby felt like she needed to reassess the humanity of her classmates. They were backwards goons, all of them.

"I can't wait to get out of here," she mumbled, and was surprised a moment later when she realized she'd said it out loud. Of course, over the noise, there was no way anyone had heard her, but it wasn't her way to mindlessly babble or lose control of her tongue. Then again, she was very much not herself, and hadn't been for days. Her nerves felt like that time her cat had chewed through the power wire of the living room lamp.

Just like that, but all over.

Her lunch tasted of nothing, like chewing air, and did not make her feel nourished. Her stomach twisted on itself, and her lips turned sourly. Lunch wasn't over, but it was over for her. On any given day she might get a deluge of glares born of spite; those born of pity were so much worse. She grabbed her tray with extreme prejudice, gearing up for a

storming out

of epic proportions, the kind that would be talked about in hushed, reverent tones for generations to come, only to almost immediately collide with something, someone, as she got to her feet.

It took Ruby several seconds of fumbling and resetting her grip on her tray to keep the leftovers of her nuggets and tots from the floor. The tray was still jammed against the breasts of a girl in her class named Esther, pressing into them and deforming her dress. Both of them rapidly alternated looking down, and then up at each other, and then down again, before Ruby finally took a step back.

Esther was blushing fiercely as she tugged her yellow, flowery dress back into place, but Ruby was already looking elsewhere. At everyone around them. Picking out every peal of laughter, every giggle, and every snicker.

"Ruby," Esther said, bouncing back into her perfect, pastor's daughter posture. Perfect, except for her eyes; her eyes were wild. "Hey."

A pitiful, "Hey," was all Ruby could manage in response. The sheer number of eyes on her was as staggering as it was terrifying.

"I, um... I just..." The other girl licked her lips and looked down. "I heard about Yasmine."

Ruby scoffed. "They announced it over the PA. Everyone heard." She shook her head and started to move around Esther on her way to the exit, but Esther laid a hand on her elbow as she passed.

"Wait, I..."

"

What?

" Ruby yelled.

Before, in her paranoia, it had felt like every eye in the cafeteria was on her. That had only been true in her mind and she knew it, because they were all looking at her now. She wanted to shrink into a hole, and the way Esther was cringing did not make her feel any better.

"I just..." Esther closed her eyes for a second, inhaling, chest swelling, and when she opened her eyes again she looked a lot more composed. "I wanted to let you know that what am I saying of course you already know. We have support group? In the lower gym? After school?"

"I don't need your help," Ruby snapped, which she knew was more of an instinctive verbal flinch than any kind of rational assessment of her mental state.

"I know," Esther said, taking a backwards step when Ruby tried to move past her again. "I know you don't. It's not really about need, though. It's just... a place you can talk. About anything."

"Why? So you can go back and tell your dad all the fucked up things we talk about?"

More than anything she'd said to that point, this seemed to deeply wound Esther. It sucked, and Ruby was much less than proud of herself, but it had the intended effect. Esther let go of her arm, and got out of her way, and Ruby was able to finally leave. She threw everything right into the trash can, even the tray, and stormed off. She managed to keep it together until she got into the bathroom, which was enough.

I'm not going,

she thought.

There's no point.

She climbed up onto one of the toilets, sitting with her feet up and her knees at her chin, and cried. She missed fourth period, and only got up before the start of fifth period because her leg had fallen asleep. She made it to class, but paid no attention.

I don't need to go,

she thought.

It's not like they're gonna tell me anything Mom and Dad haven't already said.

All her teachers seemed to be giving her a wide berth, which was both needed and awful. She wanted special treatment about as much as a hole in the head, but she was in no shape to focus. The only reason she'd come to school at all was because it was worse laying in bed at home. So, so, so much worse.

I don't need their pity,

she thought.

I swear, if even one of them looks at me like I'm some kinda lost puppy, I am for real gonna lose my shit.

