"Elliott Banks," Ruthie carefully typed into her laptop.

She was lying on her bed, waiting to be called for dinner. They ate late in her house, but they ate together, as a family. It was just one more way the Barakat-Grimaldis were different from most families she knew. Both her parents were from families who ate their evening meals late in the day, and Ruthie had never known any other way.

She got some results about an English dirt bike rider.

Could it be the same guy? It was hard to tell, because he was wearing a helmet in the pictures she could see.

The guy was English.

His full name was Elliott Banks Browne, though.

There were lots of photographs of him, and he was much older than the hot, angry guy who was in her classes.

Too bad.

Ruthie had been peripherally aware of Elliott's eyes on her throughout the ninety minute block period that made up her drama class. She'd also gotten the chance to hear him speak for the first time that day, and had nearly swooned, along with most of the females in the room.

Actually, never mind female; Ruthie was fairly certain that there were more than a few boys doing a little swooning as well. Elliott Banks' voice was surprisingly deep, given how thin he was.

Ruthie knew from her nine month stint as Brett Carmichael's girlfriend that guys liked to be thought of as big and buff, and that part of this image was having a big and buff voice. In Warren, for some odd reason, having a slight (and fake) Western twang to said voice was part of this image as well, though California was far, far away from Cowboy Country.

Elliott Banks was therefore an odd mixture for this neck of the woods. He was tall, like a guy should be, and toned, like a guy should be, but he didn't roll his shoulders or swagger. His voice was deep, like a guy's should be, but he had a beautiful, posh accent. Ruthie could see Brett and some of the other guys rolling their eyes when it was Elliott's turn to give a one sentence instruction about himself to Ms. Piper, since she was new to the school.

"Hullo, I'm Elliott Banks, and I'm here for the year from London," he'd said in a neutral voice while looking only at Ms. Piper.

"Fag," Ruthie saw Brett mouth to Shane and Troy, a couple of the other boys in the class.

They grinned back as they nodded.

Ruthie shook her head and snorted as she remembered them.

Next she tried spelling his first name with one "t," but again, no results.

How was this possible? How could there be a high school guy in this day and age who had no online presence at all?

Ruthie huffed out a breath of irritation and tried every possible iteration of his first and last name she could think of, but came up empty-handed over and over.

She finally sat up and had to admit herself stymied, just as Pop's car pulled into the garage, and Dad called her to dinner.

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"So, how was school?"

Ruthie made sure her voice and face were the right degree of relaxed and bored. She figured she'd drop the news about Brett and Amelia in a couple of weeks, and make it sound like the old news it was.

"Oh, it was fine," she said with a shrug. "No surprises." She took a sip of her wine, another custom in their house that her friends found enviable and incredible. Ruthie didn't really understand why, though; how fun did they think it would be to drink with their parents? And it served exactly the purpose her dads thought it did, in that it removed the mystique from alcohol, and she'd never particularly had the urge to drink.

"English class seems like it will be fun," she added. "We're finally going to read The Great Gatsby and To Kill A Mockingbird, so that's nice, right? And The Catcher in the Rye? I have a permission slip you have to sign," she added as she speared some broccolini and brought it to her mouth.

Pop and Dad both turned to look at her.

"What?"

Ruthie nodded.

"This stupid school lets all and sundry gather in front of the flag pole to fucking pray, every morning, but you need a signed permission slip to read those books?" Pop was aghast.

"Just Catcher in the Rye, I think," Ruthie said, trying to calm her dads down. She didn't tell them that there were other books, like Harry Potter, and The Art of Racing in the Rain, that were also on a list somewhere.

"And we have a new drama teacher," she said, moving the subject into less controversial waters. "Ms. Piper? She seems really nice, and very smart." She knew her dads would like a smart teacher.

"And speaking of English," Ruthie continued, "there's a new student from London."

"Oh?"

She nodded. "The Nicholsons' grandson. Did you know they had a daughter who was married and living in England?"

Her dads shook their heads.

"I mean, I guess she died. Then this kid, Elliott, his name is, his dad died, too, and so he had to come here and live with his grandparents," Ruthie explained. "It's really sad, and he seems kind of fucked up about all of it, you know?"

"It sounds like he has something to feel fucked up about," Pop said, taking a drink of his wine. "Mm, Todd, this wine is amazing, and so's the chicken, thank you."

Ruthie nodded in agreement.

Dad smiled his thanks for the compliments, but gave Pop what could only be described as A Look, and Ruthie was instantly on alert.

