"No."

"Come on, you haven't even given it a chance--"

"Don't need to. I won't do it," Uncle Rickey said stubbornly. He even made it a point to cross his arms like a child and leaned back in his chair, refusing to budge an inch.

Ruth frowned, her fingers still grappling with the breakfast she prepared him and his anti-nausea medicine. "It's just a new treatment to help with the nausea, Uncle. It's not a 'government conspiracy to put you in your grave faster'."

He only grunted.

"Why don't you just give it a few weeks?" she suggested. "And if it doesn't help, you can stop taking it."

Uncle Rickey scoffed. "No."

Ruth groaned and fell onto the couch beside him, frustrated by her uncle's stubbornness. The chemotherapy treatment he was undergoing only increased his nausea and exhaustion, resulting in sick nights and puking mornings that made Uncle Rickey look sicker than he already was. He hated taking new medicine, hell, he hated takin medicine period. He didn't trust anybody in the medical field, not with the long history of maltreatment of Indigenous People in medical facilities.

And while she understood that, she hated seeing him so sick. But she'd support his decision no matter what, even if she didn't agree with it.

So she moved back, sighing softly as she placed the bottle next to him. She narrowed her gaze meaningfully. "Fine. But if you get any sicker, you need to take them."

He grunted, but nodded his head anyway. "Shouldn't you be spendin' time with that girl of yours before she goes back?"

"It's Monday, Uncle. She left this morning," Ruth reminded him.

"Oh." He frowned. "She ain't stay long at all, did she?"

"She couldn't. She just started a new position at our job that she has to get back to, but she'll be here in a month."

"Ah," he nodded, understandingly. "Y'all doing okay?"

Ruth furrowed her eyebrows. "We're doing fine. Why?"

Uncle Rickey looked down at her carefully, his fingers picking at the unruly threaed of his recliner. He cleared his throat a few times, took a sip of water when offered, and started again, much to Ruth's confusion. "I know first loves are . . . hard to forget—"

She bristled at the turn of conversation. And he noticed instantly, causing him to speak a little faster before she wouldn't let him.

"But you don't seem—I dunno, as happy as you were before. You don't feel like you're . . . settling do you, Honey-Bee?" he asked, hesitating. "Don't get me wrong, I love that Emily girl to death. Hell, I think she's sweeter than a river of honey, that one. But is this relationship what you want?"

Ruth paused, her mouh ajar. She hadn't realized her family would think that way based on how Emily and her acted around one another. They weren't overtly touchy in the public eye and Ruth didn't speak of Emily very often despite being on the phone with her, but that didn't mean she cared for her any less than she had Raffo.

A second relationship was supposed to feel different. It wasn't supposed to feel shiny new and exciting. It wasn't supposed to feel like butterflies were constantly erupting in the pit of your stomach every day you spend together. There didn't have to be smiles that left her breathless. What was wrong with comfortability? With acclimating to the love from another?

Acclimate? You mean a love you're struggling to reciprocate? Her mind nagged at her.

No. Just because Emily was ready to drop the "L" bomb didn't mean that she was. Not everyone falls in love at the same time. Raffo just happened to be a coincidence.

Not every love was going to be as great as the first, and that should be okay.

"She's who I want," Ruth said, simply.

Uncle Rickey didn't look convinced, but he nodded his head and moved back comfortably against the chair. She helped grab him another glass of water from the kitchen while he comfortably reclined back. She listened to his breathing intently once she put his water on the table beside his chair, waiting for it to even out. It didn't take long that time, much to her relief, so she pressed a kiss to his forehead and moved away.

After shutting off the light by the front door, Ruth threw him one last worried look and then left.

*****

Ruth didn't want to go back to the apartment just yet.

She didn't know where else she could go, but she knew she couldn't go back there just yet. Not when she knew she'd ask Jana about Raffo's presence at the bridal party Saturday night. Jana went with Eddie after the party, and Terry went home to Johnny, so Ruth never got to confront them. She didn't care that he had gone, or so she told herself, but a warning would have been nice. She could have hid herself or something.

Ruth grimaced. There was only one place she could go to that would help her think, and it was tainted for her. But being so close . . . so close to the place that could clear her confusion . . .

Her phone buzzed.

It took one glance to see it was her father.

Ruth shoved the phone back into her pocket and she quickly made a beeline for Jana's spare car, knowing exactly where she had to go next to get out of her emotional head. With Uncle Rickey's questions about her relationship, thoughts of confronting Jana, and now texts from her father, she had to get everything out. And there was only one place she could escape to that mattered. She tried to avoid it, but she needed the courts like she needed blood in her veins.

*****