Ruby slunk through the door ten minutes late. The hinge creaked loudly, and everyone seated in the circle at the center of the room turned to look at her. A few of them looked surprised, most just glanced at her for a few seconds and turned back around, but Esther looked positively elated. She jumped to her feet and scurried to the stack of folded chairs tucked against the wall, bringing one back with a broad grin.

She set it down right next to hers after shoo-ing one of the tenth graders to make some space. Ruby slouched about as low as she could into the chair, with her arms folded tightly and her chin tucked against her chest, and did her best to tune everyone else out.

"Go on," Esther said, gesturing toward a girl on the other side of the circle, who had been speaking when Ruby walked in. "You were saying?"

Ruby didn't know the girl's name, but she recognized the sullen reluctance as cousin to her own.

"No," she said, glancing very briefly at Ruby. "It's stupid."

Esther gave her a patient smile, leaned forward just a little, and said, "It's okay.

Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed.

"

"I don't know what that means," the girl said.

Esther said, "It's from the Gospel of Luke. I'm bending the meaning just a little, but only a little. Jesus was talking about how keeping secrets was the product of a guilty conscience. I was kinda skipping to the end where God sees, and God knows, and there's no need to hide when you're among..." She gestured vaguely. "...understanding company."

"No," the girl said, sighing in exasperation. "I just mean... it feels like it isn't that big of a deal."

"It was a minute ago." Esther looked over, gave her a brief glance, and smiled warmly. "I'm sure that whatever it was didn't change since Ruby walked in."

The girl wiped the back of her hand across her cheek, sniffled, and shook her head. She kept looking at Ruby. "It's fine, okay?"

Esther made a long sound in her throat, somewhere between surprise and realization. "Because only the worst possible things are worthy of sympathy? Or support? You shouldn't cry over a papercut because it's not like you lost a finger? Or a hand?"

Everyone was quiet after this, all staring down at the knees or their feet.

"Papercuts hurt, and it's okay to say so. It's okay to be upset when your parents are hard on you, or if Andy O'Malley gets the whole class laughing at you." She raised her hand. "That was me, today. It didn't feel good. It felt like I was... completely alone, and... I don't know if there's anything worse than being completely alone."

"You didn't have Jesus there to hold your hand?" Ruby said, voice coming out like a snarl.

Esther sat up, straighter and straighter, back stiffening, but it was another boy part way around the circle who responded first.

"It can feel good to get out in front of it, make other people feel bad before it turns on you, but that's not really what this group is about."

"Oh yeah?" Ruby said, lip curling. "What

is

it about?"

It seemed like a few others sat forward, chins raised, but before anyone could respond Esther raised a hand. "Let's all take a few breaths. Emotions get high, and that's not unexpected. That's why we're all here. On some level, you know, we're not okay."

Ruby laughed. It was bitter and hollow, and even she knew it was more performative than genuine. "I don't know what's wrong with all of you, but

I'm fine."

Esther asked, "Then why are you here?"

After taking about a full second to think about it, Ruby got to her feet and tipped her chair over backwards on her way toward the door. The surprised shrieks of the gathered circle, from the loud clang, were a balm on her raw wounds. More than one person murmured

freak

at her back. Just as she passed through the door, out into the hall, she caught Esther's crushed expression, and she very nearly convinced herself that she'd won.

***

As had happened every day for the previous week, Ruby hit a point in the late afternoon that was somewhere between exhaustion and desensitization. Her well of emotions ran dry, and the tears slowed. She drifted down the road, only paying just enough attention to stay within her lane and stop for the red lights.

She was vaguely aware that she was going

past

her neighborhood, and in the back of her mind she formed the excuse afterwards that she'd stop by the laundromat up ahead. One of Yasmine's friends worked there in the afternoons, and the three of them had hung out there a lot. Ruby had no idea if Gilly was working, but it seemed like enough of an excuse to not slow down. To not take her foot off the accelerator.

She didn't even bother to slow down as she moved past that intersection too. Yasmine had been the glue. What were her and Gilly going to talk about? Gilly's new boyfriend?