Uh oh. What?

She looked back and forth between her parents.

"Ruthie?" Pop smiled at her.

"Yeah?"

"How's Amelia? We kind of thought we'd see her for dinner tonight, you know? This is the first time she's missed back to school dinner at our house in what, six or seven years?"

Fuuck.

Amelia's parents were divorced. Her mother worked most nights, and she rarely saw her father, so she spent many evenings at the Grimaldis; the first day of school dinner was kind of a tradition, and she usually spent it with them.

Ruthie swallowed.

"We, uh, kind of had a falling out," she began.

Brown and blue eyes looked at her, expressing only patience and love.

"Brett and I broke up, and now Amelia and Brett are sort of dating," Ruthie faltered, shrugging. "And it isn't very conducive to a good friendship, that's all."

"That's all?" Dad repeated.

"That sounds more like a fight than something as Victorian as a 'falling out,' young lady," Pop added. He poured himself some more wine.

"First, do Dad and I need to know why you and Brett broke up?" he asked.

Ruthie shook her head. "No, it's not important. I'm not even super upset," she admitted truthfully. "My pride is hurt more than anything, for sure more than my heart."

"Well, I'm not even going to say I'm sorry to see the last of that douchebag," Dad said.

"Dad!" Ruthie couldn't contain her laughter. "You didn't just call a boy who's barely a high school junior a douchebag!"

"I believe I just called a man who's already eighteen years old a douchebag," he corrected, laughing himself.

"I'm surprised at Amelia, though, I must say," Pop said, shaking his head.

"Right?" Ruthie agreed, nodding. "Brett I can deal with, but Amelia--that hurts," she admitted.

"That girl does have some father issues," Pop said, swirling his wine. "Maybe she'll see Brett for who he is in a couple days."

"Oh brother, out comes the dime store psychologist," Dad said, smiling at Pop.

"You know it's true," Pop protested. "He was never around for her! That girl's always looking for masculine attention, wherever she can find it."

"So by that logic, I'm never going to need a man, then," Ruthie quipped, finishing her wine and smiling mischievously at her parents. "Who knows, I might even find men so unnecessary that I'll turn out to be a Lesbian or something."

Dad and Pop turned to stare at her before they burst out laughing.

"I think we'll be happy if you just never get your heart broken, Rosebud," Dad said as he leaned over to kiss his daughter.

"Hear hear," Pop said.

They all laughed as Ruthie cleared the table and began cleaning up the kitchen.

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Ruthie went back upstairs, ostensibly to "finish her homework," but no one really gave homework on the first day of school. She was supposed to get started on the reading for English class, but she'd already read all of the assigned books, multiple times, and knew them back to front. She'd even read The Great Gatsby in French, sort of, a couple of summers ago, when she was in Provence with her dads and it was the only thing she could find to read in the house where they were staying.

She thought of something and went to her window, climbing out onto the roof after lifting the screen. The pitch on this side of the house was very shallow, and she wasn't too worried about slipping.

Ruthie stepped over the gable and onto the other side. She sat in the little nook created by the gable and the main roofline. She'd always loved sitting here and had come to sit in this secluded spot since she'd discovered it, years ago. No one could see her, especially since the Ash tree in their backyard had gotten tall enough to obscure the roofline. In fact, Ruthie was pretty sure she could even get to this spot by climbing the tree if she needed to.

She peered through the leaves, out through the September darkness, and, sure enough, she could just make out the Nicholsons' house, two streets away. In fact, she could see straight into their dining room, through the huge window that faced their backyard.

Surly Elliott sat at the dining table with some books spread out around him. Apparently, then, he did have some homework.

He had his head in his hands, and Ruthie could see from how his shoulders were shaking that he was laughing uproariously. However, it looked like he had his math textbook open.

What could be so funny about Calculus?

Then, he lifted his head, and Ruthie saw to her horror that he was crying.

He wasn't just crying, though.

He was weeping as if his heart would break.

What in the world?

Ruthie had never seen anyone cry like that in her life.

His eyes were puffy, and his long, almost aquiline nose was red.

Suddenly he turned his head and said something.

He sniffed, lifted his hoodie and wiped his face ferociously on the underside of it, scraped his chair back, and left.

Someone must have called him.

Ruthie climbed back into her bedroom, the tranquility of her secret spot ruined for the moment.

She was deeply perturbed for the rest of the night, all through her preparations for bed, and even after she was lying there in the dark, with her huge cat, Clarence Darrow, purring next to her.

What could make someone so unhappy?