Ruth couldn't focus on anything for the rest of the day.

Her mind was stuck on that dumb writing contest she knew she would never join. And instead of understanding it enough to leave it alone, she continued to fester over it. Ideas were bouncing around her head like kids in a jumpy house and she couldn't capture them fast enough. She begged them to stop jumping, but they only laughed in her face and jostled around harder, shoving more and more brilliant ideas into her mind, each one better than the last. Her fingers were burning now, and that familiar urge to write scorched her hand and plagued hellfire throughout her body.

"You can't," Ruth whispered to herself. With a soft groan, she tucked the stupid flyer under her book and dropped her head onto the 400 pages of Anatomy I information. The highlighter in her hand fell to the ground beside the metal table she picked under her favorite tree. She didn't even bother picking it up, too caught up in her own thoughts.

But she didn't have to.

Someone else had done it for her, and they made it a point to press the highlighter firmly back into her hand after doing so. Whoever it was had warm fingers and a deep, husky voice that haunted her daydreams and danced around beautiful nightmares.

"You can't what?" a familiar voice asked smoothly.

Ruth turned her head, trying not to appear as surprised as she felt as she looked up into the blank expression of Raffo, who looked better than he should have. It had to be legal, Ruth thought, looking the way he did. With his hair wisping over dark, brooding eyes from the slight breeze and his backpack slung lazily over one shoulder as he loomed over the table. He slowly retracted his fingers from Ruth's while she sat there, gaping like a dumbstruck fish.

It wasn't her fault she couldn't comprehend he was there, patiently waiting for her to respond. She hadn't expected him.

But then again, she never expects him. They always met at the unlikeliest of places and she could never prepare herself to talk to him.

Well, she tried once.

And that didn't really work out too well.

She flushed at that and was quick to raise her head now, clearing her throat. "Nothing. I uh—I was just thinking about school is all."

One dark brow rose skeptically and Ruth bit the inside of her lip at the relatively attractive motion. He dropped his backpack on the other side of the bench across from where Ruth sat, and then popped a seat there too. His fingers pushed his hair away from the darkness of his eyes and out from between the long strands of his lashes in a simple movement to battle futilely against the wind. Her heart skipped giddily at him wanting to sit with her, and it took every ounce of her willpower not to smile like an idiot.

And then another thought crossed her mind. One that made her want to do anything else but smile.

"Aren't you supposed to be with Mirana?" she blurted out randomly, her question blunt. Way to be subtle, Ruth.

Both of Raffo's eyebrows pushed together, furrowing with confusion. "No. Am I supposed to be?"

Ruth was quick to try to correct her mistake, fumbling over words as she clumsily rubbed her sweaty palm against her jeans. "No. You're just always with her, is all. So I just assumed—"

"Ah, you assumed. Again. You're pretty good at that," he interjected, pointing out that she, once again, assumed something about him instead of just letting him be him and do whatever he wanted.

Her cheeks flushed to a dark pink and she dropped her gaze to the beaded necklace around his neck, unable to look into his amused gaze. He tilted his head when he took her in this time, noting the striking way the apples in her brown cheeks blossomed to a prepossessing rose as her curly lashes brushed along the milky skin. She could practically sense his hot gaze swiveling smoothly over each perfectly, imperfect curl that seemed to frizz up from the relentless wind and she really hoped it didn't look bad.

"I'm sorry," she murmured, looking back up at him as her stomach churned. Beautiful people were a weakness, and she hated looking at them for that particular reason. They made your body hurt, your chest clench, and your heart beating a mile a minute. Who gave them the right to just walk around looking the way they do? Without a care to their Adonis or Aphrodite appearance?

Raffo blinked oddly in response to her apology. Ruth didn't know why he was unsettled by the two words. She watched him shift a few times in his seat, his face blossoming to a deep burgundy as cherries spilled into the tip of his golden nose. Was he uncomfortable because he knew she was apologizing for more than just assuming things about his life? Did he know the apology extended from what happened last week?

She knew he probably wasn't the type to want to talk about his feelings, and she definitely didn't want to force him to talk about his discomfort. He wouldn't tell her anyway, even if she asked. She didn't know him very well, but she knew that much.

It wasn't long until Raffo finally shrugged his shoulders. He cleared his throat once or twice to prepare his short answer, his chest caving in. "Yeah, don't worry about it."

Easier said than done.

But she tried her best to let it all go, including her question regarding why he'd rather be sitting with her instead of hanging out with Mirana. It was nice having the company and being around someone other than herself for a change. She knew a few people in her classes, and Mirana and Abigail of course, but that's different than finding people to hang out with outside of school. Transferring to a new state and only having your cousins as friends, it got a bit lonely for Ruth. She didn't have friends she could eat with or hang out with outside of school.

Just having him sit with her under her favorite tree softened the burden of being an out-of-state nobody.

"When's your next class?" Ruth found herself asking. She kept her tone light, curious but not too curious to arouse suspicion.

"When's yours?" Raffo redirected, reaching for something in his pant's pocket.

She scrunched her nose at the little white box resting in the palm of his large hand. Skillfully, as if he had done so many times before, he almost elegantly pulled out the last cigarette in the pack and smoothly tossed the empty box in the garbage can near them. He had least had the decency to turn his head to the side after inhaling a puff and releasing the misty smoke. She was almost certain her disapproval was twisted evidently on her lips.

"I'm um—" she started, distracted by her own disdain. "I'm done for the day. I was actually going to play basketball to clear my head."

His eyebrow twitched at that. He moved the white stick away from his mouth for a second. "Oh."

"You're welcome to join me, if you want. Only if you don't have any more classes," Ruth offered quickly, borderline hopefully. She thinned her lips immediately after, her tongue pushing against her teeth to keep herself from talking excessively.

Raffo didn't say anything right away. Instead, he took a minute or two to think about it, enjoying the last few drags in thought while he did so. Ruth's heart stammered in her chest now as slowly began to regret asking him to go play basketball with her. She really was considering going down to the courts after making a feeble attempt at studying. But seeing as how she couldn't even do that, shooting hoops was the next best thing.

"I can't," he finally admitted, glancing away from the disappointment simmering behind Ruth's expression. "Thanks for the offer, though."

She pushed the feeling away by shrugging a shoulder and telling him that she understood0 which she did, of course, but rejection's always a tough pill to swallow. Even for someone as put together as Ruth.

Sliding her bottom lip between her teeth, she decided it was time to get going since she still had to pick up a basketball from Uncle Rickey's, and stood up from the table with her textbook and highlighter in hand. She couldn't look down at him just yet, so she stared over at her car across the field instead when she spoke. "Well, I'm gonna get going. Later, Raffo."

"Chi pisa la chike, Ruth," he murmured, his voice soft and low. Ruth's fingers clutched her bundle closer to her body at the velvet smoothness of his deep voice, and she quickly left him, as fast as her legs could take her.

But Ruth should have been paying attention.

She was too much in a rush to notice she left the crinkled, confetti flyer behind on the table. It's loyalty lay with a new owner now, one whose fingers smoothed over the wrinkles of the paper as he read the red print with a thought in mind. A thought that left his gaze chasing after Ruth not long after she walked away. He stood from the bench then, casually folded the paper into four, and shoved it into his back pocket.

Not long after, he left as well.

*****

notes: translation (from choctaw to english)

♡ chi pisa la chike! - see you later