Barf,

she thought.

Double barf.

She zipped past it on her way to the 7-11. Not that she had money for anything.

Heavy clouds had been gathering all day, and once it started raining it was like dusk had come early. Her little car wheezed up a hill, leaving all of Ruby's excuse destinations behind as she made her way toward Dette Point. There was a good chance that, given the weather and the fact that it was a Tuesday, there would be few others parked there at the rocky outcropping that overlooked the city from the west. Not that she would have noticed.

The rain was the perfect cloak. It muted everything outside of her car. The light tree cover around Beaverton's local makeout spot kept the rain from battering her car too hard, but it was still loud enough to overpower her thoughts. For a little while, Ruby was numb and indifferent, and that was good.

It was certainly better than thinking about Yasmine, or life without her.

Ruby let her eyes unfocus, staring out at the dim lights of town. They twinkled through the sheet of rain on her windshield. Bolts of lightning struck here and there, but even that was only enough to bring Ruby back to something approaching lucidity for a minute or so. She didn't notice her eyelids drooping, or her focus fading, and was only barely conscious of the fact that it was nice to not think for a while.

Her head slipped back against the headrest, and she continued to stare forward through slitted lids. It felt like a small death, to just let go and drift.

It was nearly eight o'clock when she jerked back to full wakefulness. A loud squawk from her radio caused her to twitch in her seat, but when she reached for the volume knob it was already turned all the way to the left, all the way off. She blinked several times, trying to get her senses working in concert again, and gave it another twist just to make sure. No dice.

She sat there surrounded by jarring white noise, getting louder and louder. So loud, in fact, that she was sure, for a moment, that it had to be coming from outside of her car, from somewhere in the woods behind her. When she turned to look, her ears finally caught on that the sound was not coming from her car's stereo but behind her. Directly behind her. There was a faint yellow light reflected in the window of her hatchback, and the sound was coming from back there. She climbed between the two front seats, into the back seat, with her upper body leaning over into the trunk space...

...and picked up her old Matsushita radio. Dim lights lit up all along the dual band, as the little white indicator hovered around 1100 khz on the AM band. She could almost hear a song through the noise, but it escaped her.

A little wider than it was tall and barely thick enough to fit the four D batteries she had crammed into the back of it, her ancient radio had been a relic before she received it as a gift, a backup in case the radio in her Plymouth ever finally gave up as it had been threatening to do for as long as she'd had it, but the Matsushita had never worked. Or, at least, not until it had turned itself on at Dette Point.

Ruby's jaw fell slack as she beheld the thing. The lights flickered, growing dimmer and brighter by turns. Ruby stared, transfixed, as the indicator zipped to the right and came to a hard stop, and found that she could not move. In the middle of the static, the droning white noise, came one clear, full second of The Cars

.

"...'s gonna

drive

you hom..."

A shock ran through her, making her scream as she fell against the back into the middle of her car. The light and sound cut out immediately, and when she finally worked up the courage to peer over the back seat again, there was her radio; as dormant as it had ever been. Her brain was too fried to make sense of it, and so she was left with a terror too great to grasp.

Her limbs were twitching as she crawled back into the driver's seat. Twice she had to stop, clench her teeth and squeeze her eyes shut, just to get the shaking under control. After the worst three-point turn in county history, Ruby spun her tires in the mud before getting some momentum going and flying out of there. She kept her eyes on her rear view mirror as often as she could, staring at the inside of the rear hatch to make sure it didn't light up again. If it did, she might just jump out of the car and run the whole way home.

She felt wetness near the corner of her nose as she came to a stop in front of her parents house. When she wiped her face with the back of her hand, it pulled away red.

***

Esther sat at her hutch, quickly applying a very light layer of rouge. She kept the digital clock on her bedside table turned so that it wasn't visible in the mirror. She didn't need that yelling at her too. She knew she was riding the edge of being late, and the stress of it made her teeth feel like they were going to crack.

