Ruth.

No.

Ruth!

Go away.

RUTH COME BACK!

NO!

"Ruth stop!" Raffo called to her as she abruptly spun around and booked it straight towards her car. Hell no would she listen to him. Hell the fuck no.

"RUTH!" Emily shouted into the headphones, alarmed. "RUTH, WHO IS THAT?"

Ruth had nearly forgotten that Emily was on the phone with her during the entire ordeal. She was so caught up in everything she was too ashamed to admit when she saw him, that she realized she never answered her girlfriend. "It's one of my old friends, Em. I'll call you when I get back to Jana's, okay?"

Before Emily could say anything at all, Ruth hung up the phone. She didn't have to look behind her to see that Raffo was quickly gaining speed, desperate to talk to her as he pleaded for her to slow down. To wait for him as if she hadn't already done that in the three years it took to grieve him. She was done with lost time.

She slammed herself into the car as quickly as she could and fired up the engine, her heart pounding wildly. Her body shook, her hands shook, and her breath was coming out too fast. Fast enough to make her feel faint and for her head to swirl. Raffo was still calling out to her, coming closer even with his muscled body built for speed and stamina. She didn't second guess herself when she put her car into drive and drove off as fast as she could, leaving him behind her in the dust.

Ruth didn't care that he was still standing somewhere behind her, watching her drive far off without him while he stood in the middle of the street. She was too fucking furious to look back. Furious with the situation, with him, and most of all . . . herself.

She hated how she froze up in front of him, how she was stuck in her moment of weakness. How her heart raced when he made eye contact with her, how time stood still when his mouth moved and formed her name. He even had the gall to look . . . pained? Surprised? She didn't give herself time to figure out which one it was, because it didn't matter. Why the hell would he be pained at seeing her?

Ruth didn't know, but she needed to get back to Jana's asap. She didn't care that she would be alone inside anymore, and that she didn't get to go inside that bead store downtown. She wanted to be safe at home, away from the reminder of her past, and on the phone with Emily. In five days time, she would be down there. There wasn't even a reason to bring him up to her cousins or Em, for she wanted to forget the entire ordeal even happened. Everything about Raffo will soon go away.

As soon as she pulled into an available parking spot, she ran straight into the house, her every movement unsteady. She was thankful that she was home alone as she rushed to the bathroom and shoved the door closed behind her with a loud slam.

Fuck, she was shaking.

Her nerves were shot, her head was spinning, and she was worried she was going to throw up at any moment. She bent over the bathroom sink with her ears ringing and her heart beating wildly out of her chest. Fingers gripped the edges of the granite, her breath huffing much too fast as the room swirled.

She slid down the bathroom cabinets, trying and failing to push away the onslaught of memories that assaulted her. Everything about him was so familiar, so familiar, that she couldn't focus on it. It would kill her if she did.

Ruth clenched her fists in her lap, her old cries ricocheting around the walls inside her head. She could hear the sobs, the breaking of her heart, and the soothing words of Emily Bautista, who did her best to save whatever part of Ruth that she could.

Shit, she had to call her back.

But she couldn't. Not in her current state. Not when she could barely breathe and wanted to run back to that garage to give that asshole a piece of her mind.

No. Instead, she pushed her face into her curled legs, her arms enclosing herself into a tight hug where she had to protect herself, and retaught herself how to breathe. In times like then, she wished she and her mother were on speaking terms. She wanted a motherly talk more than anything else in the entire world. She wanted to feel her love for once, not her anger.

*****