She couldn't afford to run the brush through her hair as many times as it needed, so she quickly gathered most of it up into a ponytail and made for the door.

"I'm coming," she said, as she made her way down the stairs with a near-sideways gait. "I'm coming."

"Don't worry," came her father's calm voice from the kitchen, accompanied by the sound of the newspaper rustling. "We weren't gonna leave without you."

Her mother's voice followed close behind. "That is not the same as permission to dawdle."

"I wasn't," she said, as she came around the landing. She put her hands together in front of herself as she moved, and carefully adjusted her shoulders. Slightly forward. Slightly hunched. Arms out, but in front.

Her father put down his paper and turned, smiling broadly. "My goodness," he said. "You just get more lovely by the day."

"Posture," said her mother, without barely having looked up from her tea.

It was with great reluctance that she drew her shoulders back and stood up a little straighter.

Her mother's lips thinned as she stood, heading toward the refrigerator. "Here," she said, pulling out a plate with half a grapefruit on it.

"I'm not hungry," Esther said, nervously tucking a few stray bangs behind her ears.

"It's the most important meal of the day," her father said, as if she'd never heard this advice before. "You can't not eat."

Her mom said, "A little fasting might be good for you."

"Not breakfast," her father replied, opening up his paper again. "Lunch maybe, but not breakfast. Jesus sayeth unto them,

Come and have breakfast.

"

Esther did her best to make herself as small as possible as she sat down at the table and dug a spoon into half of a grapefruit, finishing his verse by adding, "And none of them dared ask him

Who art thou

, for they knew he was the lord."

Her mother sat down next to her father and laid her hand over his with a smile.

***

Esther sipped at her Diet Coke, straw delicately held between her pursed lips, and tried to manage a smile. The boy sitting next to her was waving his hands in the air in front of him, one hand spread out like a claw.

"He just sees this green flash between the sea of red," Grady said.

As in the story, Esther saw a golden opportunity flash in front of her; a chance to pretend like she understood anything he'd said in the last five minutes. It wasn't much of a leap. "And that flash was you."

Grady beamed. "I'd been laying this trap all game.

All game.

This little head fake—" He juked left and right in his seat. "—and then I'd break left. The whole game, I went left."

She couldn't help herself, not really, from glancing across the food court again. Across the main strip of the mall. In this, just like her inability to stop this thing she knew she shouldn't be doing, she did not understand herself.

"So you know what I did?"

"You went right."

Grady smirked, and drummed his index fingers on the edge of the table. "Bryce saw that flash, and he just

heaved

it." Then he sat back and held both hands in the air. "Six points, baby."

"Grady," she said, softly, blushing. "I... I can't—"

"What? I wasn't calling

you

baby, that's just an expression!"

"I know, but—"

"I didn't mean anything by it, I swear." Then he reached over and laid his hand over the back of hers. "I swear."

"Okay," Esther said. Then, when he continued to hold her hand, she nodded firmly, and repeated, "Okay." It was such a relief when he let go, and again her eyes darted.

It felt like the next second happened in slow motion. Grady turned, briefly, before looking back at her. "Do you want to go to the arcade for a bit?"

"No!" Then, out of sheer instinct, she laughed, and added, "What? No! That's—"

"Come on," he said, grinning, "you've been staring at it all night like you've just got a burning ache for some Ms. Pac-man. Maybe a little ski-ball?"

Deeply flustered, Esther said, "No, no, really, I—"

"I've been killing it on the Indiana Jones pinball," he said, as he took her hand and stood. "I"m not quite good enough to make it on the leaderboard yet, but I'm, like, right on the edge. I can show you how to play!"

It was like a nightmare she'd had many times before, walking toward the arcade. One she could not escape. A deep and aching dread settled into her core, and Esther clenched her jaw as she moved. She was no stranger to this powerlessness. All she could do was wait for it. She'd read the script. She knew the lines. She understood her part.